Tag: service design Glasgow

28
Sep

Professional Service Websites – 7 Tips

Where to start when building that website for your firm can be a bit daunting. We thought, we’d take a moment out of our day and see if we can help? 

These are 7 tips to help those who are considering how to build their next professional services website or those who simply want to refresh what they currently have.

1. START WITH CONTENT

Many traditional website designers used to create layouts, structures and then create content to fit. We suggest the opposite – create the content first- and create a responsive structure to suit. The reason being is that content list can be a bit daunting and sometimes it is difficult to know where to start? The list may include – staff bios, service benefits, specific methodologies, images, news items, etc. It may include information on culture, values, vision, etc. Get all the information down in one place – post-it notes, scrap sheets of paper, etc. Anywhere, you can look over it all in one go.

Then work out what’s important? Prioritise which bits of content you want to emphasise? These are the bits where you use professional photography, copywriting or even video. By starting with content, you build a more user-friendly site and are more in control of the areas of your company that draw the most attention. Another really great tip is to use leverage and use the images, videos or articles (content) to share on Social Media channels such as LinkedIn, YouTube or Twitter – obviously a critical part of your digital presence.

2. PEOPLE, PEOPLE, PEOPLE

Professional services are all about people and relationships – your website should be big on this. Bring your people to life online, this usually means – great images of your staff, personal stories, anecdotes, anything that builds the human story. Some like technical but most don’t so keep specialist information in a separate place to more general information.

The simple act of creating a simple clean layout with just the right amount of information that a client needs to know is an effective way to build a good professional site.

3. TESTIMONIAL SHEET

Not just a website one, but definitely one that will enhance any Business Development activities – the client testimonial sheet. Many professional firms are wary about publishing testimonials, especially on their website, in fear of having their clients poached. We believe that showing others that you do a good job is more than worth the risk.

The most significant improvement to our sales process has been the introduction of a ‘client and testimonial sheet.’ More testimonials gives you greater credibility. You cannot have too many of these. Have them on your website but also a simple doc or PDF file to E-Mail to show new people that you are trying to do business with can be helpful.

We don’t believe you can really have enough testimonials.

4. BESPOKE REQUIREMENTS

Most organisations will have services that are similar if not completely identical to their competitors. Whether it is advising on selling a business, providing an insurance specification or creating a will – we nearly all do the same things on paper. However, ‘it’s not what you do but the way that you do it.’ Being able to talk authentically about the differences demonstrate greater value-add and will help you stand out compared to others.

5. TELL A STORY

As a follow-up to the last tip. Your website should have a basic message, theme or a range of ideas that differentiate you in the marketplace. 95% of professional service firms rightly say that client-service is at the heart of their offering – this is a good message – but when everybody says the same thing, you may want to consider going a little further.

How do you serve those clients better than everybody else? Are you faster? More dynamic? More friendly? More precise? Do you have more specialised knowledge? More useful partnerships? A joined-Up Approach? Obsessed about the detail? Pick a couple of ideas and tell a few stories either with your web-copy or images that will help to emphasise and bring these ideas to life.

6. MAKE CONTACT EASY

A very, very simple one but something which can be neglected at times. It is YOUR duty to ensure that the person looking at your content can reach you easily. This means contact details in all the right places – on the home-sliders, on the menu, an easily-accessible contact-page, a good quality enquiry form, social media links or numbers directly to partners. You decide what that line between ‘accessible’ and ‘desperate’ is but it should never be a chore to contact any organisation. Otherwise you don’t deserve the business.

7. CONTEXT

Professional services are all about reputation and relationships. The majority of your clients will have come through referrals.

Try wherever possible and with whatever means to tell a story – even a short one about the kind of service you provide? There are so many tools out there such as video which allow you to introduce a little more of the human side of yourself. Take a chance and get yourself out there. You’ll be one of the few that do and fortune favours the brave.

If you’d like some help – contact us >>>

Benedetto

BB

Benedetto is an enthusiastic Creative and Business person.

‘Design with soul’ may be the company tag-line, but to Benedetto, it is also a way of life. He believes that creative and commercial enterprise is about purity of thought, honesty of construction and boldness of execution.

He believes in bringing out the true essence of human endeavour and considers his job of articulating the great work of people and companies an absolute privilege.

His journey has taken him from a career in car design through to his current role as the Founder of the loft, a design and branding studio based in Glasgow.

He is honoured to manage a great team, work with great clients and have a lot of fun mixing with so many great people in business.

04
Nov

Where branding ends…

As most of you that know me will know. I started out my life as a car designer. That means I trained/studied/learned everything there is to know about my subject when I was at University and my subsequent career thereafter. As part of my studies, we were taught about marketing and its importance, but you could say our role was entirely on the product development side. Being a car designer meant you always had to know about the trends in the sector – in my time it was pedestrian impact legislation, hybrid power trains, modern day digital ergonomics etc. The march of progress by the car manufacturers meant that there was a never ending cycle of improvements. Mainly for the end-user. If you stand still in the car sector, you die. Simple as that. As a consequence, the cars of today are always better than their predecessors be it in functionality, performance, safety etc. Yes, todays cars may lack the character of the older ones, but this is possibly the only exception.

In terms of marketing, I was always slightly cynical. I was always of the opinion that if you have a great product, it would market itself. I now know that it’s not as simple as that. Marketing is an integral part of the process, particularly necessary to make sure that the product and its communications reach the right people. Done well, its an art form in its own right. My scepticism was never about this area of marketing, more that clever marketing should replace great products. If this were the case, Honda would have taken over the world 10 years ago with their series of stunning ads.

I bet most of you remember the ‘cogs’ ad from 2003. How many remember the car? The Honda Accord. Ads like this and the ‘power of dreams’ were stunning, unfortunately cars like the Honda Accord were not. To this day, I remain a product guy. When considering incremental innovation; don’t just look at cars. Look at the endless innovations in the smart phone or tablet markets. It is relentless.

So you may ask where I am going with all of this?

Well on Thursday evening. I attended the Service Design Network’s official Launch at the Lighthouse and a good evening it was too. I was curious to learn more about service design. In the end it’s what I expected, mainly a way of designing services and processes in a more holistic way to improve the user experience. Kind of like product design but designing services and not products. I was chatting to one of the main guys Phil before the event and we both agreed that the ‘brand experience’ didn’t end with the marketing or the communications or even with the final product or service. The brand experience should span the entire process and even touch into operations, human resources, marketing, product, after-care etc. Its the reason I am not keen on the word brand or the term ‘branding’ as, done well, it’s a lot more fundamental than that. I am not sure I am even that crazy about ‘service design’ as a profession. My reasoning is that great companies, great organisations will always innovate endlessly based on their values/vision. For example, I doubt Michael O’Leary never stops dreaming of ways to reduce the cost of flying. And that culture is embedded from the top all the way down and touches all parts of the organisation from the final customer experience to the way the staff are trained. Frightening as that may be for us the flyer. On the other hand, a company like Bowers and Wilkins are continuously dreaming up innovative ways to create the a better sound experience. There’s something greater than branding going on here, it’s more of a cultural thing.

So where does branding end? Well despite my dislike of the term branding. The cultural elements that must inform the branding process don’t end with communications or even with the final product/service experience. It should inform everything the company does.

Where there is a real opportunity for the discipline of service design is in the traditional areas of professional services. This is an area ripe for improvement and a real shake up. Like the examples I have mentioned, there are one or two companies that are really pushing the game forward, but in general, the practices haven’t kept pace in the way they should have. For whatever reason, there just isn’t the same culture of innovation. It’s a real shame, there are some real gains to be made. People want better services. But it all starts with culture. Every company’s got it lying there somewhere. It may be dormant but it’s still there. If you need some help finding it, give us a call…

Benedetto

For those of you that want to see the ‘Cogs’ ad again… Simply wonderful

About the Author


 
Benedetto Bordone
Creative Director of the loft.

Benedetto runs the creative design consultancy, the loft. Based in the centre of Glasgow, the loft creates emotionally engaging brand identities.

Benedetto began his design career aged 9, sketching cars in the loft bedroom of his parents house. Even then he realised some eternal truths. Alfa Romeos are infinitely cooler than Ferraris and always have been. Time has only hardened this opinion. Since then, he has been on a journey taking him from his hometown in Kilmarnock to Coventry, studying car design aged 17, three separate spells in Italy followed where he interned, worked & freelanced for distinguished design companies – BeeStudio, Alfa Romeo, Honda Advanced design & Stile Bertone.

Setting up his own business was a natural step for somebody as independently minded as Benedetto. The loft was set up in 2008 and offers a comprehensive branding and communication service to its clients. The company combines a deeply analytical approach into the clients culture and commercial targets before engaging in creative design work to build emotive brands.