Seven Crucial Questions to Ask Before Choosing Your Digital Agency (To Guarantee a Successful Partnership)

Choosing a digital agency is complicated… A quick Google search yields twenty different providers, all promising to deliver something beautiful, at a very low price, and quickly.

Many decision-makers focus solely on design or initial cost. This is a mistake. The success of a web or mobile project relies primarily on what you don’t see: methodology, governance, and communication.

To help you filter providers and secure your investment, we’ve compiled the 7 questions you absolutely must ask during your preliminary interviews.

1. « What is your precise project management methodology? »

Run from agencies that answer with a vague « We adapt. » You need structure. Find out if they work in the Waterfall model (more rigid, everything defined at the start) or Agile / Scrum (iterative and flexible).

Why it’s important: An Agile methodology allows you to see the project evolve every 2 or 3 weeks and adjust course quickly. This avoids the « tunnel effect » where you only discover the result at the end, often too late to change anything without extra cost. Furthermore, it allows for easily breaking down the total budget into sub-steps.

2. « Who will actually be working on my project? »

It’s a classic agency trope: the Senior Art Director and Technical Director sell you the project, but an intern or a junior executes it.

What you need to hear: Ask to meet (or at least know the profiles of) the operational team: the Project Manager, the Lead Developer, and the UX Designer.

• Is it an in-house team or freelancers?
• Will you have a single point of contact (an Account Manager)?

3. « How do you handle scope creep? »

During development, you will inevitably have new ideas. That’s normal. The question is how the agency handles these additions that weren’t in the initial quote.

The right answer: The agency must have a clear process.

• « We evaluate the time/budget impact. »
• « We propose either an additional quote or replacing an existing feature with the new one to keep the budget neutral. »

The agency must play the role of a guardrail to protect your budget, not just say « yes » to everything to bill more. If a climate of trust is established between you and the agency, they might even make these adjustments « for free » by including them in the project budget.

4. « Who will own the source code and intellectual property? »

This is the ultimate trap question. Some agencies use proprietary technologies (their own « home-made » CMS) or keep rights to the code as long as you work with them.

The red flag: If the agency uses closed proprietary technology, you are in a « forced marriage. » If you want to switch providers in 2 years, you’ll have to start from scratch. The ideal: Demand Open Source (WordPress, Symfony, React, etc.) and full transfer of intellectual property rights upon final payment.

Classic example: The agency delivers the project but keeps control of your technology. Then, they impose high maintenance fees. You decide to switch providers, but… you can’t, because you would lose the solution for which you spent a large budget initially.

5. « How are feedback and Quality Assurance (QA) organized? »

Nothing is more frustrating than sending feedback via email that gets lost in the ether. A professional agency uses collaborative tools.

Ask:

• « Do you use tools like Notion, Jira, or Asana for tracking? »
• « How will we test the site? »

A serious agency includes a strict QA (Quality Assurance) phase and provides you with a pre-production environment (a staging site) to validate features before going live.

6. « What happens after the launch (Maintenance and Warranty)? »

The site launch isn’t the end; it’s the beginning. A website is a living thing: it requires security updates, bug fixes, and evolutions.

Points to check:

• The Warranty: How long do you guarantee the code against bugs after delivery? (Standard: 1 to 3 months).
• Maintenance (TMA): Do you offer a monthly maintenance package? What exactly does it include (hosting, plugin updates, intervention time)?

7. « Can you tell me about a project that went wrong and how you handled it? »

This is the ultimate question to test honesty. In tech, unforeseen events happen. An agency that tells you « Everything always goes perfectly » lacks transparency.

What you are looking for: A capacity to solve problems.

« On project X, we had a technical delay due to a third-party API. We alerted the client immediately and assigned two extra developers to catch up on the deadline at our own expense. »

That is the type of resilient and transparent partner you want by your side.

The Final Word

Asking these questions won’t just make you a more informed client; it will force your future agency to raise its game. A good provider will never be scared by these questions; on the contrary, they will be delighted to explain their quality processes to you.

Have a digital project in mind? At Fenxi, transparency is our primary tool. Contact us for a free audit of your specifications.