CHRS Interactive

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company, and your role and responsibilities.

We are a Southern California footwear and athletic wear retailer. We're in Inglewood, Calif., but we service the greater Los Angeles area. We have about six stores. I am the director of e-commerce.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your goal for working with CHRS Interactive?

CHRS took over a project for us as our lead consultants for our e-commerce website. It wasn’t a complete build out, but it was a restructuring and installing some plug-ins and clean up on our backend for our e-commerce platform. We use Magento as our e-commerce platform. It's a good fit for our organization.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their work.

CHRS installed a couple of plug-ins. They helped us in building out some custom layouts, but it wasn't anything intensive that required consulting or studies. That was all done by my in-house team. They generally did cleanup and made sure that everything was installed correctly, that all the cables were connected, and so on. They did that more so on the frontend, making sure that the checkout process was complete, and the like. We had worked with other vendors in the past, and we were in the process to switching to some additional plug-ins. We no longer were working with those other vendors. CHRS was recommended to us, and we were happy with what they were able to accomplish for us.

CHRS also helped during the transition when we moved from a shared server to a dedicated server. They worked with the network provider

What was your process for selecting CHRS Interactive with which to work?

Another third party that we were working with had also worked with CHRS in the past on a Magento project. The price and the time were right, and their work ethic was fine.

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

It took less than a week, and probably less than 40 hours. We have used CHRS for troubleshooting and other minor applications that we wanted, on an as-needed basis. The work is finished, but any time we want to try something out or ask their advice, we always reach out to CHRS, since they essentially cleaned up our project. They are a great liaison and helped with the transition.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Traffic increased because we, along with CHRS, figured out that our servers need to be upgraded in order to meet the traffic that we were getting. We also needed to make the checkout process quicker and make the site upload faster. With his advice and a lot of our work, we came to those conclusions.

Everything was carried out the way it was supposed to. They did the troubleshooting and check in every now and then to see how things are going. All the work they performed for us has been fine. They were very easy to reach and contact.

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

When compared with the other people that we have worked with in the past, they have definitely been the easiest to contact. That is the biggest positive. They are very accessible, and they make themselves available not only during business hours, but also after hours. They will help with what they can before billing you for a small fix. They’re not out to bill you for every last minute that they work. They'll work with you and say how we can do something smarter versus doing something where they bill us for everything. That is why our relationship continues.

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

Since our projects carry over, and we like to test them in a sandbox environment on the fly, perhaps scheduling on both parts could be a little better. I think we have that communication between us where we can exchange ideas. That can be application positive at times, but if we want to do things formally, that wouldn’t work for a bigger project. The first project we worked on was very formal, on a timeline, and every deadline was met. They did the troubleshooting correctly. It was a positive experience.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your firm.

We’re a swimwear manufacturer based in Orange County. We sell to various surf retailers, high-end retailers as well as online vendors.

What is your role and responsibilities?

I am the marketing and PR coordinator. I work directly with CHRS with everything website related as far as all the changes we needed in development. That’s where they came in for us.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your goal for that work?

Before CHRS Interactive came on board, we were working with a different company and their price quote was better for us. He was just able to give us exactly what we wanted as far as website development and features. We’ve been working with them for two years now. Web development took a while, but from then on, it was just our typical website maintenance, and we’d update our website every season with a new collection.

Do you have a small maintenance contract with them now?

Yes. It’s really just small touchups here and there.

SOLUTION

Can you please describe the scope of this work in a bit more detail?

It was just more development and design.

How much design help did you provide to CHRS Interactive?

It was a little bit like he contributed some. We maybe had an idea and we would present that and bring it on the table. He would either say, “Okay, great,” or, “Here are some other options for you to consider too.” He definitely helped collaborate with us when it came to new features I wanted to add to our website.

What was your process for selecting them?

That question, I actually wouldn’t be able to answer. I feel like the owner of the company had him recommended by a lady who did some of the graphics for our website. I can’t give you more information than that.

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

I would say between $15,000 and $20,000 in total for everything. The way it works is when a new season of ours would launch. We would have them do a whole revamp of the website because we would have entirely new imagery. That would be a huge project that he’d work on from August until late September. That’s where the bulk of it comes from. Throughout the year, I just send him regular updates that we need.

Do you have any plans to stop the work?

It’s going to be ongoing indefinitely. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the results of the project so far, do you have statistics or metrics?

Actually, we don’t. We don’t sell direct, so we don’t do the metrics.

How about feedback from users or employees just kind of anecdotal stuff?

What’s great with him is once in a while we’ll need an urgent change on our website immediately. CHRS is really good about getting back to us and making the change that we need.

Is anything else unique or special about CHRS compared to other firms?

I think just working with them in general is unique. He [CHRS Interactive’s owner Artin Hovhanesian] is very personable. They seem like someone that’s on our team as opposed to someone on the outside.

Is there anything that you think they could improve upon or something that you might do differently?

Actually, no, because if it’s something that isn’t clear through the email we sent, they will give us a call and make sure to understand what we’re trying to convey. They are just very thorough with that.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company.

Cornerstone Theater Company is a nonprofit that makes community-based theater. We will go into a community, hear their stories and their issues, and we write a play based on those stories and issues. We cast the play with the community members as well as our professional actors. We are based in Los Angeles, but we do plays all around the country.

What is your role and responsibilities?

I am the communications assistant.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your goal for working with CHRS Interactive?

We needed someone to help get our website up to date as far as its backend. We really needed some help with updating some of the templates, plug-ins, and customizing certain features to work with the production that had been coming up at that time. CHRS stepped in and definitely helped us out.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their work.

We wanted a way to get the radio player linked up on our page. We were doing a play in Los Angeles at the time. We had a community member who had an Internet radio station, and we wanted a way to link to it from our page so we could launch a player. We did a lot of research and looked into the plug-in. We couldn’t find one that allowed us to have a widget on the page, but we linked to the URL to play the radio station. CHRS did a lot of research whenever we asked him to do something. They found the best plug-ins that would work for us, and they installed it for us. We wanted a calendar, and they found a great plug-in for that and got it set up for us. We used that for our last production.

What was your process for selecting CHRS Interactive with which to work?

I found them online and wanted one that was local. We wanted the option to do a face-to-face meeting. They were so good at getting back to me via email and phone that we didn’t have to meet in person. They started working on what we needed right away. When we first started working with CHRS, we were having issues with our site being affected by malware. This was when we were trying to sell tickets for a show. A lot of people noticed that the site wasn’t working. CHRS stepped in and updated our plug-ins and our security features. They helped us so much with that ongoing battle, but we haven’t had that problem for a while.

CHRS really helped us with that. We were using another WordPress before, but that wasn’t working out for us. It is still a WordPress-based site with the WordPress backend, so we could change what we needed to the best of our abilities. Once the site was designed, we had to find a WordPress developer to maintain the site and make changes. WordPress is working well for us. We can log in from wherever we are and make quick changes. It's not too complicated. We were able to train people in the office to use it.

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

It was less than $100 an hour. I believe it was $65 per hour, which is a good deal for the work. He wasn’t the initial website designer. He gave us a quote for how many hours a project will take, and we approve the work before he starts.

When was the project completed?

We're in between plays right now, but he did some small projects for us after getting the radio station and calendar put together. Stopping our website from crashing was huge. He even offered to change our hosting company for us. He had done the research and offered to help us move to a different server. That was above what we expected. He didn’t have to do that, but he went the extra mile for us.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

How was CHRS Interactive's performance?

On a scale of one to 10, I’d give them a 10. They do everything that we ask them to do. They do it very quickly and stay in contact with me by phone or email. They let us know their availability, so we're never left in the dark.

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

We were using someone before. When we asked them to do something, we may or may not hear back from them. We are a professional organization, and we need to work with professionals. CHRS brought professionalism to the table.

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

There isn’t anything. They’ve been on point for us.