Conflare

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of marketing for Columbia Hospitality, which is a property management company based out of Seattle. We have over 50 properties, mostly in the pacific northwest but also in Montana.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Conflare?

We needed help in developing a website for our company.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We work with them on a retainer basis for the website development in terms of changes and customization we want to do. They’ve also created splash pages for new properties that are about to open, as well as design development that they later hand off to us.

In terms of technology, the website they’re maintaining for us is a custom HTML site, and the splash pages are built on WordPress.

What is the team composition?

We’ve been working with around seven people around the core of the project. I work with Randy (Principal), Timeca (Creative Director), and some other web development interns. For the project-based stuff like the splash pages, we work with their designers, developers, project managers, and account managers.

How did you come to work with Conflare?

They were highly recommended to us.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $35,000–$40,000 with them so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in June 2020, and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We have Google Analytics set up currently to measure how many people are going into the page and how far to the bottom they’re getting. We don’t have any system for conversion tracking yet because we don’t have the booking engine setup for the property since we’re still a few months away from opening the property. But we’re seeing great engagement on the splash page, as well as in the other websites that they’ve been managing for us. We’ve seen improvements in bounce rates and content management throughout the sites.

How did Conflare perform from a project management standpoint?

We have a dedicated project manager and a couple of leaders involved in the ongoing maintenance of the sites. They’re not afraid of stepping in at any point in the project, and they’re wonderful with communication. They also hit all the deadlines, so they’re great to work with from a timeline perspective.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They got the site launched far ahead of the actual property launch, and for us, that was a success as it is.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t think there’s anything they can improve on. They did a wonderful job working with us in this partnership.

Any advice for potential customers?

Have open and frank communication at all times. I’ve worked in both the agency and the client side, so I understand how it is on both sides of the coin; keeping that perspective and offering that to the relationship will create a true partnership.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Bashford Jewelry is an online jewelry business. I’m the co-founder.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Conflare?

We needed a website built. We’d been in business for a couple of years, and had built our own website on Shopify. The site wasn’t up to par, so we hired Conflare.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

In addition to building our website, the Conflare team custom-coded a design-your-own ring feature. Users can pick the kind of gold, setting, diamonds, etc., that they want for their ring. It was a difficult feature.

They helped my wife with our branding as well.

What is the team dynamic?

There were five people working on our project at various times.

How did you come to work with Conflare?

My sister works with them occasionally, and we were aware of their reputation before hiring them.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent $26,000 on the site.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in July 2016, and the relationship is ongoing. We’ve noticed some things that we’d like to change, and we’ll continue to update the site and add products.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’ve gotten great feedback. Everyone is impressed with the site. Conflare did a wonderful job for a wonderful price.

How did Conflare perform from a project management standpoint?

We get together for in-person meetings.

They communicate really well and work hard. They’re very organized and punctual. They ask a question, take our answer into account, and have the work done by the end of the day.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re honest. They’ve proved to be a very trustworthy partner, both initially and over the length of the project. They’re upfront with how they tackle the work. Before they implement anything, they tell us the good points and bad points of a given approach.

They give a lot of great suggestions, which is really helpful.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I have no complaints.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the president of Lafarge & Egge. We are a mid-market aerospace manufacturer based in the Pacific Northwest. We primarily build hydraulic plumbing assemblies for aircraft and we also do a couple of service operations for larger companies such as machining and specialized aerospace welding.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Conflare?

I work for a private equity company. They had three different companies under the same parent company and there was no direction in terms of integrating those companies. Conflare was brought in to do a digital facelift on the company and rebrand it into one identity. Part of our goal was to grow outside of the aerospace industry as a company.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We used Conflare for development, design of the website and the brand, and messaging and guidance for the brand. They started from the ground up and collaborated with us to collect data. They used WordPress and a custom CSS template. It’s HTML. We tasked Conflare with changing our presence to capture the legacy of aerospace but to also appeal to other industries. They helped by changing the color scheme from traditional aerospace blue and darker colors to a more light, bright, modern feel for the company. We challenged Conflare to hold onto both of those elements. We provided guidance about who we were and we let Timeca [Principal/Designer, Conflare] tell the story.

What is the team dynamic?

There were up to six team members working with us at any given time. They had developers, designers, and database folks.

How did you come to work with Conflare?

They built my wife’s website for her company. We chose them because we liked their work and we wanted to be unique. There are a lot of companies that do aerospace websites and they can do them faster than Conflare. However, they’re more standard templates, and we wanted something different. So we went outside of our industry space and chose Conflare because they are a well-established boutique firm.

How much have you invested with them?

We have invested $30,000, including photography.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in February 2017 until August 2017. They continue to provide support in terms of training to turn it over to us completely so we can eventually be autonomous users. There’s a chance of us contracting with them down the road for changes to the website. We would always go back to them.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We really like their work. One of my internal team members sent me a note and said that it was very pleasant to see the company starting to look like one. Prior to Conflare, I was trying to get three companies to work together. It was hard when they couldn’t visualize themselves doing it. Once we created a web presence to integrate them, the feedback was fantastic. They did a great job of shocking everybody with a different color scheme. The feedback from our internal stakeholders has been very pleasant. We’ve received comments on how smoothly the website functions and the seamless page-to-page transition. Our ownership group appreciated the SEO focus on some of the material grades worksheets. All feedback has been very positive.

How did Conflare perform from a project management standpoint?

Overall, I’d give them an A- in project management with the need for improvement that everybody has. They’re very easy to work with. They utilize both onsite and digital meetings. Usually, we started the kickoff meetings onsite. We discussed the scope and intent of the project and agreed on deliverables and timelines. They formed a whole project plan based on that timeline. We worked off the project plan and checked in weekly. They were very clear on what the dependency was for each particular milestone to be complete; everything was in sequence to the plan. The plan made our lives easier because we based all of our internal planning off of their milestones.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their overall creativity is impressive. We only had to tell the story once, and they understood the business, industry concepts, and jargon, which really helped with copywriting. We received strong value for what we paid for on both the development side and the marketing side. I can certainly build a strong digital presence from my encounters with their design team.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could market themselves a little better and grow their customer base to allow them to grow the number of resources they have. The creatives at the company are the force and they don’t have enough of them.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

At the time I worked with Conflare, I was an Associate Attorney for a law firm. I oversaw various operational elements, such as IT, marketing, the website and internal operations related to technology deployment and personnel.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Conflare?

We had an embarrassingly-bad website and it was extremely out-of-date, in terms of style and user expectations.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Conflare developed a new WordPress site for us from the ground up. They handled everything from client outreach for testimonials to graphics and photo shoots, selecting the photos that would work well on the site.

We’re a law firm, so this wasn’t a functionality-rich project. There is only so much we could or would want to do on the website—it didn’t need to be interactive, other than having a contact form. We also have a blog feature, which is nice and is something we didn’t have before. Our menus have a hierarchical structure, and there is social media integration.

They interviewed us in order to get to know our team, firm and culture to help us draft the website. Conflare worked with us through design iterations and came up with something we liked. We had business cards and letterheads set on a blue foundation prior to the engagement with them, however, Conflare worked with us to come up with a palette for the site around that nucleus.

What is the team dynamic?

We worked with around 4 people in total.

How did you come to work with Conflare?

They had designed a website we really liked for another law firm. I shopped around for a few different options, and the firm decided that going the high-end route, with a premium design team was worth it.

What is the status of this engagement?

The work started around July 2016 and the project ended in mid-November. There was a trickle of small things to address after that, but the bulk of the project was completed.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We like the site. It is a huge improvement over what we had before, which was clearly not a modern website. 

How did Conflare perform from a project management standpoint?

I enjoyed working with them as people. Conflare brought a lot of enthusiasm and positivity. They’re experts at working with clients, and at understanding that they’re working with people who don’t necessarily want to be doing a website, as this is not something we have any particular expertise in. It’s essential to our marketing, but it’s outside our core competency. Conflare understood not only this but the fact that we’re busy. It was good to work with a team who got this. We weren’t an easy group to work with, but they were very patient and communicative.

There was a project management tool in place. It was useful initially, but it went through a version change, and I didn’t like it anymore. We communicated by email, and also had a staging platform on which we could make comments and edits to copy, as well as give feedback.

What did you find most impressive about them?

From my perspective, Conflare delivered more than agreed to and handled us as a difficult client well. They did good work, were responsive and respectful, and were excited about the project. It felt like Conflare was willing to do more because they liked the project and working with us.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I wasn’t thrilled with how the blog functionality was rolled out. It was a little clunky and barely readable at first. It needed to be tweaked. They were responsive in setting up different views and texts, and I think the blog is better now. In general, the website is very good and puts a positive polish on our firm.