Retainers

We are huge believers in sustained monthly investment (which we refer to as "retainers") for the applications and websites we service as opposed to simply being reactive to feature or project requests from the client.

We believe a sustained investment better engages both parties - when something small is either annoying or could greatly improve things, it's not necessary to perfectly describe the problem, get a quote done which is inflated due to risk management and overheads, with all the delays and inefficiency that comes with that process. Instead it's simple to get it done in a fraction of the time and cost.  In many cases it's the difference between getting something sorted or simply living with the issue.

A real sense of care and ownership is fostered from making these continuous updates and the project's growth and success can be truly nurtured, creating a real partnership and shared goals between our client's business and our team, and allowing us to feel as close to a part of our client's team as is possible.

Furthermore, this approach allows the genesis of ideas and actions to come from our team - a team who live and breath websites - rather than being only dependant for this from the client's team, who are often focused on other parts of the business.  The proactive changes made to the website can be data-driven - enabling a cycle of using data to identify issues, implementing a fix and analysing whether it worked.  It also allows the website to evolve alongside the ever changing nature of technology and the evolution of websites as a medium.  This avoids long complicated rebuilds which are full of risk.  

Retainers are the cornerstone of every truly successful project we’ve worked on.  The idea that you can build something perfect is not realistic - successful system design relies on an initial best guess, and an evolution based on analysis of their use over time, along with an acknowledgement that both the business and customers that the system serves are also in a state of flux.  

We set retainer amounts via a consultative approach with our clients looking at their needs and available budgets, and balancing both to deliver an excellent ROI.  The amounts often start off relatively small and build over time alongside the trust in our ability to be an excellent custodian of spend and a wise judge of where to place investment.  We are careful to make sure this is based on hard evidence of ROI wherever it's possible.