Appcentric

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the founder of The Greetings Card Company Ltd - www.greetingscards.co.uk. We have been selling greetings cards online since 1999.

For what projects/services did your company hire Appcentric, and what were your goals?

We hired Appcentric to design and build a new bespoke website fit to accommodate our expected growth in the next five years. We wanted to increase our organic sales particularly from mobile.

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

We had hired three other companies in the preceding four years, each of which had promised to deliver what we required, but had failed to deliver.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

The website had to enable customers to buy different types of greetings cards, for example:- single cards to which we would apply a hand written message; multiple cards of the same design to which we would apply a printed message, or supply unprinted; packs of cards benefitting an individual charity; cards with text input by the customer through an online 'personaliser' and printed by others.

Customers were given the option of choosing a charity to benefit from their order. Umbraco was chosen as a suitable frame.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

Appcentric's founder, Adam and about four other developers, each specialising in a different area. Design, Mobile, Database etc

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

The site went live in August 2019. Whilst the personaliser went on line several months later, the site was delivered on time and on budget. Given that we added additional functionality into the brief during the project, they adapted admirably in the circumstances.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

They went the extra mile to ensure that they understood the complexity of the project before they started writing code. We communicated in a variety if ways, including many face to face visits, Zoom calls, Trello, Slack. The project was given milestones and dates and deliverables agreed at the outset.

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

They delivered what we wanted! Additionally, the price initially agreed was adhered to despite unexpected and unanticipated changes along the way.

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

Their default position is 'Yes, can do', which at times could have been tempered by communicating the additional time and money involved a little better. They have addressed this by hiring a dedicated project manager, so we are never unaware of the timing or cost of any current project.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the co-founder and CEO of TheGivingMachine - a digital charity supporting any UK based good cause no matter how big or small. We provide new and easy ways to help causes, supporters and businesses make a difference together – The”Giving”Machine

For what projects/services did your company hire Appcentric, and what were your goals?

Our charity's website was primarily developed when we had one main service and had not kept pace with how we have evolved. We've worked with AppCentric on mobile app development before and found working with them very easy and rewarding.

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

As a charity with limited resources, working with a partner we already trusted and one that has always added value by taking what we thought we wanted and then helping to develop that concept to get to the best possible outcome meant that it was an easy choice to make. Our experience of being able to stay on time and on budget was also a key factor here.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

For the most recent major project, we needed to front end a couple of websites we have with an integrated front of house set of content.

The scope included:

- being clear on the issues we wanted to resolve by holding specific workshops on that.

- being clear on potential solutions and by providing a managed process to focus down on a specific solution

- reviewing and identifying all issues and content changes that needed to be created on the enw site and what needed to be modified on retained website pages

- project plan and testing to go-live - go-live and mopping up of any issues found Technologies included Umbraco, WordPress, MySQL, Amazon AWS

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

about 4 people worked on the team:

- project manager / technical architect

- MD

- Graphic Designer

- Developer

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

Our current audience have been very happy with the new design. New users find it much easier to navigate and understand what our charity is about and has helped secure several business development opportunities.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

The projects we have had with AppCentric have all been managed with specific timeframes and work sessions planned. Actions have been assigned and scheduled to our own team members. AppCentric were happy to work with our project management tools where we needed and our own Slack channel kept all team members up to date.

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

The understanding of what we were trying to achieve and letting that drive the solution rather than applying a standard formula which we know has not worked for us in the past. I also find that the genuine creativity creation and then funneling that down into achievable deliverables is a great attribute.

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

I honestly can't think of anything to offer here - any issues we di have were about our resourcing to keep up with the deliverables we had to produce (e.g. content)