AvigoSystems

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the CEO and majority owner of a financial services firm. We provide investment management, wealth management, and tax and accounting services primarily to individuals and small businesses. Along with my two business partners, I oversee the management of the firm, as well as work directly with clients on the investment and wealth management side of the business.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with AvigoSystems?

Our website was outdated and needed to be improved to provide users with more accurate information, as well as be more eye–catching and competitive with other websites in our industry.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We came to Avigo with a website that was about 10–years–old and needed updating badly, especially in comparison to our peers in the industry. Upon meeting with him and discussing the project, Sanjay (Principal, AvigoSystems) gave us two separate options for our site. The first option would require ongoing changes by someone on his team, but the second option empowered us to make any changes on a smaller scale, like the wording. We chose the second option and with that Sanjay and his team designed us a static site where potential clients can find accurate and up–to–date information on the firm. It’s become the main source of information in terms of describing what we do, how we do it, and what we charge for it.

What is the team composition?

We worked directly with Sanjay.

How did you come to work with AvigoSystems?

We had worked with two or three firms in the past, and the firm we were working with immediately before Avigo unexpectedly disengaged while our site—which they were hosting—simultaneously disappeared. Because of that, we reached out to our IT consultant in a bit of a panic for a recommendation. He suggested Avigo and after explaining the situation, Sanjay immediately helped us and got the site back up.

How much have you invested with them?

The total cost of the website redesign was around $5,000. That also included hiring a creative marketing company to design a new logo and new color scheme that is reflected in the site, as well as hiring a writer to make sure the language was easily interpreted by users.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with Avigo from approximately May 2013–May 2014.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’ve received only positive feedback from new clients or potential business colleagues. They usually comment on the site's appearance—how it’s laid out—and the functionality—how easily they could find the information they were looking for.

We usually update the site once or twice a year, and that goes very smoothly. The initial site we had Avigo design discussed our three different lines of business operations. However a few years ago, we sold one of the business operations and needed Sanjay to update the site accordingly. It was more than just removing the information. He had to redesign the entire homepage to keep it user–friendly and make sure it didn’t look like we just removed a large amount of data.

How did AvigoSystems perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicated mostly by phone and email, and Sanjay was very responsive. There were a few times that he would send us examples of page designs over email, and then, while we were all looking at the examples, we would discuss the options over the phone. We found that to be the most effective way to provide immediate feedback.

Our industry is very cyclical and seasonal in terms of workload, so there would be several months at a time where all of our attention would have to be on our clients and we weren’t able to focus on the project. He was very understanding of our schedule and busy periods and what that meant for the project. He was able to stop what he was doing and refocus when we were able to attack the project as a team. There were only one or two times when he took longer than expected to get back to us, but because of our schedule that would sometimes mean that the project had to come to a stop for longer than we wanted.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Sanjay is very competent. He knows what he’s doing and provided us with an end product we’re very happy with. I would also commend him for his honesty, which we have not found with firms previously in charge of our website. When he first came in to help redesign our website, he told us that unlike the previous firm he hosted our website through a third–party site, which ended up saving us money.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There are two areas where I could offer criticism and those would be attention to detail and timeline. There were a few times that we would send him a list of items to change on the website, and when he would send us the revision he had forgotten some from the list.

I would add that, just because of the seasonal nature of our work, we really needed things to be done quickly. At times we would only have one or two months to dedicate and would want him to respond within that timeframe. That’s more an issue of circumstance though. It’s difficult to pick up and put down, then restart a project multiple times.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

If you go into any project with a specific idea of what you want the process will be more efficient and you will be happier as a customer.