SmartBug Media

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the operations manager at an emerging e-commerce company. Our online store specializes in affordable luxury goods such as watches, sunglasses, and cell phone accessories.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire GobySavvy?

We hired GobySavvy to set up a sophisticated email campaign strategy and system to funnel more signups and increase our revenue.

What were your goals for this project? 

Originally, we just wanted a few emails to welcome people, address abandoned carts, and send newsletters. However, once we saw their early results, we decided to expand their role to fully develop an automated system and take over most of our email marketing.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We found them on Upwork where they were highly recommended and rated. 

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail. 

To begin, GobySavy organized a video conference to meet our staff and learn about our company. We discussed our strengths and weaknesses compared to our competitors and highlighted our marketing efforts for the next three months. Their team used this information to build out an automated email system and strategy.

Once the system and first campaign launched, we worked with them to improve our email pop-ups and Instagram ads. They constantly A/B tested subjects, optimal send times, and content to better engage our subscribers. For each campaign, their team would typically present me with a list of relevant topics to go over with their copywriter. They’d then deliver a first draft, and we’d go through a round of edits before emailing it.

After about six weeks, we trusted Goby Savy to fully take over the A/B testing and most of our email campaigns. They now send out campaigns twice a week along with a dozen flows. Lastly, they’ve helped with a few of our website efforts such as a referral program and customer reviews.

What was the team composition?

The team consists of 3–4 people, including Ryan (Founder, GobySavvy), a project manager, a copywriter, and a designer. At some point, Ryan switched our copywriter with another team member who was interested in our company, and campaign performance jumped.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

Never in my wildest dreams did I think we could achieve such dramatic results. Within two days of the first email campaign, we had about $1,500 in sales, a 35% open rate, and 25 positive responses. The response rate exceeded our expectations because we didn’t think we would get any feedback or questions. The welcome series and browse abandonment emails performed at the next level, bringing in about 18% of our total revenue alone.

After 2–3 weeks, we had increased sales, ranging from 2,000–3,000 sales per campaign. Email pop-ups were responsible for signing up 20% of our visitors and brought in 40% of our revenue. We also started to see more repeat purchases and customer loyalty after a few months. With all of the generated revenue, we were able to increase our ad spend. 

How was project management arranged and how effective was it? 

GobySavvy has been efficient and thorough throughout the entire process. The team is always on time and have come through on all deadlines. We also have open lines of communication with each team member.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They’re experts in everything we ask them to do. I’m impressed with how well their campaigns reflect our companies and delight our subscribers. The team knows what will or won’t be successful, backing up their suggestions with sound reasoning. Having Ryan involved during strategy sessions and getting his input have been paramount to our success. 

Are there any areas for improvement? 

No, there’s nothing I can think of. GobySavvy consists of real professionals, and I can’t speak highly enough of them. While the initial costs were a bit high, they more than made up for it with the ROI.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of a pet supply company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Instant Email Copy?

We wanted to grow our revenue. We don’t have a subscription model so wanted to increase our emotional connection to our customers to ensure repeat buyers. I had decided on an email marketing system called Klaviyo but needed copywriters and other people to put the system in place.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Instant Email Copy established our email marketing system. They manage our different email messages including our welcome series, our abandonment series, our daily emails, and newsletters that were originally weekly and are now twice a week.

We work on a bimonthly schedule. We give then the topics we’d like to push and information about what’s new at the company. They create the sales copy to land on those pages. They do a lot of testing as well as segmentation of our audience.

What is the team composition?

We work directly with two or three team members.

How did you come to work with Instant Email Copy?

It was hard to find someone that was partnered with Klaviyo that was in an agency. We wanted a smaller boutique feel without the agency price. We were very fortunate to find them.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in October 2016 and it’s ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Within the first month, we increased our revenue from $50,000 to $100,000. Klaviyo’s analytics show that between 25–35% of our sales come from email marketing. For example, last month we made 35% of our revenue through email and this month it was 25%.

We’ve now grown from a $100,000 company to a more than $3 million company. Our growth is at 1,400% over the last two years. There are many contributing factors—email marketing, social media, other marketing efforts—but their work has been a huge part of it. They voice our work in friendly tones that bring people back to our websites.

How did Instant Email Copy perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicate mostly through email it's a lot easier to get things done. If things are a little confusing or unclear, we have a phone meeting. They’ve been excellent.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They don't need too much direction and they're able to work on their own. That’s been phenomenal. For example, I'm working with an agency right now to develop a new website that's been nothing but a nightmare. I appreciate that Instant Email Copy can take directions and go ahead with the work.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Not that I can think of at this point. We couldn’t ask for more than 25–35% of our business from email marketing and they’re constantly testing to make improvements. I’m pretty excited.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Email marketing is absolutely necessary to create an emotional connection with your brand. Having a series of emails for when someone purchases from you or abandons from you is the first step to sales. Once you have a sale or a brand that resonates, send weekly newsletters. All of that is critical to email marketing for any business.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am a director with Biomedical Research Laboratories.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Instant Email Copy?

We wanted help utilizing email in order to improve our bottom line.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We met with them to impart our tribal knowledge of the brand and what it represents. Instant Email Copy put together an email strategy and campaign, using content from our website to write the emails. They set up each email flow using the Klaviyo and Shopify platforms, as well as integrating with Justuno. They also do AB split tests of each campaign in order to make sure that they’re hitting our income goals.

What is the team composition?

Our main contact is the owner.

How did you come to work with Instant Email Copy?

I was specifically looking for an email marketing specialist that was a Klaviyo expert. We thought it's important to work with somebody who has experience using our platforms. We spoke to several large companies, but we like that they’re a smaller boutique agency.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in June 2017 and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We've seen tremendous results from the first month of working together. The email marketing campaigns are generating revenue well above 25% on one of our Shopify websites. That’s quite significant to our company. We’ve made a profit above what we pay Instant Email Copy, which we consider to be a really good return on investment.

How did Instant Email Copy perform from a project management standpoint?

Part of why I love them so much is that they don't require a lot of work from me. They’re excellent at what they do, so I've been pretty much hands off. If there’s a month where I don't have time to sit down and strategize, they pretty much self-manage the project.

We use Asana for project management and to communicate back and forth. They're good at reporting and putting everything together for us. We do go in and review all emails before they go out.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The return on investment is absolutely huge. They do superior work all the way through.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I have no complaints.

Any advice for potential customers?

Go out and compare what other companies promise. Unlike some of the large agencies, Instant Email Copy really under promises and over delivers. I don't think you can find any better partner.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I was the marketing and business development manager at Luxe Fitness, an e-commerce company that provides supplements, protein powder, and apparel.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Instant Email Copy?

When we first started the business, we didn’t do any email marketing; I simply would send out weekly campaigns. There also wasn’t any SEO at all.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They reset the website’s entire traffic and also took on email campaigns. We use Klaviyo, which is an email marketing platform. Instant Email Copy was able to identify the segments, group them out, and target them.

What is the team composition?

My main point of contact was Dean (Founder, Instant Email Copy).

How did you come to work with Instant Email Copy?

We found them through Upwork.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent between $15,000-$20,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in November 2017 and the collaboration is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Since we didn’t do anything at all at the beginning, we were shocked at how much revenue was reported within the first few weeks of using Instant Email Copy. Only in the first two weeks, our email revenue increased by 20–30% and our customer retention went up as well, which helps us in the long run.

They came up with many creative suggestions for us from the start, such as a spin-the-wheel popup, which was later integrated. They also do a lot of content strategy, which is something we didn’t think of, updating the site constantly every month or so. Furthermore, their experience with nutritional companies was very useful. They also did a lot of AB testing as well as SEO. Overall, we’re extremely happy with the results.

How did Instant Email Copy perform from a project management standpoint?

They took over project management and have done a great job. They know exactly what we were after, what will work, and deliver on time. We communicate directly with Dean through Slack, though we discuss campaigns over email and Skype. He’s always able to jump on a call immediately.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re efficient and creative in coming up with different content strategies for us. They performed a lot of AB testing and went the extra mile with their suggestions and design ideas. They take the time to optimize our email flows every month, which are our main source of revenue.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No. They do a great job.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I definitely recommend them.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a co-owner of a start-up operation called Beach Cities Wholesalers. We sell Gold Medal products and machines, such as gourmet popcorn, funnel cake, other snack foods, and the equipment to cook them.

Since opening in February 2011, BCW has grown into one of the largest Gold Medal Products dealers in the United States, earning back-to-back Golden Eagle awards for excellence in 2012 and 2013 and becoming one of the few Gold Medal Medallion level dealers in 2014, 2015 and 2016. We also distribute J&J Snack Foods products, Haagen Dazs/ Nestle Ice Cream and other select snack food items.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what reason(s) did your company hire GobySavvy?

We had developed our website ourselves weren't interested in switching platforms or building a brand new site. Our customers are old school and we needed a solution that would make the website easier for them to navigate.

What were your goals for this project?

Our ultimate goal was to increase the number of sales and leads from local Southern California businesses on our website. We also needed to improve our local search rankings on Google. I didn't anticipate any significant impact (and boy was I surprised!) but just wanted to make it easier for current wholesale customers to work with our website.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

I worked with my wife and business partner to figure out which of 5 agencies would best understand our needs, who we might enjoy working with the most, and who offered competitive pricing.

GobySavvy stuck out from other options because they have an expertise in the psychology of how to get website visitors to accomplish our business goals. Other agencies talked jargon and didn't seem to understand our specific goals to just optimize our existing site and push more sales and contact requests with what we have.

Describe the project in detail.

The scope of the project included the design and development of an improved website structure that would be easier for our customers to find products and machinery without confusion. Additionally, we needed to improve the contact options via phone or email.

We also wanted to improve our website's content to appeal more to our customers and also reflect the nature of our popcorn/snack foods business. Finally, we want to get our newsletter followers more engaged and lead them to purchase more products and attend our live events.

What was the team composition?

We had a dedicated project manager, Jessica [Project Manager, GobySavvy] who was an absolute pleasure to work with. The rest of the team included a UX designer, CRO expert, content strategist, email marketing expert, and the owner Ryan who helped with certain strategic decisions. We started with just the project manager and designer and eventually expanded as we realized our content needed to be improved.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Within 1 year of updating our website and expanding our email marketing efforts, we saw over 300% revenue growth, between the combined alternative efforts of SEO and the sales team. Our leads generated on the website increased by at least 10 fold. Finally, our customers also needed much less support to find things on our site.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Communication was very smooth. We mainly worked through phone calls and emails but had a few in-person meetings.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

What I found most impressive about GobySavvy was the knowledge and organization of both Ryan [Owner, GobySavvy] and our project manager, Jessica. They pushed us in a forward-thinking direction that we weren't originally comfortable with. It was an enlightening experience; I understand how to navigate the digital world much more confidently now.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Things could have gone faster and they could have quoted the content strategy budgets from the start, but I understand these things aren't always revealed until a project is underway.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work for a large beauty brand, and I work in the digital technology and innovation group. We work with brands across the portfolio to develop apps for in-store and for consumer-facing products. I’m a senior UX designer on the team.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with GobySavvy?

This was a couple years ago, and we were designing an app. At the time, I didn’t have as much experience working with Axure, which is a prototyping tool. We brought on GobySavvy to fill in that gap. Originally, I was trying to learn it on my own, but because of timing, we really needed a partner that could help us not only create a prototype but to also bring an extra set of eyes from a UX perspective. And then in general, we tend to work on very tight deadlines and very quick turnarounds, so GobySavvy was able to help us with that, often with less-than-two-day turnarounds. They were very successful in that.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

I can’t give too much detail on the project itself, but it was a consumer-facing app for one of our brands, and it would allow users to access their accounts, their loyalty points, and also to shop from the app.

Before GobySavvy came on board with this specific project, I had created all of the wireframes in Axure, and they turned those wireframes into a clickable prototype. I worked with Ryan directly. He came into the office. We had a lot of phone calls. But it was really beneficial to have someone local who could come in and meet with me and go through feedback and brainstorm different ways to approach the problem within the app or to solve a usability issue. It was so long ago, it’s hard to say the timing, but I would say we probably worked with him for a couple of months. But it was such a pleasure working with him because my team is just me and my manager, who’s the ED of UX. I didn’t really have a team of designers to work with, so it was great to have someone who knew Axure, was very skilled in that, but then also knows UX and was able to contribute different problem-solving ideas.

Because I felt like he was so successful in that project, I told my colleagues and they brought him into other projects. Ryan went on to work with other colleagues of mine on more web-based apps. One project is live now, and it’s a digital flower bouquet builder for Mother’s Day. You can send it to your mom with a personalized note. It had really beautiful animations. He basically had a designer that created the UX for it and the prototype. I wasn’t involved in that project, so Ryan was the lead UX designer.

And then some other things that we’ve worked on? We built an appointment-booking app, starting with loose wireframes, not totally developed, just high-level, low-fidelity. One of his designers and I worked very closely together. That designer also had a lot of UX background, but also experience in Axure, and it was really important that we built the prototype because we wanted to make sure we could test it fully.

There was another project, but I can’t remember what it was. But it was also UX related. All their projects involved Ryan or his team creating wireframes, a prototype, and even helping with user testing. For one of the projects, he helped me set up the test questions and go through the feedback and figure out what we should change. They were involved in different stages for various projects.

How did you come to work with GobySavvy?

At the time, Ryan, the founder, had just started the company. I was one of his first clients. I found him as an independent designer on one of these websites, Freelance.com or something like that. We hired him thinking he was just one guy, but then I found out that he had his own company. I guess it was fate.

How much have you invested with GobySavvy?

I don’t really know how much the other projects were, but I would say no more than $20,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The summer of 2015, maybe May, is when we first started working with them. I don’t know about my colleagues, but I think they use him once in a while. I don’t really work with him anymore because we’ve hired more internal people to take the workload. But I also believe that his focus as a company has shifted from what it originally was. Originally, his focus was creating projects and doing usability studies, and now I believe he’s more focused on e-commerce and providing long-term solutions. We’d still bring him on if we needed an extra set of hands, but in the beginning, it was the perfect time for us to have an external partner. Now that we have more internal people, we don’t really need the extra help right now. I guess we stopped around November 2016.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I don’t have any metrics, but before I even joined my team, they weren’t working in clickable prototypes. All their wireframes were static. I wouldn’t necessarily give a specific metric, but in terms of how GobySavvy has helped my team rethink our process and how we create our products, his team really helped us go from static to prototype. When we present to the president and executive directors and global partners, it’s invaluable to have something that’s as close to the real deal. It seems more official as opposed to a static wireframe, and it also allows us to gather feedback.

How did Goby Savvy perform from a project management standpoint?

They were amazing. They met every single deadline. They’d get on a call with me anytime during the day, they’d respond to emails … they really made themselves available. They realized that my team and my company, because we’re so large, things are constantly changing. They were really able to keep up and meet all the deadlines that they promised.

We just used Google Docs as our project management software. At one point, we tried Slack, but it just made more sense to use Google Docs.

What did you find most impressive about GobySavvy?

I’ve worked with a lot of different agencies and independent contractors, and I’ve realized that everyone has the skill. But what you can’t teach someone is the work ethic, the passion, the drive to create something amazing. Usually agencies just want to get paid. They want to come in, do the job, do exactly what you tell them to do, and leave. With freelancers, it’s the same thing. They’re not tied to the company or the project. But with GobySavvy, they were really dedicated to supporting me, to supporting the project, and providing feedback to make sure that whatever we create is actually the best thing. It was really refreshing to work with someone who shares my passion.

Are there any areas GobySavvy could improve?

GobySavvy could improve on the wires design style. I’ve come to realize that UI designers follow the UX exactly and don’t necessarily update or come up with alternative visual treatments for some elements.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Q2E is a software startup that is developing channel enablement software to help enable large technology companies better manage their channel distribution processes.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with GobySavvy?

Our startup had a couple of early iterations of our software, which evolved organically with different aspects, attributes, and features being developed over time. It's not uncommon for startups to develop the first version of their product, and then they realize that they're going to pivot to a new market segment or further redefine the software as a result of the pivot. When customers begin to use the software, they have different ideas for how it should perform or be used.

Our software evolved in such a way that we realized we were serving a specific market need, this channel enablement needs, that was not what we originally built the software for. We had a much broader target originally. Basically, we had been grafting features and processes onto a piece of software rather than having a cohesive platform specific to our current needs. It wasn’t holistic.

So the business challenge for GobySavvy was that we had software that had many disparate parts that weren’t integrated into a cohesive whole. The UX wasn’t easy either, since it, too, was fragmented. We hired GobySavvy to help us redesign the entire software from the ground up and design a holistic and cohesive framework for the entire feature set that would be easier to use.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The first phases of our work with GobySavvy involved defining the key users for whom we would be designing. We identified the key roles or people who work at technology companies and with their channel sales and distributions networks. GobySavvy helped conduct interviews with people in our market who occupy those roles, so they further fleshed out the specific challenges individuals face on their jobs when using software to do their work. For example, a channel chief has different software needs than a vice president of marketing, a sales manager, or a salesperson.

After defining the key roles, we sat down and developed a roadmap of all the key parts of the software that needed to be redesigned. We considered the point of view of each of those different roles, and what different users would need to see, do, or achieve with the software. GobySavvy then proceeded to wireframe a complete redesign of the software and then subjected that wireframe to some usability testing with people who represented those key roles. They then took the results of those tests and further refined their designs.

Parallel to this, one member of their team was working on the visual design guide — the fonts, colors, icons, and certain specifications for the visual components —  by working with our vice president of marketing to visually represent our brand values in our software. She learned from our marketing team to understand our brand — what it was trying to say and achieve — and work with our core color palette. She then translated all of that into a visual design guide with which the eventual wireframes would be implemented.

GobySavvy completed and refined the wireframes and tested them, and they developed a visual style guide that reflected our brand. They then put together several mockups for how we would implement the wireframes and how we would apply the style guide.

That was the first phase of our process — redesigning the user experience. We’re now in the middle of our second round of engagement, which is rebuilding and redesigning the admin experience. We have a powerful set of admin tools for power users, and we’re going through a similar process with that component of the product.

How did you come to work with GobySavvy?

It took us a few months to find GobySavvy. We searched through and posted in a lot of different venues, freelancer sites, LinkedIn searches, etc. When we found individuals or companies, we would interview them, take a look at their work, get their feelings about design, gauge their comfort level with working with startups, and see if they had any experience with working in agile environments. (We’re an agile shop). We finally decided to choose GobySavvy, because they seemed to be the right kind of fit.

What is the status of this engagement?

We first contacted and began vetting GobySavvy in November 2015, and we began our first engagement with them in February 2016. We’re still working together, and I think our relationship is fantastic.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

About a month ago we released the first phase of the redesign, Q2E 3.0, that GobySavvy worked on with us in 2016. We’re in the middle of converting our existing customers to the new version, and they’ve relayed positive feedback so far. They’re saying things like: This is so much easier to use. This is so much cleaner to look at. This is so much easier for us to find what we’re working on. This is far less confusing than your earlier version. Managers using the new version are saying: This is great. This gives me the information I've been looking for. This is really helping me measure my team’s performance better.

We’ve also begun showing the new version to prospective customers, people with whom our salespeople are speaking. Our prospective customer pool has gotten more active and more interested in the product after seeing the new version. Several pilots are being proposed, and a much larger group of customers are interested. We’re getting more referrals for potential customers from people who have seen the new version.

How did GobySavvy perform from a project management standpoint?

GobySavvy performs really well from a project management standpoint. We use Basecamp to work together and communicate. GobySavvy makes it clear how the project is going to be managed, what the milestones are going to be, what the check-in meetings are going to be, and what the deliverables will be at each phase of the project. But they’re also flexible. They’re able to make the work go as fast as they can, and they’re able to slow things down if there are bottlenecks on our end and we need to adjust the schedule. It’s been great.

We like GobySavvy’s designers. They bring a wide variety of perspectives to the project, and they have a flexible team of people that they assign to us at different times depending on what we’re doing. They have one person who does testing, one who designs dashboards, one who does visual design. We’re currently working with someone who is doing complicated admin tools. We’ve been happy with every person with whom we’ve worked. They’re all specialists who have deep-seeded experience in the particular aspects on which they’re working.

What did you find most impressive about GobySavvy?

I would say GobySavvy’s biggest strength is that they understand business, and that’s a big deal for us in designing enterprise software for businesses. It often has been my experience that a lot of designers are great at design, but they struggle to understand how business works and what business users are trying to do in the course of their jobs. GobySavvy has created a team of people who understand what corporate environments are like and how that needs to be reflected in enterprise software. That’s a hard skill to find: so many of the UX people we interviewed were great at consumer apps, but it’s rare to find people who understand how businesses and departments function, and how the software needs to be easy to use in that context. GobySavvy has been fantastic in that sense. They get business. They get the enterprise.

Are there any areas GobySavvy could improve?

Whenever we’ve spoken to GobySavvy about areas for improvement, they’ve been really responsive. I would characterize them as being an agile, learning group of people who are able to roll with any feedback we give them. I have no concerns or complaints.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of an importing firm. We import from China and other Asian companies and we distribute to 10,000+ retailers around Australia and the Pacific Rim, including New Zealand, Fiji, Micronesia, and Singapore. The company is about 45 years strong.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with GobySavvy?

Most of our users, our retail buyers, are older folks who aren’t tech savvy, so we needed to simplify the website, which is what we hired GobySavvy to do. We needed to take out all the bells and whistles that didn’t need to be there.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We pretty much let them run the entire project because we didn’t even know what UX was when we started getting into it. We asked them to do a deep dive into the site and come back to us with all of the pain points that they could see. They did surveys to people all around the world to figure out what was working and what wasn’t, and the results were more in-depth than we had imagined based on our internal testing. There were buttons in the wrong spot and color schemes that didn’t work and funny wording that could all be improved. We really believe that those little tweaks make a huge difference in making customers happy and making money.

After they did the research, GobySavvy worked hand in hand with our developers to make sure that the changes were implemented in ways that worked for us. There were some things that are industry-specific that GobySavvy couldn’t have tested for in their surveys, so having them work with our development team was great. We implemented about 90% of the things they suggested. Now we go back to them every few months for little improvements. The web is an evolving thing, so we have to be continuously looking at new technologies and new improvements to stay current.

How did you come to work with GobySavvy?

We researched UX people and GobySavvy came up at the front of that. We did consider a few other firms, but they were by far the most professional. They had a good reputation. We continue to work with them and recommend them to people we work with. But we don’t recommend them to our Australian competitors; we want to keep our secret. I’ll tell the world about GobySavvy, just not other people in Australia!

How much have you invested with GobySavvy?

I think it’s been about $5,000-$10,000 USD over the past few years.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working with them for two or three years, and we go back to them for extra work two or three times a year. It’s ongoing relationship.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We get a huge amount of positive feedback from our customers. We’re continually told we have one of the best websites in the industry, which we love to hear. Our website is so good that two or three of our competitors have basically copied and pasted text off our page and put it on theirs (it’s still got our name on it; they haven’t even changed the details). You know what they say: Imitation is the highest form of flattery.

How did GobySavvy perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re easy to work with. They give us an offer of how much it’s going to cost for them to do the work, we say yes and they go ahead and do it. They come back and it’s done. From a project management view, they’re really easy to work with. I run most of it and I’m fairly tech savvy and I could do some of this myself, but I use them because they know what they’re doing and they’re fluent across many levels of tech. We use Basecamp and Lighthouse to manage the work.

What did you find most impressive about GobySavvy?

I was surprised at how quickly they understood our industry and identified pain points that I couldn’t see after having been in the industry for 30 years. For them to be able to deep dive that quickly was really impressive. They got it right away. Our main thing was that our users aren’t tech savvy and it needs to be simple, and they knew exactly how to carry that out.

Are there any areas GobySavvy could improve?

There are no areas I think they could improve on. Maybe they could come up with a plan where you can just pay a certain amount of money and have them take care of everything, but I think they’ve got everything pretty much covered.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the president of my company. We create online marketing and technology solutions for the real estate vertical.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with GobySavvy?

We have created very strict and specific criteria by which we evaluate websites. In order to complete those sorts of site analyses intelligently and on time, you need a bunch of really smart people who understand the goals of the site evaluation. They can’t just interpret it themselves; they need to really be able to get on board and understand how we want to evaluate each site because we want to be consistent across all our evaluations.

The biggest challenge I had was that the work that we get comes in all at once as opposed to throughout the year. This created a giant problem in terms of delivering things on time. We needed more experts working at the same time, instead of trying to handle it all in-house. In the past, we’ve used experts who were good in their field, but their evaluations would need a lot of work before they were client ready. They’d be in poor English or missing bullet points or something. Before we met GobySavvy, we assumed that was just how it is, that you just had to deal with those issues.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The people at GobySavvy are not only experts in the field, but they were also able to meet our rigorous standards. In many cases, our reports are 80 pages long and their work was inserted as an integral part of these evaluations. GobySavvy presented us with nearly client-ready reports that fit into our framework for the evaluation of different components. In other words, the ultimate deliverable was several components of an 80-page report evaluating many different parts of online marketing: design, user interface, search engine optimization, branding, mobile, and so forth.

How did you come to work with GobySavvy?

We wanted to work with a small team of experts who could handle a large amount of work—four to five people who would get on a project and peer-evaluate their own work. That way, we could achieve consistency and quality across all our recommendations. I met the owner through normal outreach and interviewing. He struck me as one of the only people I had found who was extremely knowledgeable. At the same time, he was also willing to get onto our wagon as opposed to me having to get on his.

How much have you invested with GobySavvy?

We’ve spent about $15,000–$20,000 per year.

What is the status of this engagement?

I believe we started working together in 2014 and I expect the collaboration to continue.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Year over year, we’ve improved our results, and our client satisfaction has risen as measured by feedback from our members. Every year, we’ve gotten an increase in the people who purchase GobySavvy’s services. Anecdotally, we really have a sense that we are doing much better. We’re much more consistent, and consistency is very important in this line of work. We’ve had giant increases in consistency and quality since working with GobySavvy.

How did GobySavvy perform from a project management standpoint?

They’ve been very easy to work with in the sense that our projects are highly defined. This year, in particular, we had some very rapid turnarounds that were required, and they met them. These were really aggressive turnarounds, the kinds where I’d have to say, “If you can’t turn them in on time, don’t turn them in at all. You can’t take this business if you can’t deliver it because I can’t get it a day late.” And it wasn’t a problem. They started turning them in advance. They listened to our feedback on the first round of work, and on the second round, we didn’t have to point those things out; the changes had already been made. From a project management perspective, the work is pretty straightforward, but they were really good at communication and always available.

What did you find most impressive about GobySavvy?

When you’re looking in this industry, it’s really hard to find someone who will work with small businesses. And when I say small, I don’t mean $50 million per year businesses; I mean small businesses. The cost element there is often impossible to overcome. I can say that GobySavvy isn’t inexpensive, but at least it was within reach. That was a distinguishing characteristic. Within reach, they were able to do some extraordinarily custom items for us.

Are there any areas GobySavvy could improve?

Honestly, I can’t think of any. If I had something, I would have asked them to do it and I know that they would have already fixed it.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the owner of a full-service digital marketing agency.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with GobySavvy?

I was looking to offer a complete service as far as digital optimization was concerned. My skill and understanding is the Google side of things (Google rankings, Google algorithms, that type of thing) and I understood that user experience was having more and more of an impact on a website’s ability to gain good rankings in Google. I went looking for a company that offered UX reviews online, and that’s how I discovered GobySavvy.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They offer a number of different services, but I’ve always used them for the same service. I’ve done somewhere around four to seven reviews with them. I use their lean review services. They don’t promote it anymore, but they used to have something called a lean review, which was more of a basic UX review because that was the service that most of my clients needed. If ever anybody wanted a more detailed UX optimization, I would refer them directly to GobySavvy and have no further part in the relationship. But as far as my clients were concerned, I would identify that their website needed a UX review. I would then contact GobySavvy, and they had an online form that was very easy to complete. The questionnaire would ask specific questions, such as “What are you looking to improve?” “What are the key areas of your website?” “What are the key services that you sell?” They ask you to identify what you consider to be the areas of weakness and they use that as the basis for your report. The report is never general; the report is always targeted towards an individual concern or issue that raised at the start.

I would complete their questionnaire, get through a standard questionnaire and fire that back to them. Within 7-10 days, I would get the completed report back and then Ryan from GobySavvy would contact me to discuss the report in detail. So the report would start with an explanation for folks who don’t understand UX, then they use images to help you understand whatever the issue is so that you can actually see how other people are doing things better. The report would include wireframes as well. Then I would send the finished UX review to my end client and if I was doing their web development, we would discuss the work that was needed.

How did you come to work with GobySavvy?

I think I found then through a general search, although it was a while ago now. Ryan may have reached out to me with an email marketing campaign. Actually, I do think I responded to some form of outreach because I don’t remember searching UX review on Google.

How much have you invested with GobySavvy?

Probably in the region of $1,800-$2,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

I started working with Ryan around January 2016. I 100% foresee this relationship continuing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

As far as direct results, the easy answer is no, because the UX is always being done as part of a larger project where a number of other elements are being worked on. I tend to use them as part of an overall SEO optimization campaign that I provide clients. What I would say is that in every case where I’ve used their services, the websites have always improved in performance and that improvement in performance can be a range of things depending on what the customer was after in them first place. It will be things like an improvement in time on site and improvements on the number of pages viewed. And while it’s impossible to make a direct correlation, every client that I’ve offered a UX review as part of their SEO campaign has seen significant ranking improvements in Google. As far as what the clients have said, to a one all of them have loved the reviews because none of the clients are technically minded in any way. If somebody who has no real understanding of the online world can read a grasp the contents of the report as a layman, that’s a big benefit to the client. They’re genuinely learning something and they understand where their money is going.

How did GobySavvy perform from a project management standpoint?

They are perfect at it. You can tell that they are a very well organized and process-driven company, which is part of why I carried on using them. I’m a list man, so I wake up every day and I write my list of things to do, how long it’s going to take to do each thing, and I go through my list systematically. That’s the process that works for me. From the very first point when they send you the questionnaire, everything is very systematic, very process driven, so after using them for the first time I had complete confidence. As long as I give them the information that they need, they will always deliver what I need on the day that they say they will. That makes my life a lot easier because then I can set my client’s expectations. There’s nothing worse than delivering work late to a client because it makes me look like an idiot, and I can rely on them absolutely.

What did you find most impressive about GobySavvy?

Ryan, to be honest. Ryan is the first point of contact and his ability to explain what’s being done, why it’s being done and the benefit that you will get once it’s done helped me a lot. I didn’t know what a UX review was the first time I went to him. He’s the strength of the business. The other thing that I like is the idea that they’ve got people who are specialists in certain areas. For example, UX in e-commerce is entirely different to UX in a brochure-driven website for an engineering company. Rather than giving it to a company that just as a UX review specialist, I like the idea that they’ve got specialists in individual sectors who are all experts in UX.

Are there any areas GobySavvy could improve?

It’s been a few months since I’ve seen their last UX review, so they may have updated it, but the reports themselves could use an element of video. Little snippets about different elements of UX that can perhaps be embedded into reports, or links to videos on YouTube, that sort of thing. Maybe something watchable. There’s already text and images to back it up, but as a person, I digest information easier and quicker when I’m watching a video rather than reading a document.