Xivic

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO and managing partner at a court reporting firm.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Xivic?

We needed help overhauling our website and creating a marketing campaign.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

First, they revamped our website. Then, they came up with an SEO plan, which included Adware to get the word out. They also managed to track every lead that comes through our website so that we could know where our marketing dollars are being spent with Google Ads. Finally, they worked closely with our IT staff to help remedy any problems that would arise with our site.

What is the team composition?

We worked with three people from their team, including their owner.

How did you come to work with Xivic?

We heard of them through word-of-mouth. They had also worked with one of our clients, which led us to try them out.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested $40,000 – $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together in March 2017, and our engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’ve been tracking our spending very closely, and we’ve made our money back 5-10 times over.

How did Xivic perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re always on time and create expectations from the very beginning. Even if we have questions on the weekend, they get back to us.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their creative team really stands out. Their pricing is reasonable, and the whole team communicates well. I’ve learned quite a bit from working with them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, anytime there is something, we talk about it and it gets taken care of right away.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

My advice is to be clear about what you want. Know what your product is going to look like from the onset. If you can do that, you’ll reduce the number of revisions. Also, during revisions, give them as much feedback as possible.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of a company called Position Match. We offer a SaaS cloud-based platform that allows users to interview candidates for jobs via video.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Xivic?

We’d gone through two previous vendors in trying to create our product. However, they weren’t up to par. There were too many errors and the code wasn’t of good quality. We wanted to find a new partner.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They helped with product strategy, product roadmap, design, creative, and development. We gave them some wireframes, but they made the majority of them. They essentially developed our platform from scratch. 

What is the team composition?

I had three main people assigned to the team that I interacted with, but there was a larger team of coders behind the scenes. 

How did you come to work with Xivic?

I found them through an organization called Redbird. We interviewed several groups, but Xivic was the most impressive. 

How much have you invested with them?

We invested just under two million dollars.  

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with them in September 2015, and we wrapped up in August 2018.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

After launching the product, we were able to break even pretty quickly. We’ve received testimonials on the product from three Fortune 500 companies. Feedback has been good. 

How did Xivic perform from a project management standpoint?

I don’t know what project management tools they used. However, the team met every deadline that was set, and in fact, they usually beat them. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

The overall quality of their work is impressive. They don’t put out bad code. We had some VPN issues with our larger corporate clients, but they worked through it all. 

Are there any areas they could improve? 

Not that I can think of. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers? 

Listen to what they have to say. The team is knowledgeable and has good ideas which helped us stand out from the competition. I let them give a lot of feedback which was helpful.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of IT for a REIT in commercial real estate that operates in multiple states. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Xivic?

We hired them for website redesign and hosting services related to the site. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They did a complete redesign, this also included front- and backend development. The site was published in WordPress. We were hosting our site on a server at Rackspace, but we worked with them to migrate it to AWS. 

What is the team composition?

We worked with a team of 2-3 people during the development process. There’s also a couple of individuals who have acted as our primary point of contact for ongoing maintenance. 

How did you come to work with Xivic?

We had a consultant that we had been working with for several years. He helped us identify several firms that would be a good fit for this project. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about $200,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in mid-2015, probably in Q3. The site went live in 2016, but we’ve continued to work with them for maintenance especially for our CMS element.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I’m monitoring web traffic. Our main goal was to generate leads in the form of phone calls to our leasing agents. The team was always available for technical support and handled things well.

How did Xivic perform from a project management standpoint?

They’ve performed very well. They were timely, communicative, and easy to work with. They came into our office for presentations as well. We’re currently between account representatives, but everyone has been helpful. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

I don’t have a lot of other vendors to compare them to. However, we always look for someone that is willing to partner with us, takes ownership of their work, and seeks to add value. They’ve been very collaborative. 

Are there any areas they could improve? 

The only thing that comes to mind is that they could bring more suggestions for improvement to us. There’s an opportunity for them to present solutions that we might not have considered. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers? 

I would say frequent communication is most important. That’s something I would recommend for any type of project. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Madison-based manufacturer delivering solutions to manage air purity, humidity, temperature, and fresh air supply. Protect your family from viruses, allergens, dust, mold and more.

It’s time to care about Healthy Air.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Xivic?

We’ve relied on them for digital marketing efforts. I onboarded three years ago when digital and web marketing weren’t nearly as important, especially for a manufacturing company. While the partnership preceded my joining the company, they’ve since focused on utilizing the best technology to enhance our digital properties.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They’ve handled a variety of things for us over the years. On a minor scale, they design landing pages for us, but they’ve also provided full site development. They’ve created our several CMS systems on WordPress, Affinity, and Shopify. They’ve also updated many of our legacy data systems.

What is the team composition?

We have a primary point of contact. They have a full team behind them that’s sectioned into groups, depending on which sector of the business they’re assigned to. We’re in daily or weekly contact with the company owner, as well.

How did you come to work with Xivic?

Ten years ago, the now-owner of Xivic, Bahman (Chief Strategist & SEO) was working for the design agency that my company was engaging at the time. We stayed with him after he began his own agency.

What is the status of this engagement?

The engagement began in 2008 and it’s an ongoing partnership.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Xivic is always looking for opportunities to turn our ideas into action. They give us constant attention and allow us to move at a much faster pace than we did in the past.

Our company has grown so quickly over the last few years, and it’s difficult to know how much of that we can attribute to our site traffic. Having said that, they’ve vastly improved our site’s UX/UI. We’ve gone from a non-mobile website to a fully-functional, mobile-friendly platform, so about 70% of our site traffic is mobile.

How did Xivic perform from a project management standpoint?

They use several project management tools depending on what we’re asking for. Their communication is stellar; I never feel like I can’t reach out to them. We have weekly touch-bases where we go over every project.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I can’t say that I’ve seen their level of adaptability and flexibility with other companies.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, not that I can think of.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I feel like they’re on our team — they’ve really become a part of our company. It’s hard to find a company that you can trust like that. You can trust that they’ll do what’s right for you at that particular time.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

JYBE is set to launch this summer. We use user generated reviews to rank restaurants that offer to-go food based on their sustainability efforts and Earth-friendly packaging.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Xivic?

JYBE helped us to develop our idea and product from the ground up. We came to them with an idea and their team of experts helped us to come up with a plan and build a beautiful and highly functional app.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to create an app that would enable users to search for sustainable restaurants as well as rank restaurants they ordered from.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Mutual contacts of ours had worked with and highly recommended Xicvic. We met with 4 total companies before we got started but Xivic stood out and was the absolute best choice for us.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

They helped is design and develop a progressive web app that allows users to submit reviews for restaurants that serve to go food as well as search for restaurants making sustainable choices by ranking.

What was the team composition?

We has a team of 3 on the business development and design side and then several developers assigned to our app. We always felt taken care of and we're sure we were a top priority.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They helped us immensely with our design direction and business concept. They really knew how to make it all work together and inspired some great ideas. They helped us to lean in to a few key components that will set us apart from food delivery apps in a very meaningful way.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

We communicated mostly via Active Collab and InVision and always felt very in the loop and connected. They met all deadlines due to stellar project management and a very efficient team.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Our idea is slightly complicated but Xivic understood it from the get-go and were able to help simplify it for the public making the concept easier to digest to those not directly involved. If we said it, they listened and heard it. They tracked even our craziest ideas and never missed a beat.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Honestly, no. This is just the beginning of our relationship and we are thrilled to be partners with them. We will continue on with them to help digitally market our product and for general maintenance as well as product additions as they come up.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the communications director at the Southern California Institute of Architecture. We have undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate programs. I oversee all of the internal and external communications to the school.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Xivic?

We needed a new web maintenance company and developer that was WCAG compliant.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Xivic brought our three websites up to ADA compliance and handled maintenance across the sites. We have weekly meetings to address any fixes, bugs, or updates that we need to implement on our sites. They also perform quarterly WCAG reviews of the websites.

What is the team composition?

We work with two members of the Xivic team, Jessica (Senior Account Manager, Xivic), our main point of contact, and one account manager.

How did you come to work with Xivic?

A colleague of mine found them through online research. We had narrowed it down to three companies. After speaking with past clients of each company, we decided to work with Xivic.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing engagement with Xivic began in June 2019.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They completed the compliance within the timeframe they had initially put forward, which we were happy about. 

How did Xivic perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re very responsive and always there when we need them. We really like working with Jessica and have a weekly call with her, but she’s always available if something goes wrong in between those meetings. Our teams use Activecollab to manage the project.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Xivic has all of the resources and people needed to get the job done. We’ve never felt like we’ve thrown a challenge at them that they can’t handle.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, we’re really happy with them.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Give them a chance. They’ve made working on these projects a lot easier.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

My company’s name is UR Labs, and that’s short for Uplifting Results. I am the founder and CEO.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Xivic?

We are a brand-new emerging startup, as well as a direct-to-consumer, digitally native business. Our first products have a significant subscription component to them, and so we worked with Xivic to help build out our e-commerce presence.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

From the start, we knew that a regular e-commerce website wasn’t going to fulfill all of our needs because we wanted it to facilitate our subscription model using BigCommerce and then also host a significant amount of content for our users.

We started the process by doing a deep dive into our product, purpose, and mission, including branding guidelines produced by the creative agency we worked with when starting our company. Our teams also looked through some benchmark sites that we thought represented the look and functionality of what we wanted to emulate.

Then, but breaking that down into specific plans for our sites, we came up with a page by page wireframe for the entire site. We iterated back and forth with them over various details and elements of the e-commerce pathway on the site as they built it from the ground up, including custom designs and software add-ons that they helped us to integrate.

What is the team composition?

We had a great project team that included a project manager who was our main point of contact and stayed with us from start to finish. They also provided specific designers, UX and SEO experts, and even the CEO of their company was engaged and actively involved in our process.

How did you come to work with Xivic?

We spoke with a number of agencies at the beginning of our process. They were one of the referrals that we got from the creative agency that we worked with, and their team was very thorough in getting to know us as well as explaining their capabilities and educating us on the different options before we had even started the project.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project began in October 2019 and is still ongoing, although we are in the final stages leading up to launch and are hoping to have the product available to the public soon.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I think that the main indicator of the success of our partnership is what the output is. While we obviously haven’t yet launched, we know based on everything that we’ve done and what we’ve seen already, that we are going to have an amazing e-commerce presence.

We are incredibly pleased with both the functionality that we have built as well as the delivery of the essence of our brand in the look and feel of the site. It positions us exactly in the way that we want to be positioned, both from a brand and product standpoint and from a content leadership standpoint.

The process took a while because of how significant our needs were, but they were pretty flexible in working with us to get there. There was a lot of heavy lifting on both sides, but in the end, we look like a seasoned business as a result and we are incredibly happy about that.

How did Xivic perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management is actually one of the most impressive aspects of their work. Their flexibility, communication, and prioritization of alignment and recalibration when things got off course were huge assets to our development process and the challenges we faced throughout that.

We meet on a weekly basis, and then throughout the week, we use their tools and systems to communicate in collaborative workspaces, including ActiveCollab and EnVision. Those helped significantly to stay on top of our milestones and send messages back and forth quickly to ensure progress is always being made.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The flexibility was really a big deal. We wouldn’t be where we were if they had been rigid and stuck in their ways, and I think that their ability to take suggestions and work with us to figure out solutions is incredibly far beyond the capabilities of your standard cookie-cutter e-commerce web development agency.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Sometimes we had to go through a couple of iterations to make sure we all fully understood each other and the tradeoffs involved in any given decision where a bit more advanced notice would have helped, but the fact that miscommunication over such a large project was limited to that is still really solid.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

It was definitely helpful for us to provide them with branding guidelines already drawn up and a perspective on how we wanted the site to look and feel. They do offer some creative services, but I wouldn’t necessarily say that’s their strong point, so being able to provide that element and then allow them to focus on the execution, in my opinion, was the best way to go.