Active Webdezign ltd

Q: What's your name and position in the company?
A: Mike Yan, MD and Technical Director

Q: Describe your company in 5 words.
A: Cutting edge, Service driven, Professional

Q: What's your business philosophy?
A: Its all about the client

Q: Describe your office environment.
A: We have a light and stylish first floor studio with nice views over green open space.

Q: Describe how your team interact and work together.
A: The team is motivated by challenging tasks which are developed further through interactive feedback.

Q: What makes you different from other web design companies?
A: No corporate regime or any one considered as higher management, informal conduct code whilst offering a more personal approach, delivering complete business relationship rather than just building a website.

Q: How do you get the majority of your business?
A: Through word of mouth, happy customers recommend new customers. And after almost 10 years in the industry we have a lot of happy customers.

Q: Describe how you manage projects from the initial client contact to completion and handover.
A: Beginning with an informal non obligatory consultation we go on to produce a complete proposal for client consideration. On acceptance of the proposal we work on developing a complete functional specification with the client. The design process begins with initial draft pages presented to client for sign off. Development staged on test server so that client can follow build stages. Online project management system ensures milestones and client feedback is logged and processed.

Q: What do you think is the most crucial element of creating a good client relationship?
A: Treating each other with mutual respect, I think that's quite a given one. We each have parts of making your website a success, you the business and us the online knowledge. You teach us about your business and we teach you what you could achieve online.

Q: How do you manage demanding clients?
A: We understand that clients don’t have much time and have business’s to run, so cannot afford delays and setbacks, we use a step by step approach to keep the project moving along at a fast steady pace and closely synchronized to the project time plan.

Q: If a client was trying to decide between a shortlist of web design companies, how would you recommend they go about selecting the right one for them?
A: The foremost rule is that one should never make a decision on price alone. Other important factors should be taken into account in the selection process such as examples of previous client work, testimonials or recommendations, a survey of the company premises to establish the level of manpower and efficiency whilst asking a lot of questions regarding after sales support, training, maintenance, ability to scale up in future and more. Far too often clients have come to us after experiencing a failed project which never got completed on time if at all! Or was no where near to their expectations.

Q: Where do you see your company in 10 years time?
A: Our aim is to continue to grow the business over the coming few years. And by the looks of it, we will soon have to look for bigger premises as well. It is getting cramped in the office.

Q: Where do you see the web design industry in the future?
A: Mobile, we are almost there already. Handheld devices are definitely the way forward. Large online retailers are already (although slowly) creating mobile applications and eCommerce is slowly creating support for mobile as well.

Q: What computers do you have use in your offices, PCs or Macs?
A: Both PC and Mac

Q: How was your company name chosen?
A: The ‘Webdezign’ says it all! The domain was registered back in 1999 after which the ltd company name of Active Webdezign was established to also cheekily be listed near the beginning of the Yellow Pages. The name has remained and fits well with our company ethos ‘servicing the client efficiently’.

Q: If you were to give your clients one tip on how to get the most from their website what would it be?
A: Listen to your web designers, they normally knows what they are talking about. Customers who think they know everything and want to dictate everything usually end up with an inferior product. You don't tell a the gas man how to do his job do you?