GoMage

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Home brew supplies online and in-store

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

Migration from Magento 1 based e-commerce to magento 2 and various improvements to our website.

SOLUTION

How did you select GoMage and what were the deciding factors?

A colleague chose them for competitive pricing and impressive resume of clients with similar requirements.

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

Migration of an old website to a new up-to-date one using Magento and various pluing including Wordpress.

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

Project Manager, Back-End Developers, Front-end Developers

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The website upgrade was delivered on time, and any issues faced were quickly addressed and fixed. The scope of the project increased over time to be much greater than originally discussed and this was handled well.

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

Our project manager is on hand to assist whenever needed, and although there is a time difference we have never found this a problem. We have access to our own task list so as tasks move from new to completed we see where they are at each stage.

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

I am impressed with their communication, project management, and quality of work. Also the thorough testing before deployment to ensure things work and to reduce bugs on the live site.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Sometimes we have to wait for developers to be free to work on our projects but this is mostly due to us being more reactive than proactive when requesting / booking time in advance, which would mean we had resources planned to work on our project.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are an online e-commerce store catering furniture and interior articles for both outdoors and indoors use.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We hired GoMage to help migrate from our old Magento 1 store to a new Magento 2 store. We do not have much in-house development resources so we needed a trustworthy partner for developing our website. We have continued collaborating with GoMage after the migration and they still develop our website.

SOLUTION

How did you select GoMage and what were the deciding factors?

The company had previously used GoMage for smaller projects, and they had a good reputation online.

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

Firstly we had a meeting to discuss the project requirements, we had to move hosting because we were on an old platform which had trouble running Magento 2. Adjustment of theme, implement scandinavian modules for shipping, payments etc. and general bug fixing.

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

On our project with GoMage there has been project managers, front-end developers, back-end developers, devops. About six people.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Since our website was on an outdated Magento 1 store before we started collaborating with GoMage, we have had a big increase in conversions and revenue on the new website.

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

We have daily communication through slack and are using youtrack to create, estimate and communicate on specific tasks.

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

They are available whenever they are needed and have been helpful even after working hours. E.g late afternoons. They want to help improve your projects.

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

We have had some bugs and issues, but these have been resolved quickly.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the owner of SoccerTutor.com that specialises in providing football coaching educational products for coaches.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

For 12 years we used an outdated and limited ecommerce platform that prevented the business to progress and improve our services. After extensive research, Magento 2 was the ideal ecommerce platform.

The search for Magento experts took some time but GoMage stood out the perfect team to build our shop. We sell worldwide, therefore our goals was to internationalise our shop to display and charged in 4 different currencies with auto GeoIP so seamless.

SOLUTION

How did you select GoMage and what were the deciding factors?

Selected GoMage via an online platform that showcased their projects which looked impressive. After initial contact (email and telephone) they answered all my queries and explained they can meet all our requirements. In short GoMage ticked all the boxes so I knew I found the right Magento experts.

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

The design of the shop was already done in advance however there were some flaws which GoMage suggested some subtle changes that greatly improved things. GoMage built the shop from the ground up.

They incorporated all the requirements to meet our objectives such as configuration of complex Tax rates and internationalisation.

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

Project manager in contact via Slack and the development FE and BE teams, communication via easy to use online tracker.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

An average of 21% increase in sales

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

Very good, I like communication via Slack and being able to quickly reach out to the project manager for any queries. In addition, the online tracker enables me to post new tasks and bug issues, which I can track and interact with frequent updates

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

Their expertise and knowledge of Magento was impressive. On the occasions they didn't know, they researched and provided a solutuon.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Speed in delivering their work. However I am a little impatient, and they always deliver quality.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are a lighting retailer who sells from our Magento 2 website. I am the director of Simple Lighting LTD.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We hired GoMage to take over our Magento 2 web development. They were tasked to upgrade Magento 2 to the latest version and add some modules/additional features alongside fixing some bugs. This is an ongoing project which I expect to continue.

SOLUTION

How did you select GoMage and what were the deciding factors?

I found GoMage from a Google search. They offer full project management and Yuriy was especially helpful in taking the time to understand our business and project before proceeding.

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

Upgrade Magento 2 Version Fix several bugs Speed Optimisation of Magento 2 Everything has been very professional and they have been especially quick and easy to work with.

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

I have direct contact with our project manager Victoria, she is especially helpful, polite and great to work with. The web devs - we don't have direct contact with, but it isn't needed because the project management is excellent.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our website is free from bugs, faster and our sales/website conversion rate has increased since we began working with GoMage.

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

We use slack to communicate, Victoria is very fast to reply to any query and her English is outstanding.

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

Project management & QC. Everything is fully checked before they ask me to approve it. So I have confidence that by the time they tell me that they have finished a task that it is done the right first time.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Not at the moment, everything has been smooth going without any issues.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm a product manager at a company that manufactures and supplies machine tools and accessories across the globe. My role is to improve the existing tech ecosystem and user experience on our websites.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We've hired the GoMage team to help us move to a new server and upgrade our websites to the latest Magento version. The main goals were to update the technical foundation and improve website performance.

SOLUTION

How did you select GoMage and what were the deciding factors?

We were looking for a partner with great experience in Magento development, that would be able to deal with the legacy of our existing technology

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

One of the milestones achieved is a migration to a new server and the architecture improvement, that now allows us to manage all the related activities and changes with ease. We've also done great work together to update the product category structure and website navigation.

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

Around 4 different team-members, including PM, DevOps, backend developers

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The general feedback on the deliverables is positive, GoMage team did their best to find the right solution often with a lot of uncertainty from the business side.

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

We are generally using Slack for synchronous/asynchronous communication, YouTrack for task management, and Google Meet Google Drive.

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

Their genuine willingness to help and to deliver the best outcomes, skilled developers, empathic PM are impressive.

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

We had an open conversation about the communication style that could be improved, which was received positively and improved on.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m a co-owner of a company specialized in weekly bouquets delivery.

After our customers subscribe to our services, they get bouquets delivered to their homes and offices every week.

Every bouquet is designed by experienced florists who know how to choose and combine the right flowers, shapes, and colours.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We’d found out about GoMage three years before our corporation started thanks to their GoMage LightCheckout Module. We’d been using the module for three years and wanted to change its functionality to meet our business goals better.

We got in touch with GoMage and asked to help us implement the postponement feature when a user subscribes to our weekly flower delivery. After the successful development of an additional module, we decided to move to other tasks.

Great experience with Gomage LightCheckout and high professionalism of the team were two of the main reasons why we decided to continue our cooperation with GoMage.

At the beginning of our cooperation, the main goal was to customize the GoMage LightCheckout extensions and add the postponement feature needed for our business.

After that, we moved on to other tasks, mostly related to complex customizations dedicated to taxes.

SOLUTION

How did you select GoMage and what were the deciding factors?

We first found out about GoMage when we were looking for a one-step checkout module. We came across GoMage LightCheckout and decided to go with it because of a comparatively low price, good reviews, and provided functionality.

A few years later, we decided to improve our website and add a postponement feature for our customers. Naturally, we decided to entrust GoMage with module customization since they’d developed it and knew it like no other company.

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

Our work with GoMage started with the GoMage LightCheckout module customization. Initially, it didn’t have the needed functionality. We got in touch with GoMage and their team customized the extension for our customers to specify the start of subscription and the day of the first flower delivery.

After the work was successfully delivered, we moved on to other tasks. Overall, GoMage performed a lot of customizations related to the tax system for our website to work within Swedish legislation.

Our website consists of two stores: for private customers and for business clients. In Sweden, product prices are displayed identically for individuals and legal entities.

However, the price for legal entities does not include 25% VAT. For individuals, the price includes the tax. As a part of these extensive customizations, GoMage helped us to change the payment system to Stripe.

Since Stripe doesn't support the postponement feature, we needed to customize its module so that it would allow us to have the needed functionality. GoMage performed this customization and moved to other tasks that relate to tax management.

Also, GoMage helped us to redesign our website so that now it provides a smooth user experience and looks great.

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

Over the time of our cooperation, there have been a few changes to the team. The core team never changed. All of GoMage’s developers we’ve worked with have strong knowledge of Magento and can boast a senior level of knowledge.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We are fully satisfied with the service that GoMage provides. Over the course of our cooperation, our sales grew by 45%.

Our website always runs at the highest performance. What is more important, our website fully conforms to Swedish legislation, which is very important for us as a company serving both private customers and businesses.

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

GoMage has years of experience and we can see it clearly in how they organize all the processes inside our project. We mostly cooperate with Andrey, our Project Manager, who oversees all the tasks.

Our team users YouTrack for task management. The team always provides every task estimation, so we know how much time they spend on development. They often surprise us by delivering results before deadlines.

If we have some urgent tasks, they always manage to deliver them even on a tight schedule.

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

GoMage breezes through any challenging tasks and always delivers the best results. The team we are working with consists of highly professional Magento developers who easily develop functionality up to our business needs.

GoMage is a team of great professionals who know how to solve any problem and deliver high quality of work

Are there any areas for improvement?

Right now, I don’t see any areas of improvement. They have been improving the processes inside their company and our project.

Today, all processes run like a well-oiled machine. They also have a high level of English, and we have no problems communicating with the team.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m CEO & Co-Founder of a worldwide platform for self-designed and customized clothes and accessories. We provide a range of services such as print-on-demand products with the ability to add custom designs or use the ones sold by designers. Designers get a commission every product sold with their design.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire GoMage?

We had a Magento website that was developed by another vendor and we needed to implement the product customization feature and purchased the GoMage Product Designer extension. Once the extension was installed by the GoMage, we have asked them to make some custom changes in the extension according to our needs. The GoMage was making all the necessary changes fast and the quality of the work was really good and we continued asking them to do more and more changes in their extension to implement the features that our business needed.

Once the customizations of the extension started to transform into ongoing work, the Managing Director of GoMage, Yuriy has contacted me directly and proposed to move our cooperation to the next level and proposed much better terms and conditions and better dedication of their team after signing the long term agreement.

What were your goals for this project?

The main goal at the beginning was to implement the product customization feature into our Magento website.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

As we were going to introduce print-on-demand services, we needed the corresponding functionality. GoMage’s extension Product Designer fit our business requirements and allowed us to implement the needed functionality within hours. We got in touch with GoMage for extension customization and after a great work was done, we decided to go on with our cooperation.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Initially, our website was just the ordinary Magento eCommerce site and then GoMage has added the unique feature to our website that allowed our clients to create a unique design for the products (t-shirt, cup, etc.) and purchase it. Later we have decided to change the business model and turn the website into a multi-vendor crowdfunding platform where there are the designers that are creating the products with their unique designs and selling those designs on this website and have the dashboard where they are monitoring the statistics, sales, profit, etc. and the users who are purchasing those products from the website.

GoMage quickly dedicated a team of developers to implement tons of the requested custom features into our Magento website within a short period of time. After making these changes the website become extremely popular in the incredibly short-term and the number of products grew from a few thousand to a multi-million catalog of the products and continue growing with a huge speed and Magento simply wasn't ready for it and GoMage had to quickly find a solution for this issue under a lot of pressure.

The solution was the following: they have created a custom entity instead of the heavy default Magento products and fully customized Magento to work with this custom entity instead of the default products. We had to re-develop about 70% of the website functionality in order to do it and it worked great! The number of products continued to grow and until this day we didn’t have any issues with the website speed and stability.

Right now we have 29 million product variations on our website and the website still works fast and stable. Also, GoMage has created a sophisticated cluster of servers and optimized them properly to handle the load that is constantly increasing and they are providing 24/7 support for our servers and our website.

In addition to that, GoMage has developed the fully custom standalone micro-service to work with the media files because we currently have about 12 TB of the media files and Magento obviously couldn’t handle such amount of media files by the default. Right now GoMage is migrating our website to Magento 2 and they are developing an additional micro-service that will replace the current heavily customized GoMage Product Designer extension.

What was the team composition?

The team has been changing a bit over the years but the core team of developers remained unchanged. All of them are really strong Senior Magento developers and system architects. They all had a high level of competence and are pleasant to work with.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

GoMage team provides us with the quality of services and expertise that our previous agency could not guarantee. They easily increased our website’s speed by 10 times, which directly influenced our revenue.

Overy the years, they showed their deep expertise and ability to turn even our unrealistic ideas into robust features. They always deliver results on time and guarantee high quality even if they need to work within short deadlines.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Working with GoMage had always been easy. We mainly communicate with Alexander, our project manager, and can track the progress of every task in YouTrack. Before they start on any task, they tell us the time they are going to spend so that we know how long each task will take.

If we need to implement some feature super-fast, they are fine with working beyond their usual hours. That’s why we always know that if we have some urgent tasks, they will be there for us. Sometimes they even deliver results faster.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their expertise is beyond the highest expectations. They always go out to offer the best solutions and to bring new functionality and improvements as fast as possible. They have Magento certified developers, which results in the high quality of work they deliver. They are a strong team, and we have no doubt that they will be able to take on any task, regardless of its difficulty.

Are there any areas for improvement?

I don’t see any area for improvement right now. Over the years, they’ve refined their processes to perfection.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work at an e-commerce website design and development agency.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with GoMage?

We contract with developers when we need additional resources, so we hired GoMage for a specific project.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We focus on the Magento e-commerce platform. GoMage assists us with frontend and custom backend development. Every project is unique with individual challenges and requirements. They assist in planning and executing integrations and customizations we need for specific projects. 

What is the team composition?

It differs for each project. GoMage assigns a project manager for each project along with a single frontend resource or backend resources as needed. I’m in touch with both the project manager and developers throughout the processes. 

How did you come to work with GoMage?

I don’t remember exactly; it might have been a referral.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent $180,000–$240,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project started in May 2018 and is ongoing

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

GoMage does white-labeled work so we don’t have customer feedback on their parts. From my perspective, having additional resources at our disposal just adds a layer of reliability on our end. We can give them short notice and have them assist us on urgent projects. With that level of resource availability, GoMage is like an extension of our team, which has definitely helped us substantially

How did GoMage perform from a project management standpoint?

The communication is pretty good. We can talk as a team to clarify project specs and timelines. They’re good at diagnosing and identifying issues that might arise beforehand. We use Slack for day-to-day communication and Utrecht for project management. They’re also good with timelines and keeping deadlines. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their reliability is what stands out to me. We can contact them on the fly and have resources available for whatever work we need that day. It’s a good relationship.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Their communication is good but could always be better. I can’t think of anything specific on that.

Any advice for potential customers?

Be specific with your product requirements upfront. Work with them to analyze all those specifications and identify possible scenarios that might require additional planning.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the owner of Bounce Back Sports, a sporting goods store. About 90% of our sales take place online through our website and third-party channels, like eBay, Walmart, and Amazon.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with GoMage?

Our website was done by another organization in 2013. It was having lots of issues, but the company was not being responsive.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

GoMage took over my company’s website. They wrote modules to get our products over to third-parties channels and to troubleshoot our errors. They also notified us that we needed to upgrade our Magento platform because it would no longer be supported. They presented the different things we needed to do and what steps they recommended. We followed their recommendations and successfully integrated a new Magento platform. 

As we were doing that, I needed another website for another business I have, GoMage built that from scratch.

What is the team composition?

Alexander (Project Manager) is my main contact, but I worked with someone else first. There are also usually several other team members.

How did you come to work with GoMage?

I went to Upwork and put out a job looking for people experienced with Magento. I looked at how each company’s previous assignments and the way they answered my questions when I interviewed them. I consulted with friends who know a little about this work, and they gave me more questions to ask. 

GoMage was confident and gave examples that matched up with what they were saying. We started with little projects, and they provided to be responsive and able to do what they said they would. They’re now the only people I use for my website. 

How much have you invested with them?

I’ve spent about $45,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in maybe February 2013 or 2014. GoMage is currently tweaking our site, and the other site for my other business is ready to go live.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Everything GoMage has done has been good. For example, once we had an issue where Google marked us an unsafe site. Even though it wasn’t their responsibility, GoMage got in, fixed the problem within 48 hours, and didn’t charge me. That really impressed me.

In addition, they don’t sell me on things that won’t benefit my company. GoMage instead gives me a wide range of options, and when I decide what to do, they proceed with it and make it happen. It’s also been an affordable experience.

How did GoMage perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re very responsive to my ideas, questions, and goals. They bring back options that would work best for what I’m looking for. They also work within my time zone. 

The communication is outstanding as well. There is a language barrier, but they have translators with full English fluency. We communicate over a Utrecht system, which they walked me through step by step. I also talk with Alexander once a week over Skype, and we email every couple of days. They’re really responsive. I have nothing bad to say about them whatsoever; they’ve done good work for me, and I’d have no problem referring other people to them.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their quality of work is tremendous. Compared to other people’s sites, ours looks phenomenal. Our marketing agency was blown away by the quality and the way it looks, and so are other people. Also, thanks to GoMage’s modules, we also no longer have to use a channel advisor to manage our inventory with our third-party channels. It was huge to be able to cut that cost. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I’d love it if GoMage could add more graphic design, but I don’t know if that’s in their realm. I’d also like them to be more familiar with other third party sites like Facebook Marketplace and Groupon; I want to launch there as well. Otherwise, I can’t think of anything. they’re responsive to email and answer in language that I understand. If I have questions about an invoice or finances, they go through it and explain it to me. I hope they continue progressing and learning other sites to help me grow. 

Any advice for potential customers?

Gave a clear goal about what you’re wanting to accomplish. Find a website you like and identify what you like about it. It’ll save you money and time. That was my biggest fault; I knew nothing about websites, I just knew I wanted one. It took a lot of time to communicate what I was looking for from there.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the co-founder of Make My Blinds. I oversee mostly all the operations side of the business, including managing web development tasks.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with GoMage?

Our company was previously working with another agency local to us in Bristol. However, we were really struggling to get the quality of development work we needed, both in terms of output from an agency and just having the technical knowhow. We needed to find a new agency that was good enough and met our needs.

Essentially, we had a long list of jobs and operational efficiencies that needed completing. One of the most important tasks was improving the speed of our site because it was terribly slow. We wanted to find the best people we could and had to go international to find them.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our team has an ongoing list of jobs we’ve always wanted to do but were held back by our previous agency. First and foremost, GoMage performed a full code audit of our website. This helped identify issues that had been botched by the last agency. A lot of the problems involved some needed clean-up and fixes on the backend coding. GoMage also implemented Algolia, which is a quick search system for websites.

Their team handled the process of reformatting our site’s frontend, which encompassed entire category and search function rebuilds. They also automated our manual process of sending free samples to customers who request them.

Another big task they’re currently working on is electronically linking our website directly to our supplier. We won’t have to manually place any orders anymore because our Magento site will talk to the supplier’s interface.

GoMage provides 24/7 server support and also does some work for our blog. They swapped the blog platform hosted on Magento and used a plugin that one of their developers built. Mostly everything is project-based and clearly allocated in terms of time and resources. The Algolia search transition is one of the bigger projects.

What is the team composition?

I mostly speak to Yuriy (Customer Success Manager) for issue-related things. We also interact with about four people, including an account manager and frontend developer.

How did you come to work with GoMage?

I conducted a Google search for Magento agencies in Kyiv. Magento originated from Kyiv, so if we wanted the best people for the job, we had to go to the source. My co-founder and I traveled there and met with 3–4 different agencies.

GoMage had the best office setup. They didn’t have the largest number of developers, but they were purely focused on Magento rather than doing lots of different coding languages. This would present the risk of their team stretching themselves too far, which is what some of the other agencies seemed to be doing.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested between $16,000–$20,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing engagement began in January 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Their team has massively improved the speed and performance of our website. Because we’ve experienced several agencies now, we have a good sense of who’s good and who isn’t. When it comes to GoMage, our requests have never been a problem. They’re always fine with every task we present them. If not, they suggest an even quicker or better way to handle something. There’s never any resistance from their side, and they’re very solution-oriented.

A particularly amazing feat was when they handled the free sample process automation. They finished that project in just eight hours. They went from a concept we didn’t know was even possible and by the end of the day had built it on our development site. They rolled it onto production the following morning. It was extremely quick.

Their work with electronically linking our website directly to our supplier has saved us hours of work a week and has become fully automated.

One time, we had an issue where our site went down on a Saturday morning. Within five minutes of me contacting them about this error, they responded that they had fixed it. They work at a rapid speed. The best way to describe them is that they’re constantly thinking outside of the box to come up with different ways to fix problems and provide solutions.

On top of everything, the value we’re getting is immense in terms of the fact that they’re half the cost of a UK development team who isn’t fully qualified in Magento. Overall, we’re very happy and very satisfied.

How did GoMage perform from a project management standpoint?

We put the GoMage team onto a dashboard that features screenshots of what we’re looking to achieve. The information gets passed from the account manager to a developer. There’s always clarity on who’s working on what projects. We have a Slack channel we use every day for quick questions here and there.

When we put a project on the dashboard, our account manager will estimate that it’ll take X number of hours. We give them approval, and they go off and complete the project. Once finished, they provide feedback reporting on how long it actually took them. They’ve always come right on the money or just under what they quoted in terms of hours.

Before starting anything, they always communicate time expectations so there’s never any shock or guesswork in how long they’re spending on certain projects. Everything is tracked through YouTrack so we know how many hours are spent on different elements. There’s clear reporting on their work so we’re able to see all project stages.

There’s fluidity in our conversations with them. We don’t need everything to be very structured because we trust them to do a good job. They’re even good at chasing us down if we’re the ones causing a delay. We have a very good system.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their speed is the most impressive attribute about them. An example of this was when we quoted our previous agency to handle some speed optimization for the website. They quoted it would take 150 hours — GoMage did it in about 15 hours. They took our desktop site from a 45 on the Google Lighthouse speed check to a 92. Compared to other agencies, they completely blow their competitors out of the water, especially when it comes to speed.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there are no areas for improvement.