We've reached the final episode in our collaboration series with web agency Flow Ninja. In previous editions, you've learned how to use Weglot as a web agency or freelancer and how you can pitch Weglot to your clients and include multilingual services in your agency proposal. 

This time, we're talking to Uros, CEO of Flow Ninja, about how, as an agency or freelancer, you can onboard your customers on their website projects. It's a step that comes after most of the work has already been done by the agency team, but it's a crucial one that can’t be overlooked if you want to improve customer relations. 

Collaborating and Transferring Ownership to the Client

Websites developed by agencies and freelancers are intended, in the long run, to be used by the customers themselves. Therefore, it’s important for agencies and freelancers to develop their website projects keeping in mind that the customer will handle the website's functionality once the project is completed. 

How you proceed with this step all depends on the relationship the agency wishes to develop with its customer. To refer to the previous article in this series, an agency can adopt either a one-shot delivery strategy or an ongoing basis strategy. As a result, this particular point will impact the way the agency onboards its clients on the website it’s delivering.

In the case of Flow Ninja, the agency creates a client multilingual project on Weglot, then carries out the implementation and the first setups of the project, and finishes by onboarding their clients by giving them access to their Weglot account. But it doesn't end there; the agency trains its customers to use Weglot, a practice that shouldn't be overlooked to maximise customer satisfaction. 

It’s here that the ‘Team member’ feature provided by Weglot is useful to both the agency and the client. It allows the agency to work on the technical aspect of a multilingual website, from the implementation to hiding/showing certain parts of the content in different languages without forgetting the glossary rules set up. 

In Uros' words they, “Leverage Weglot as a tool”. Flow Ninja for instance, then invites their clients so they can review the first layer of machine translation and then manually edit the content on their side if they want to have better continuity between the brand identity and their multilingual content. 

When the project has ended, whether on the agency or the customer side, a lot of agencies, including Flow Ninja, decide to then transfer the ownership of the project to their customer so they can be in charge of the payment. 

Still, depending on the way the web agency or freelancer is collaborating, they can remain part of the project as a collaborator to handle any ongoing maintenance. In fact, Flow Ninja collaborates on 99% of their projects.

Guide Your Clients on How to Continuously Use Weglot

The job isn't complete just because the website is delivered to the client. As mentioned above, the site will ultimately be the customer's tool, so it's important that they can make it their own. 

But as you can imagine, the customer isn't always in a position to know how to use all the features of the site. In this case, it's up to the agency, as an expert or even a consultant, to onboard the customer so that they can make the most of their site. 

For instance, Uros shared that at the end of a project, they record training videos for each of their clients depending on the technical stack of the website they’re delivering. They even gather all these insightful and helpful videos in a single place so the client has all the resources they need. 

Among the resources they produce, they also explain the benefits and features of Weglot and how they can use it to its fullest potential.

While this is a best practice, it can be time-consuming and not all agencies and freelancers have the resources to provide such training to their clients. That’s why, we, at Weglot, provide a number of resources that you can leverage to onboard your clients, without having to provide this information on your side. 

One of our best resources is the Weglot Academy where they can learn everything needed to use Weglot, including all our features. Plus, for those that want to go the extra mile, we even have a course on multilingual SEO. We also have a number of resources specifically designed for agencies.

This onboarding is intended to improve a client's experience working with the agency, the well-known “user experience”. It’s the best of both worlds.  It’s more likely that the client will recommend the agency if they understand how to use the tools at their disposal and appreciate the expertise provided by the agency. In fact, a study about French agencies and freelancers in 2023 revealed that word of mouth is often the most important acquisition channel for agencies.

Conclusion

Onboarding your customers on their website projects is a crucial step in ensuring customer satisfaction. It involves collaborating and sometimes transferring the ownership of the project to the client, as well as guiding them on how to use the technical stack present on their website long into the future. 

Agencies like Flow Ninja have adopted best practices such as providing training videos and resources to help clients make the most of their multilingual websites. By investing in client onboarding, agencies can enhance the client's experience, build trust, and increase the likelihood of positive recommendations.