Why wibble are different as a web design and development agency

The best web design agency in Ireland?

Wibble is a leading web design and web development agency on the island of Ireland. When setting up Wibble in 2013, I wanted it to be an agency that I would want to work for if I weren’t the director. We try to do things a little bit differently in Wibble, and a lot of that comes down to our genuine desire to look after our clients and staff.

I get asked regularly why clients stay with us for so long and why we have such a very low turnover of staff and I think I know the answer. I decided to turn it into this blog post. Below is a mix of things that we do for Wibblers and our clients to make us stand out from the other agencies.

Non-expiring retainers

We love to work with clients on a retainer basis. It allows us to spend more time on creating award-winning websites and creating projects that lean towards quality as opposed to the main concern being speed and savings. From an agency point of view, a retainer is a great way of helping with cash flow for both parties. So it’s something that we are very driven towards improving upon. However, I don’t agree with the policy with many agencies of having a timescale around the usage of a retainer.

So we have a policy that retainers do not expire. If you have a retainer in place with Wibble, we will leave it open-ended in terms of time scale. We want you to use the hours to make great websites, and having a ticking clock covering how long you can use those hours for isn’t the right way to deliver web design projects.

“8’s Enough 40’s Plenty”

This section is named after A chapter in Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson’s book: It doesn’t have to be crazy at work. By default, as an agency, we do not rely upon overtime to deliver projects. Many agencies rely upon over time and exploitation of staff’s free time in order to ensure profitability and deliverability and this is something I fundamentally disagree with.

In the book Jason and David speak about 8 hours of work a day and 40 hours of work a week Is more than enough time to take off an employee. We have a fairly strict policy of no overtime, ensuring that at the end of your workday, you can switch off and spend time with your friends and family.

Unlimited web support under the Wibble Support Package

Every client that we look after has full access to our entire support team. If you are on a Wibble Support Package, you can contact our team of web support agents 24/7 through our Freshdesk support desk. You then have unlimited support in terms of the day-to-day running, management and general help with your WordPress website.

• Locked yourself out? That’s covered by our support package.
• Need to reset your password? That’s covered by our support package.
• Can’t remember how to build a feature in WordPress? That’s covered by our support package.

Our support team are there to help you with the day-to-day running of your website. Things that fall outside the support package would include custom design, development or content edition. I go into it a little bit more further down this blog post, but we genuinely put a massive amount of effort into supporting and looking after our existing web design and development clients, many times at the detriment of picking up new ones.

No slack or emails after hours

In the same vein as 8’s enough 40’s plenty, staff are not expected to respond to emails or Slack messages after 5 o’clock. I don’t believe an agency should be able to monopolise anyone’s time outside of the contractual hours between an employer and an employee.

Free charitable websites

I’m fully aware we’re a small agency and this type of initiative generally doesn’t come out of agencies our size. However, despite our small size, we have a commitment of, every year, supplying a website free of charge to a charity or social enterprise. As well as one custom design and build website a year, we also support a number of other charities and social enterprises with free services such as hosting and support and maintenance, and this has been going on for close to 10 years now.

I feel this is a hugely important part of who Wibble is as a company. Obviously, we need to turn a profit and be able to pay wages and everything that comes along with running a web design and development agency. But it’s not all about profit. I’m immensely proud of this initiative, and it’s one that I want to continue for the foreseeable future as we support charities that play a massive role in our society.

Fewer rate increases

Wibble wasn’t started to extract as much money as possible from clients. It was always meant to be a place that does great work, but also looks after its clients. We are not driven by profit and profit alone. Infrequent increases in our hourly and daily rates reflect that. The last time we increased our rates was well over two years ago and that was a direct result of us offering over-inflation pay increases to our staff to help them through the cost of living crisis – the increasing cost was purely to support this and not to gouge profit.

A dedicated initiative to employee well-being.

We are a relatively small agency, but we’ve always said that we punch above our weight in many ways. One of these is how we look after our staff and the introduction of the “Making Wibble Better” initiative. This is a dedicated plan to make Wibble the best web design agency in Ireland by making it the best agency to work for. We have multiple parts to making Wibble better, including: Dedicated weekly learning time, remote work, private medical insurance, work-life balance plans, team breakfasts, event attendance and many others.

A client first approach

We are fully aware that every agency probably says this, but this is something that we take exceptionally seriously. We put a huge amount of effort, time, and dedication into looking after our existing clients, very much at the detriment of chasing new business. On more than one occasion, we’ve turned down lucrative new projects because we wouldn’t have been able to deliver on an existing client’s requests.

If I’m being more ruthless, retaining an existing client is a lot cheaper than acquiring new clients but that is not why we do it. This business was set up to look after and provide amazing support for every client that puts their faith and trust in Wibble.

Conclusion

You don’t have to believe me when I say I think Wibble is the best web design agency in Ireland. Don’t just take my word for it. I’ve picked a few key points above that really highlight how we differentiate ourselves from other similar-sized agencies and, in fact, even bigger agencies.

Also, take a look at our Google reviews for Wibble. Those aren’t me just warbling on about how great we are. These are real reviews from real clients speaking exceptionally highly about the team, our approach and how we manage clients day to day.

Get in touch

If the above sits right with your approach to business and you feel like you want to work with, in my opinion and the opinion of many of our clients, the best web design agency going. You can start a project, get in touch, or give us a ring on 028 9009 8678.