What was the scope of their involvement?
We have a relatively complicated website. Because we sell tickets to our various events there’s an e-commerce component, but we layer on top of that a subscription model. If you’re a dues-paying member, then you get discounted pricing on all of our events. Those two things working together creates a relatively complicated background for the websites. Wordpress, which had been our platform of choice, wasn’t able to deal with our needs. On January 23rd, we launched the website. They had to deal with the incumbent agency who lost the job, and they were really good with that. Very smooth transition. Knock on wood, we haven’t had a single problem. Granted, it’s still a little early in the game, but we’ve done four events so far and we haven’t had one issue. What we built is incredibly well received by our members.
We went into this identifying some improvements on design and navigation and functionality, but Big Drop really gave us so many additional ideas on how to make it a more valuable tool for our members. An example of that was that we now offer members a dashboard where they can go in and see all of their prior purchases, print out receipts, download spreadsheets of their purchases. They created a member directory so you can see people’s photos. These were things we hadn’t thought were possible. They created a user experience that’s very smart and reasonable.
How did you come to work with Big Drop?
We did an agency search. The agency that had designed our previous website was in the mix, but they frankly couldn’t convince us that they suddenly knew how to fix things and deal with our complicated needs. So we wound up speaking with nine agencies. One came back to us and said they didn’t think we had enough money to afford them, thank you very much. Another one was a one-man shop, which we dismissed out of hand. The other seven had project estimates ranging from $17,000 to &170,000. We got rid of the outliers and wound up speaking with three who were middle-of-the-road.
Based on in-person interviews, we decided to go with Big Drop. From their initial conversation, they simply brought so many additional ideas to the table. We didn’t even think that we were looking for that, but we were very impressed. They also gave us a very high level of confidence that they would be able to build what we need and most importantly, maintain it. That’s exactly what we did.
How much have you invested with BigDrop?
Their initial bid was in the $40,000-$60,000 range.
What is the status of this engagement?
We started negotiating late last year, but we went into review in early 2016. We hired them in June or July. They’re still supporting the site, but it’s live.
Internal stakeholders are pleased with the website and are convinced it will attract new business. Big Drop instituted an effective project plan, and the efforts they took to minimize up-front costs were greatly appreciated. Customers can expect a flexible, experienced partner.