The Problems of Working With Web Agencies
Published on Dec 11, 2014 (updated Feb 5, 2024), filed under misc (feed). (Share this on Mastodon or Bluesky?)
This and many other posts are also available as a pretty, well-behaved ebook: On Web Development.
I started my career in a small agency, I later worked for a big agency, and I at other times collaborated with or managed agency staff. I’ve never enjoyed working for nor with agencies. That was not because of the people, but because of some inherent issues with how agencies work: a modus operandi that has always been opposite to my ideas of commitment and quality.
In two brief articles I’ll lay out my perspective on web agencies: here, what the issues are when working with them; later, about ground rules when we still end up working with them, to get the best out of the relationship. Much of what follows is inspired by an investigation I led at Google, one that yielded similar conclusions.
For a definition, I simplify and understand a “web agency” to be either a third party that designs and creates websites or apps, or a branch of a third party that does so.
Contents
- Different Interests
- Poor Knowledge of Company and Users
- Wide Quality Range
- Inconsistencies
- High Cost
- No Maintenance
1. Different Interests
The biggest issue with agencies is that they don’t have the same interests. The agency looks at revenue and reputation through their clients. While short-sighted, the current job may be enough to bring in more money and get another reputable client on the portfolio. Even with the most benign and professional of agencies, interests can’t be aligned—otherwise they were competitors.
2. Poor Knowledge of Company and Users
Agencies have little if any knowledge of the client and their users. One can say that the better the agency, the more they know or try to know, but here, too, there’s a logical boundary in that an agency rarely knows as much as their client. And that makes them already less useful to cater for company and user needs, and represent these well.
3. Wide Quality Range
We must be careful for there are a good number of agencies that deliver high quality (and I believe at Aperto we had usually improved what clients had), but generally there are big differences in quality. We can shield ourselves from poor quality in the scouting and procurement process—if we do our homework well—, however there’s even with good agencies a risk of subpar work.
To counter the softness of this argument, agencies come with several risks, like the risk of security issues as well as the risk of leaking information. Both happens inevitably again because we’re dealing with third parties.
4. Inconsistencies
Agencies then mean inconsistencies in branding and coding. This happens mostly because of poor knowledge, now of existing client infrastructure—the web developers of us know how it is to on-board an agency on our web frameworks—, but also again when agencies change. When a company’s sites, apps, ads look all a little differently in branding aspects it’s probably because of one or more agencies’ involvement rather than because of inattention on behalf of company staff.
5. High Cost
Agencies also mean significantly higher cost than inhouse work. One estimate I have in mind is by a factor of 10; then I recall projects that could have been done inhouse in two weeks by one person, but were instead delegated to an agency that charged the equivalent of a yearly salary. Comparatively speaking and taking all factors into account, agencies are extremely costly.
6. No Maintenance
Finally, agencies don’t maintain their work. That means a deferred tax for what agencies do needs to be maintained, too (even if taken down). From my experience, maintenance gets terribly neglected in agency projects—and although so is maintainability in web development in general, agencies shouldn’t add to the already unnecessarily high maintenance load of most companies.
❧ What are the benefits, then? Agencies help us deal with one-off needs and excess load, and they can fuel us with an outside perspective and fresh creativity. Whether we can attain this, in the light of all the cons, only through agencies and not through, say, smarter hiring, I don’t want to discuss here. But there are some things we can do when working with agencies, which I’ll share in the next post [now available].
About Me
I’m Jens (long: Jens Oliver Meiert), and I’m a web developer, manager, and author. I’ve been working as a technical lead and engineering manager for small and large enterprises, I’m an occasional contributor to web standards (like HTML, CSS, WCAG), and I write and review books for O’Reilly and Frontend Dogma.
I love trying things, not only in web development and engineering management, but also in other areas like philosophy. Here on meiert.com I share some of my experiences and views. (I value you being critical, interpreting charitably, and giving feedback.)