When you are looking for a great caterer, hairdresser or cabinet maker it is easy to trust a recommendation, all you have to do is look at the work. In addition, things like haircuts and meal are subjects that we experience on a regular basis. When you are looking for an attorney, realtor or web designer, you have to qualify recommendations.
If you were to ask me to suggest an attorney, I would have only one name come to mind and that would be for trademarking. I don’t think she would serve you well in family law. If you were going to ask me to refer a realtor in Sacramento, I would suggest a couple of my friends even though I have never used them myself. In a business where the services are broad and not frequently used, a recommendation is difficult.
So do you trust on-line reviews? For hairdressers and restaurants, absolutely. For lawyers, realtors and web designers, not so much. People are eager to post a review for a great meal or they want to show off a new hairdo, but the majority of people that review attorneys, realtors and web designers are people letting off some steam or they are solicited.
I know that there are plenty of attorneys, relator and web designers with great reviews but I am willing to bet that these businesses are from two of three camps. They are slow and spend a lot of time working there social media and reviews themselves, or they are big and have hired someone to push there reviews. So how can you trust reviews like this? Ask great questions.
My business has been around for 11 years and we have a great track record of keeping clients happy. (In the web design world having a business that has survived 11 years would be comparable to being Ford Motor Company in the world of automobiles.) I hire people that are good at what they do and treat clients the way I want them to be treated. Sometimes these employees move on to their own thing and become my competition. It is not a problem that they become my competition, what is a problem is how it is presented to the public.
One of my designers left and started her own business and used the portfolio of jobs she worked on while working for me as her own work. She also lifted any testimonial that bared her name. I’m not venting, I’m getting to a point that without the project manager in my business pushing her to stay on the most important tasks, we would have had fewer satisfied customers. As with most designers, flaky or last minute is a common behavior but my business promises that your site will be delivered on time. She did not like that pressure and went out on her own. In this case and I am sure there are many like it, the reviews and credits are not entirely trustworthy.
When looking for the best web designer in Sacramento, compare what type of site you want with the one that the person referring you has. Ask the person referring you why they liked to company. Ask if they had any challenges getting what they wanted from the web designer. Sacramento is not far from Folsom, Roseville or the Bay Area so don’t be afraid to venture out a bit. My business is located in Chico, but I am in Sacramento every week. And guess what, a business outside of an expansive real-estate market can usually do it for a bit less.
Other questions when looking for a Sacramento web designer are, do you have an office or do you work out of your home? Do you have a developer or are you using WordPress? Do you contract any of your work oversees?
All that I am trying to point out is this, qualify your source of recommendations and reviews. They could mislead you down a frustrating path.