altima

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company.

Our company is a restaurant group that has been in business for 10 years. It has been extremely successful. We were trying to find a way to establish a presence and increase sales online.

What is your role and responsibilities?

I am the founder, CEO, CFO, accountant, marketer, and salesperson. I do a lot and wear a lot of hats.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your goal for working with Altima?

Altima helped us increase our online presence and visibility.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their work.

Altima focused on helping us offer better service through our customer feedback and virtual follow up. The follow up included not only recording their expectations, requests, and orders, but also being proactive and reaching out to our customers. We are able to establish an online commercial relationship versus a one on one or a phone-based relationship.

We didn’t have a website before Altima entered the picture. I spent quite a bit of money with them, but they delivered more than half a million dollars in sales in less than 18 months. These are products that range between $3 to a maximum of $30. They helped us get quite a lot of online visibility, and we attracted a lot of great corporate accounts that placed huge orders. These are companies I never would have been able to go myself physically.

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

They found me. I was looking for a Web agency, and I had gone to a few. No one had given me a rigorous, clear, bright line of thought and strategy. When Altima came to me, they knew exactly what they were talking about. They not only had recommendations, they had several plans of action. I was very impressed by their rigorous approach to my issue. Eventually, they also gave me a plan A and plan B for the strategy that I had picked. They exceeded my expectations and overdelivered. I had a certain vision and was hoping they would be good. They went above and beyond my expectations.

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

I had a tiny budget, but I was so eager to build a presence online. I spent $39,000, but I spent that in several stages. They broke the project into several phases, and we went with priority goals, secondary importance, and third-tier goals. The primary goal was to start selling online. We went for the maximum efficiency and became more sophisticated. I’m not sorry that I did this because it was tremendous for the business.

When will the work be completed?

We're working on other projects now, so it’s ongoing work.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I trust them very much, and I’ve seen what they can deliver. I’ve seen what they can take from the ground floor into almost a million dollars in sales in a very short time. I submitted several projects to them, and they just work on projects that we're comfortable with. We've worked very closely although we haven’t met personally. I enjoy our business connection. That is very difficult to find these days. People tell you they’ll do all sorts of things. You pay them, but when it comes time to do the work, you see how much you put on the table. Sometimes, not much comes from their end, or nothing tangible. Altima is nothing like that. You know how much you paid, and you know how much you received, clearly.

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

I noticed you have to be constantly present in the eye of your targets. You have to be visible through the web, newspapers, magazines, radio, and TV. I feel this little agency is so reactive and so creative that we are able to put together a marketing and advertising plan that goes across the channels to emphasize your marketing efforts. This is unusual in other agencies. Altima is so good, so creative, and so passionate about what they do that they can take a Web project into real life and still be good at it and deliver results. If you have the money and want to spend it on a great marketing company, Altima is the only choice.

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 think so. They delivered before the deadline and kept me informed throughout the project. They didn’t know anything about my industry, but within three to five days, they had documented their knowledge of my industry so thoroughly that they actually started giving me examples of things to look at. That was admirable because many people refuse to grow and learn. I wouldn’t change anything.

BACKGROUND

Can you describe your company, role, and responsibilities?

My company specializes in made-to-measure garments for men. It is called Louis Purple. It is a concept that came from a friend that I brought to New York about three years ago. He is the owner and operator. I am the co-founder.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your goal for the work with Altima?

We work on a project basis. We have done three projects together. I don’t really have a proper budget to allow two IT departments. I’m trying to take care of all of the different angles of the strategy at the same time. I normally don’t make a budget for IT work. I usually don’t have the cash flow available. I’m more asking them to be responsive, work on a small goal and do the project on a need basis. 

SOLUTION

Can you please describe the work in more detail?

We had to set up a quick website that was really responsive. We had major press events coming up in the newspaper. We really wanted to have an online presence. They were able to, in three to four days, build a complete landing page and connect it to our database. It has been in a state of limbo for months and months. I couldn’t really make up my mind on how I want the website to evolve. They offered my firm fresh input on the site design. We were able to set up the landing page. It took care of everything for the online payment form. They took care of all the ideas that we needed for the website at the time.  

Can you describe the Web development and design work in more detail?

It’s like a new profit center, but isn’t a huge percentage of our revenue now. It’s being set up now as an e-commerce site. We need to set up online payments. We have a whole e-commerce section with products and ready-to-wear garments that will be offered in the near future.

What platform is the website developed on?

I think we consider setting it up with WordPress now.

Is WordPress effective for your firm?

Yes. I’m trying to unveil the social network angle. I have the blogging sections. I’m looking forward. It has been a great platform to handle social networking. I’m not too worried about the whole management of that section.

Can you give a sense of the size of the projects with Altima with a general cost range?

Right now, the project we’re currently working on is going to take about two weeks. They are setting up a scheduling system on our website that allows our customer to identify themselves and secure a time to come to the store. We have a little less call traffic to respond to. We can focus more on the people who are actually in the store.

Do you have plans to do more work in the future with Altima?

Yes. I’m definitely looking forward to working with them more because I know they’re very knowledgeable in all the different aspects where I normally see companies specializing themselves in one niche skill. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Do you have any results of the work that you can share?

Again, it wasn’t a very goal-oriented mission. I can’t say that every time we met the objectives and the requirements. We didn’t do that many sales-oriented and profit center kind of things. We didn’t set up metrics or stats to track like normal IT projects.

How did Altima perform in your opinion?

They performed great. I like working with them. I can’t think of how they could change anything to do it better.

Is there anything unique or special about them that is different from other IT companies?

The fact that they are only a small team, they managed to embody the whole different departments like a 360-degree kind of digital platform from SEO to design to coding to backend to frontend. I think they really got it covered. With a small team, I find it pretty impressive.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company.

Gotham Artists is a booking agency that books speakers, comedians, and music for corporations and colleges.

What is your role and responsibilities?

I am one of the founders.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your goal for working with Altima?

Altima built our website from scratch when we started the company.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their work.

Altima did Web design and development. They built the custom designs based on our conversations and gave us multiple designs based on our meetings. They built a content management system for the backend that was very user friendly. They built a second site for us when we needed it.

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

We posted an ad on a few sites, describing the scope of work we were looking for. They responded to one of the ads. After a phone and in-person interview, they seemed to understand us best.

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

The project took weeks to complete, and the project was more than $10,000. The bulk of the work on our first project was completed between April and June of 2009. We had a second site built in 2012. We're about to celebrate our five-year anniversary, and we're thinking about doing a complete redesign. If we do, it will be with Altima.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Do you have any statistics or metrics to track improvement?

I don’t have anything to compare the first site to. Our personal satisfaction was through the roof. We still love it, and we haven’t worked with anybody else. We recommend them to everybody we know because of the quality of the work.

Can you assess their performance during the project?

There were no snags at all during the project. They were very easy to work with, and I recommend them without reservation. We still use them today.

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

They speak French, which is useful for translating the site into multiple languages.

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

I can’t think of anything.