Allshore Virtual Staffing

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Senior Implementation Specialist of Community Brands

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We provide software solutions to independent schools.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Allshore Virtual Staffing to accomplish?

• PHP programming
• GWT
• SVN

SOLUTION

How did you find Allshore Virtual Staffing?

Don't know

Why did you select Allshore Virtual Staffing over others?

• High ratings
• Pricing fit our budget

How many teammates from Allshore Virtual Staffing were assigned to this project?

1 Employee

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

This is difficult to provide as it a very custom project. Aizaz would edit the code, compile it, send it through SVN, and publish to web on both testing and production environments.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

• Was the client's request fulfilled without errors.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Allshore has provided us with uninterrupted staffing for over 6 years. The primary staff person, Aizaz, works on Eastern Time zone hours. This offers us a live, interactive connection with him and his work. If I need immediately, I can ask and receive assistance. Aizaz has gone above and beyond his required skills. He has taken initiative and offers ideas for new development he can provide. 

This has expanded our offerings to and delighted our clients. This includes adding over 30 fields for color options to 3 web services modules. Aizaz has been a great asset to our team for the entire time he has been working with us. He's always willing to learn new things and is flexible with his schedule. Aizaz can work independently on the tasks he is well-versed in but is also a good team player in large group projects. I cannot say enough good things about working with Aizaz and Allshore Virtual Staffing.

What was your primary form of communication with Allshore Virtual Staffing?

Email or Messaging App

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

The Allshore supervisors are always online ready to assist us or their employee. They provide clear invoicing, advance notice of holidays, and clear communications.

Are there any areas for improvement or something Allshore Virtual Staffing could have done differently?

None at all. Aizaz has learned and provided us with his knowledge and skills for 7 years, with a perfect attendance record. He has recorded very few sick or personal days. He has made himself available during difficult family, environmental or sick times. I cannot recommend Aizaz or Allshore Staffing enough.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the founder and owner of Virtual Yellow Pages.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Allshore Virtual Staffing?

I was looking for an affordable and capable web developer to create a website for our startup.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Taking over the project from a previous development team, Allshore modified our website using technologies like PHP, SQL, and other software. They added dynamic functionalities in preparation for our beta launch.

What is the team composition?

I worked with a project manager and a developer, who I had direct access to through Skype.

How did you come to work with Allshore Virtual Staffing?

The owner reached out to me from an ad I placed on Craigslist. We initially hit it off because he happened to be a veteran like me. He was quick to respond, even taking my calls while he was on vacation.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent about $2,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from August–September 2018.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

Allshore was instrumental in getting my website up and running–and they did a great job. They were readily available through Skype to fix any issues or bugs that popped up and always had a solution.

How did Allshore Virtual Staffing perform from a project management standpoint?

They were very responsive and accessible through Skype and messaging, even taking calls while on vacation. I had direct access to the developer working on the site, which made the whole process seamless.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their onboarding process was exceptional. They maintained continuous contact with us throughout the project, making themselves readily available throughout the day. Their approach was efficient, and I hope to work with them again.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can't think of anything.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

The more information given to their team regarding the goals of the project, the better the outcome will be. I also recommend being flexible and taking into account any suggestions their team provides that could help improve outcomes.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a project manager who’s contracted by various companies to do website maintenance projects.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Allshore Virtual Staffing?

I was working on a client’s website, and I needed outside help to finish the project on time.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Allshore’s responsibility was to provide one developer on an hourly basis to help complete my client’s site. Their developer was building a new WordPress site with custom Laravel PHP code. He created a new database and made responsive design for the site but quit when it was only 40% complete.

What is the team dynamic?

Allshore provided one full-time developer for a two-month period (it was supposed to be five months). They also had a moderator, but her role was simply to monitor the project. I talked with Allshore’s owner to work out payment and contract matters.

How did you come to work with Allshore Virtual Staffing?

I was looking for developers on Upwork, and they approached me, promising to deliver a dedicated developer. I gave them a try for 1–2 months, and things seemed fine. The problems started when I brought up the overcharging matter.

How much have you invested with them?

For this project, I paid around $20,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together in 2015.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Describe the impact this engagement has had on your business.

I’d been with them for about a year, and the owner told me the resource working with me was under his company. However, it turned he was contracting the person in a different way, which I wasn’t aware of.

The developer was spending a few hundred dollars of my money a month writing reports for Allshore, so when I brought this up, he wasn’t happy. I didn’t think I should be charged for that work, since it wasn’t directly related to my project, but the developer terminated our contract in the middle of the work. The contract had a clause saying it could be terminated by any party at any time, which was dangerous, but I hadn’t read the contract carefully. I’d already spend thousands of dollars, and him quitting stopped all the progress we’d made. He said he’s stay on for an extra month, but that wouldn’t have helped, so I ended it right then.

He threatened to hack the site, and a while later it went down. Luckily, my server had a backup, so I was able to reboot it and block him.

I’ve had to cover the full amount spent, because I couldn’t charge it to my client, and I had to find another developer to complete the project. This problem has impacted my reputation as well as my finances, not to mention my and my client’s time and energy.

How was project management handled?

We communicated through email and Skype. The project management was adequate during our collaboration, but the contract was terminated out of nowhere.

Is there anything that the vendor did well or that you would consider a strength?

The experience wasn’t positive at all; they caused too much damage. I found their CEO to be dishonest and inconsiderate. It’s not professional to terminate a contract without consulting the client first.

In what specific areas can they improve?

They should change the clause that states contracts can be terminated without reason.

What advice do you have for clients with similar needs to yours?

Clients should make sure they’re protected under the contracts they sign. In my case, the contract only protected the provider.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a management consulting company that specializes in customer experience. We build CRMs, custom application development, and contact center technology. I am the vice president of sales and marketing

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Allshore?

In the types of projects that we seek out, having a partner like Allshore allows us to provide a quality product, in terms of backend and frontend code, while giving our clients a better cost per hour for development. We’re using these great resources who are really part of our team, but they come to us at a lower rate. In turn, that makes us ultimately scalable as a company.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We have used Allshore for design, frontend development, backend development, support, hosting, and for quality control. In our model, we have a team of senior-level consultants and a team of consultants. They all serve as project managers and business analysts. In-house, we have a CTO, an architect, and a cloud director. Our team manages the day-to-day, but our primary development team is the Allshore team. We use them for .NET, Microsoft Dynamics, Salesforce, Azure, and Power BI.

How did you come to work with Allshore?

Allshore has a great process of sourcing and recruiting great developers. They keep a bench because they know how often their clients are going to need a new developer. They stay in tune with our business needs. Typically, when we need a new .NET developer, or a Dynamics developer, we’ll give them a heads up. They may have a senior developer rolling off another project, or one that’s available who they just on-boarded. If they don’t have those resources already, they’ll go and do a custom hire, which has been helpful. If we give them about a 60-day notice, they find and on-board the person in time for us to get started.

How much have you invested with Allshore?

I think we employ around 40 of their developers, at an average cost of $22 per person. It’s in the range of $500,000 a year.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been with them for a little over five years, since either 2011 or 2012, and our relationship is ongoing. A lot of the reason we’ve been able to grow is their ability to meet our needs.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

The types of clients we serve can range from startups, all the way up to Fortune 500 companies. Demands are different between those two types of businesses. We’ve had the same level of success in delivering a solution at the end of a project whether it’s a startup or a Fortune 500 company. That says a lot about the process used in Allshore’s development, to ensure requirements are met and delivered on a timely basis.

Some of our clients hold very strict quality criteria. If we don’t have a 95% or better code quality level, our company will get docked those hours, causing us to lose revenue. That hasn’t happened since I’ve been here.

What did you find most impressive about Allshore?

There are a couple unique qualities of their service model. They are offshore resources that work U.S. hours, and that’s huge. That’s the biggest value they provide. They supply a relationship manager and a technical lead on every single account. Regardless of how many developers we have, every single one of them has an assigned relationship manager and technical lead. That frees us up from having to monitor the day-to-day or hour-to-hour, so we can focus on delivering great products.

Are there any areas Allshore could improve?

No. We’ve worked with other offshore models, and researched even more. Allshore is the best we’ve found by far.

Any advice or suggestions for other clients to be successful?

The one thing I would suggest is to have a project manager or business analyst from your company to manage the development. That’s key in our success. The developers want to please their clients, and they’re going to build whatever you ask them to build. If you’re not providing requirements and solid direction, the train can get off the tracks. For future clients, having someone assigned to really help in that relationship is going to be key.

BACKGROUND

[Our company] is a vacation rental management company operating in 15-plus locations in U.S. and Mexican vacation destinations. I am the CEO.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

We are a technology-focused company that brings technology to what is historically a manual process of renting a vacation property. We use sites to advertise our properties, but we want the same type of user experience when our guests visit our site, too. 

SOLUTION

This project involved updating our Joomla-based website with much better interactive and responsive features found on sites.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

I have used offshore development both in my career as an IBM manager and in my new company. The Allshore approach of onshore and offshore works best for me by far.

They are very competitively priced, but have the communication benefits that onshore teams offer. Allshore offers the best of both worlds.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company.

We are a small company that has a software application that targets insurance contract administrators. We have some other products as well, such as a reporting product that targets car dealers. Our customers, the insurance administrators, are servicing insurance products that are used by car dealers.

What is your role and responsibilities?

I am a partner in the company. I’m responsible for the technical aspects of the company. You can call me the CTO. I have two other partners who started the company about 12 years ago. We're based in Murray, Utah. I’m in the Dallas area, but everyone else is in Utah.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your goal for working with Allshore Virtual Staffing?

We had onshore developers and decided to augment our development staff with offshore resources. We looked at a number of offshore options, and some of the things that Allshore does, like working our hours and proving project managers that are included with our developers. We chose to go with Allshore. Since then, we’ve eliminated most of our onshore developers and exclusively use offshore talent.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their work.

We're only using them for development and application support. There are some customer support functions that they’re involved with, but they don’t interface directly with our customers. We use their expertise with our application in customer support roles.

We have no plans to stop working with Allshore. We have multiple developers, and we plan on continuing to use them as long as we continue to develop our application, which has no end in sight. That is the livelihood of our company, and we depend on that to be able to continue in business.

It's somewhat of a partner relationship. Allshore is essential to our work. Formally, the relationship is customer-vendor, but we are dependent on them. Yes, we could get it done without them. If I had to, I could go onshore again, but we really like the relationship we have with them and the way it all works.

What was your process for selecting Allshore Virtual Staffing with which to work?

I looked at a number of offshore firms. I had used some different offshore companies in other ventures that I’ve been involved in. I made a decision to go with Allshore Global, and I had experience with them with another entity. I had been involved in the project and liked the way they worked. Compared to the previous offshore experiences I'd had with other firms, I found that to be more of what I was interested in.

Can you provide a ballpark dollar figure for the size of the work that they’ve done for you?

We typically carry between two to three full-time developers. We're not a big company.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Is there anything unique about them that really makes them stand out, compared to other companies?

We work with Allshore in a very organized and cautious manner. They supply resumes and references for new developers on their team, and we conduct interviews and ask questions to choose who works with us. The developer starts working as a probationary employee.

We’ve had a relationship with Allshore for five or six years. I’ve had a couple of extremely solid people with strong leadership and strong development skills. If they were in the U.S., I would be happy to hire them. That hasn’t been true of all the developers, but I don’t blame that on Allshore. That is true of any new hire; some of them work out and some of them don’t. The vast majority of them have been excellent although we’ve had a couple that didn’t work out for us and were replaced.

I’ve had a better experience with developers from Allshore than with local American developers. In the U.S., I get the impression that there are some people who put technology on their resume, but what they really did was to read a book about the subject. Allshore developers all have practical knowledge in their fields.

Looking back on the work so far, is there any area that you think they could improve upon or something that you might do differently?

I don’t know that this is anything that Allshore can do anything about, but comparing them to local developers, there is a bit of a barrier in terms of culture. I haven’t had many issues with communication because one of the key traits we look for is strong English communication skills. We haven’t had any major issues to note.

Most of them have worked on U.S.-based projects before. Having them understand our business model is important. We conduct training courses with them to introduce American business culture and work style. It hadn’t been a big issue, but it's still something that we wouldn't have to deal with if hired only American employees.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company.

We're a digital ad agency based in Dallas, Texas. We use Allshore for development for client websites and online projects as well as our own internal online projects.

What is your role and responsibilities?

I am the founder.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your goal for working with Allshore?

They definitely expand our capabilities into more of the heavy back-end components of the projects that we do. We wanted a long-term partner to improve our development capabilities to serve our clients better.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their work.

In addition to back-end coding, they do front end as well. From a front-end perspective, they extend our team. We have the front-end development built internally as well, and they help us with that when needed.

What was your process for selecting Allshore with which to work?

I used different outsourcing companies for the last three years. A friend of mine had met with one of their salespeople and gave him my name, saying that I might be interested. I met with him through the cold call from their sales rep. I interviewed them and started working with them in January or February of 2013.

I have no plans to stop the engagement at this time. I have three full-time people on our engagement, and we treat them like an extension of our team. We don’t treat them like an outsourcing component at all. We're in constant contact with them every day throughout the day. We treat them as an extension of our team.

Can you provide a ballpark dollar figure for the size of the work that they’ve done for you?

My team has had up to nine part-time and full-time developers. That scales with my workflow. The lowest I’ve had has been three people, which is where we stay in slower months. The hours typically range from 25 to 40 hours a week per developer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Do you have any statistics or metrics to track improvement from the project?

I don’t have any stats to share. Ninety percent of the work that we do is straight Web development and websites. Most of the time, the designs are handed to us from a different company. Then we come in and do the back-end build out. We have successfully launched projects since we’ve been working with them. We probably have 15 or 20 successful launches since they came on board. As far as hard data, I don’t know what the statistics look like. We are absolutely satisfied, and my end clients are absolutely satisfied.

Is there anything unique about them that really makes them stand out, compared to other companies?

They don’t compare to other outsourcing companies. Hands down, this has been the absolute best experience I’ve ever had with outsourcing, and I’ve used several different companies through the years: The way they manage their team, the way that they stand behind their product is amazing. The overseas team adapts to our needs. The constant communication, and the transparency that they provide are great. With most outsourcing companies that I’ve worked with, you traditionally get a team leader, who gets all the project details and goes back to their team. The project manager is usually the only point of contact, and you never know who's working on your project, or the level of skill of person working on your project. You don’t know what’s really going on in the background.

However, with Allshore, you’re in direct communication with the person who is doing the work. You’re talking to them daily, and you know exactly where your projects are because you’re responsible for managing those projects. For me, there is no comparison. You can’t really compare the two. I will never go back to the way that I was doing it before.

Looking back on the work so far, is there any area that you think they could improve upon or that you might do differently?

Their work is 10 times better than any other competitors that I’ve used. The integration, the level of communication between the developers and us can always be improved. Obviously, the goal of outsourcing is to replace an internal team. Replacing that person who sits next to you is very hard to do, especially when you're using people who are foreign to the American work culture. That is the one thing that they could work on more, but bar none, they do it better than all the other agencies I’ve used. They put their people through at least two different testing scenarios, written and verbal. The people on my team all speak very clearly and communicate very well. It's mostly the cultural differences that cause minor hiccups.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company.

We are a software development house, and we focus on working with marketing agencies or any sort of client to handle their outsourced programming needs. We jump in on projects, do projects start to finish, and work with any Web technologies, such as mobile apps, digital signage, and kiosk design. Pretty much anything related to creative technologies.

What is your role and responsibilities?

I am the owner and CEO. We don’t have a huge staff or a large development team. I manage all the developers and work on all the new business development and day-to-day operations.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

Please describe the scope of their work.

Allshore does all development. We give them the specs, and I manage the project end to end with the developer or developers on the project. There is no support or training involved at all. They will maintain the code, but they do not support the users or anything like that.

What was your process for selecting Allshore Virtual Staffing with which to work?

I worked with a few of the developers on another project that I was part of, but I wasn’t the owner of it. When that project shut down, I picked up the developers that were let go and started using Allshore because I was so happy with the outcome.

SOLUTION

Can you provide an estimate for the size of the work that they’ve done for you?

Most of our projects are six to 10 weeks on average. Some are a few weeks or a month. It can be sporadic.

When was the latest milestone completed for that work?

I have ongoing work with Allshore, so there is no last project. I’m currently working with them.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you assess Allshore Virtual Staffing's performance?

Allshore's work is high quality, and they are detailed. They are educated, and they communicate well, with excellent command of the English language. They document their code. I haven’t found any downsides to their team at all. The performance has been great.

Is there anything unique about them that really makes them stand out, compared to other companies?

They are very accountable. I’ve worked with offshore development before, and their schedules can be unpredictable. The fact that Allshore works U.S. hours, Eastern time zone hours, 8 to 4, is extremely helpful. I don’t have to be up at 3 a.m. to manage the team. They accommodate the U.S. development cycle nicely.

Looking back on the work so far, is there any area that you think they could improve upon or that you might do differently?

No. I don’t have anything I would change. They have the process nailed down to a science. They keep the people who aren’t doing the job out of the client pool, and they don’t put up with anyone who’s not performing. It's never been an issue.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company.

We make software for financial institutions in the accounting realm, such as banks, trust companies, and so on.

What is your role and responsibilities?

I am the IT manager and one of the developers.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your goal for working with Allshore Virtual Staffing?

We are still working on it. They help us convert an older application from VB6 [Visual Basic 6.0] to .NET. We have lots of applications.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their work.

Allshore provides backend coding. We spec it out, and they punch it out.

What was your process for selecting Allshore Virtual Staffing with which to work?

We are in a development environment, and an industry consultant that we’ve known for years led us to them. He had been using them for a number of years and had great success with them. We reached out to Allshore and vetted them. We started with a small project and have grown from there. We have worked with them since 2011.

Can you provide a ballpark dollar figure for the size of the work that they’ve done for you?

This is a massive project. They are converting an accounting application from VB6  to .NET. They have to convert and test each component, line by line. They have to make sure the application still works the same way. We had started the project internally and then went with them. We estimated that it would take 1,500 to 1,600 hours on their end. That was an optimistic estimate, with no issues. Obviously, there will be issues and we had to train them.

When was the latest milestone completed for that work?

The work will be ongoing. It's a permanent developer relationship, not just a single project.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Do you have any statistics or metrics to track improvement from the project?

We also sent them smaller projects, such as a quick application for a prospect that we're seeking. We'll take them off the main project and ask them to work on another project in the meantime. They’ve been able to complete our other projects pretty quickly. It's good to see those kinds of results. We had a two- or three-week deadline to make a spec project that we pitched to a customer to add on to our main system. From me designing it to them working on it, we both worked days and nights. We were able to work together fluidly to complete the project effectively.

Is there anything unique about them that really makes them stand out, compared to other companies?

Their uniqueness is their Oklahoma office. Having that resource there is unique and advantageous to have. Without that office here, you don’t really have a course of action if you had an issue. With offshore, you have a problem with accountability. If an issue is not addressed by the developer or an immediate manager, you can call the Oklahoma office, and they will take action. It improves communication and accountability.

Looking back on the work so far, is there any area that you think they could improve upon or that you might do differently?

Allshore is very good at finishing the code like worker bees. Looking back, it would be good to have more architectural looks at the code. I’m not a .NET developer, but I have learned it. Someone who is fluent in .NET and has been working with it for a long time, and who knows architectural features should be implemented would be beneficial. More agile development would be good if we wanted to develop it. I would love for them to take the lead in modeling and helping us get to that point.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company.

SurferNETWORK is a streaming provider, so our primary customer base is radio stations. We provide the stream, the Web player apps, and all the backend software that they need to manage the streams, find out how many listeners they have and so on. We provide soup to nuts for everything a radio station would want for being online including advertising opportunities and other things like that. We also do other kinds of broadcasts, such as high school sports, video, and other content. The radio stations are our clients.

What is your role and responsibilities?

I am the project manager. I keep track of all the tasks we have to do. I hand them out to whoever is best suited to do them as well as tech support and other tech-side tasks.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your goal for working with Allshore Virtual Staffing?

We found that for the amount of money we would have to pay for someone to come in to work full time, we wouldn’t have been able to get the amount of work done as compared to having three or four people working on a project. We also have a small office, and we don’t have room for a lot of other people. Having someone working outside our office was good for us. It made sense to look outside for specific talents and have more people able to work on our projects.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their work.

Allshore does not do any training or support. They mostly do all Web application development. We have someone who does mobile applications for us, for iPhone, Android, and BlackBerry. They mostly do all Web applications.

What was your process for selecting Allshore Virtual Staffing with which to work?

I Googled a lot of different vendors of this type. We had also worked with other companies that had a slightly different business model, such as oDesk, where you post a job and wait for someone to find it. Those tended to be unreliable. For instance, you would have a contractor who also has a full-time job and he's helping you at night. If his kid gets sick, he can’t help you anymore.

It was very difficult to find someone who was reliable and could spend the amount of time we needed, and for the duration of time that we needed on a site like oDesk. We started looking for somebody who could be more full time. We ran into a lot of problems, especially with communication. We talked to a lot of companies where you couldn’t even understand the salesperson, let alone the developers. Allshore was good because they handle everything. They give the developers all of their HR information. They’re in the chat rooms when we're working. It is like an extra layer of insurance that the people who are working are taken care of and that they will have enough time to work with you. This is their actual job.

The U.S. team is always present in the Skype chat rooms. We're on Skype with them all day, from the time we come in until they leave. They leave about an hour before we leave. We literally talk to them all day. The U.S. team is always in there. We talk to them pretty frequently, too. They are the point of contact for questions, issues, scheduling, or anything like that. We don’t need to talk to them so much about the projects. We talk to them more about the management or random issues. They’re always there if we need them.

Can you provide a ballpark dollar figure for the size of the work that they’ve done for you?

That is a difficult question. It depends on what the project is. The person doing our apps can do one in a day. That’s pretty fast. We had another person write an entire website that our customers could log into to design their Web players and get listener statistics. That took him months, it was a giant project. That is dependent on the project that we assign to each person.

When was the latest milestone completed for that work?

When we started, we had a huge list of projects that was four or five pages of ideas, projects, fixes, and changes to all of our different software applications that we wanted. We have been working our way through the list, so it's not specifically timed. We're just working our way through the list. As you know, with a technology company, things are added to the list constantly. We'll keep working with them until we're at a point where we don’t need as many people.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Do you have any statistics or metrics to track improvement from the project?

Everything that we give them, we tend to define very specifically what we need in the app or other project, such as needing a check box in a certain place. When they’re done, it usually ends up working exactly like we wanted it. Our people are almost always happy with it, and it improves efficiency because we designed it that way. There have been a few times where we give them a project and ask them to figure it out on their own and come back with it. They’re on Skype with us all day long. Overall, it's fairly seamless.

Is there anything unique about them that really makes them stand out, compared to other companies?

We haven’t worked with anybody like them at all, so it's hard to say. When you work with people from oDesk, that is the completely opposite experience. Allshore has people who are in the chat room all the time; you can’t get much better than that. Customer service is a strength as is the way they handle all the backend work. They send us a bill, and we pay it. We don’t have to do anything else. We don’t have to worry about their schedules, counting their hours, or anything like that, which we had to do with everyone else. Because there is always somebody there, there is always someone who is accountable. They put up status messages; we can look at their computer screens if we want to. The average person on oDesk is not going to be happy if you jump on their computer and start watching.

Looking back on the work so far, is there any area that you think they could improve upon or that you might do differently?

Overall, they have performed very well. The only issue that we’ve seen could be because how we micromanage the project. They are sometimes worried about doing something that we don’t tell them to do. If we forget a step, such as if we forget to say that a checkbox should be mandatory, they’ll come back and say that they didn’t make it mandatory because we didn’t specify that, but I thought it should be.

Sometimes, they don’t take the initiative that a regular employee would probably take. But, it's probably a lot harder for them to understand the effects of how everything works together. When we give them a huge project, they don’t know how it interacts with the rest of our software. Sometimes, they don’t know that the checkbox is mandatory, whereas a regular employee in our office would know that.

Because our business is so specialized, these issues are things that the average developer wouldn’t know. I think the issues that we run into are related to the specific qualities of our business. The customer service people are awesome. They don’t need to change anything there.