Big Drop

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

During the year before the website launch, I slowly dropped advertising in anticipation of better returns on ad investment. By the time of launch in January 2018, traffic was at its bare minimum, as were sales. At the first day of the launch, sales instantly quadrupled! The new checkout system makes it fun for customers to buy my products.

How did they perform from a project management standpoint? 

They were amazing. I wrote them a personal thank you note. Whenever I asked a question, they always knew the answer to it. They were extremely responsive and addressed any issues or bugs immediately. I also wrote a public review on Google commending them on their work. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They have a top-level team and I can't imagine that anyone can be better. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can't think of anything. 

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

I trust them: I know that I go to bed at night and I’m not going to wake up in the morning with some user sending me an email saying that the website is down or they can’t log in, which is the experience I had with the prior agency. I couldn’t go a week without some snafu. I have a very high level of confidence with Big Drop. As part of their maintenance package, they have all of these alerts built in, which have not been triggered. If something were to go wrong on the Big Drop site, I’m confident they’re going to know about it before a user comes and tells me.

What did you find most impressive about Big Drop?

We might suggest something and they will always keep us straight about what’s the best practice in the industry. A lot of their back-office stuff is overseas, and that was a concern for us because of time zones. That hasn’t been an issue at all. I’m in New York, and when I’ve asked for East Coast time zone support, it’s always been there.

I have been able to take advantage of the seven-hour difference with the development guys, because I’ll send them a list of things that I want to be updated or changed, and I know that when I come into the office the next day, all of those things are taken care of. We jump on phone calls all the time – when it’s needed – and they’re very receptive. The maintenance package I pay is less than the retainer I paid at the prior agency, which frankly moaned each month about how we were spending more hours each month than what their retainer covered.

Are there any areas Big Drop could improve?

There have been times where they’ve written a little web text or email communication where the American English was not perfect. Part of it was that I should have been doing that writing, but that’s one thing I’ll ding them for.

What tips or recommendations could you share that might increase the likelihood of success with Big Drop?

After I engaged with them, I went through a series of project managers. The first one sets the stage. In our case, she worked with us to figure out exactly what we wanted to build. Once she had that mapped out, she brought in a design manager who worked out how it should look. He built the wireframes. And then ultimately there was the development project manager who figured out how to code everything. If I were to do this all again, I would want the development person and the design person to sit in the very first meeting so that when I described my dream product, those things would happen. Sometimes I thought of stuff that ultimately wasn’t going to make sense, and it would have been better to learn that early on. It wouldn’t have changed anything either in the pricing or the timing; it would have just managed my expectations a little bit. Likewise, there was much more that they brought to the table than they would have taken off my wish list, and if I had their input earlier on, I probably could have maximized the experience a little more. This is in no way a negative; I’ve just learned a more optimal way to get more out of Big Drop.