I briefly touched on the client questionnaire in the post about “Writing a Website Design Proposal” and some of you “greener” folks may not know exactly what that is and why it’s important. As a freelance designer you’re more than just a designer—you’re a business owner, an account, a project manager and a sales person—just to name a few of the hats we wear. So it’s really important to make sure you’re working as efficiently as possible. If not you could be wasting the clients’ time and giving yours away for free.

What’s a Client Questionnaire?

A client questionnaire is a series of questions written by the designer that the client is asked to answer. These questions can be anything you want really and should be tailored for your specific workflow. They should be questions you need answered in order to prepare your proposal and give you an idea of the scope of the project. When I am contacted for a quote, the first thing I do is reply back and attach my client questionnaire because I can’t give an accurate or a fair quote without knowing what the project entails. I also always thank the client for considering Pop Stalin Design—it’s nice to be courteous.

Sample Questionnaire Questions

Below are a list of some sample questions that could be included in a questionnaire.

• Name (First and Last)
• Phone Number
• Timezone (I like to include this so I don’t call and wake people up)
• Website address
• Hosting and with who? (if the client replies back with Godaddy or Yahoo!, then I know the project will be slightly more time-consuming)
• Purpose of the site
• Sites they like and why
• Competitor sites (so I can see what the competition is doing and if they’re doing it well)
• Do they want/need a blog?
• Do they want/need a CMS?
• Do they want/need SEO?
• How they currently advertise
• How customer’s find their site

I have 4 pages worth of questions in my client questionnaire and on the last page I include a large area I call “The Brief” so the client can write whatever they need to.

I also create my questionnaire as an interactive PDF and all the client has to do once they’ve completed it, is hit the “Email Me” button on the last page and the data collected is emailed to me. If you’re curious how this works, you can download and view my client questionnaire from my website—if you have Acrobat Pro, you’ll be able to look at the functions that make it work.

I hope you have a better understanding of client questionnaire’s and why they can be important to your success as a freelancer. For examples of other client questionnaires visit the following sites:

• Web ReDesign 2.0: Workflow that Works
• Creative Latitude: Forms Galore
• eTouched Client Questionnaire
• Google Search for Client Questionnaire