Growably

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Founder & CEO of despreSpa.ro

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

The voice of the Spa Market from Romania - an online platform with informations and services for the Romanian Spa Market, with 3 types of clients: large public, spa professionals and corporate. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Growably to accomplish?

• Developing a performant website
• Developing new complex online products and services in a short period of time - established by me
• Support 100% of the time when we might have an technical issue

SOLUTION

How did you find Growably?

Referral

Why did you select Growably over others?

• Good value for cost
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from Growably were assigned to this project?

1 Employee

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

• Online portal featuring spa centers, their special offers, and creating links between spa centers and articles (and vice versa) – with automatic sending of contracts and additional documents + invoices.
• Automation of tracking appointment requests from individual clients to spa centers (we ensure the client is contacted, with repeated follow-ups both to the client and to the spa center – until it is confirmed that the client has been contacted and scheduled).
• Landing page for the Spa Romania Conference – with the possibility of registering for the conference – sent to the host hotel + registration for the Spa Romania awards + automatically issued invoices.
• Implementation in the My Account section of gamified career structures for all jobs in the spa market.
• Implementation of an automatic system through which a person can find a job in the spa market – he can choose where to send his CV + other requested fields and we ensure they receive a YES or NO response from each Spa center they apply to.
• Automation of experience exchange programs between spa centers.
• Development of SpaEdu – the first online spa management academy in Romania – with the technical development of its own online course platform, as well as the landing page and course pages + automatic sending of contracts, invoices + automatic connection of the student to the ordered courses.
• Development of eVouchers for despreSpa.ro – with automatic sending to those who order them (with design chosen by the client + optional custom text written by the client) + automatic invoice issuance

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

despreSpa.ro it's a complex project and they did a lot to help me during these years. I will select a small part of them:

1. They had to find solutions for developments that no one had done before - because our needs are not standard. They understand the results I need, create the necessary flow themselves, and have surprised me with many projects where I thought development and implementation would take much longer, yet they delivered in an unexpectedly small number of hours.
2. They managed to automate almost everything, in a way that is user-friendly for the client (whether an individual or a spa center).
3. They come proactively with solutions that most of the time cost me almost nothing to implement, but help me enormously
4. I don't have to ask them to increase the website speed performance, they do it by themself etc. 

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

From the beginning of our collaboration, we have always had very tight deadlines because the despreSpa.ro website is the business, not just a presentation page.

We are constantly developing, always having multiple projects running in parallel – most of which involve interconnections with other existing developments that were not initially designed to include the new idea.

And yet, they always manage to meet the requested deadlines.

What was your primary form of communication with Growably?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

• The seriousness with which they treat the project is impressive. 
• Proactive involvement.
• On-time delivery of developments.
• Although at first it seemed very expensive compared to what I had paid for IT developments before starting the collaboration with them, and also compared to my budget, I quickly concluded that the quality/price ratio is much better than when I paid much less per hour worked.

Are there any areas for improvement or something Growably could have done differently?

No, I don't think so