Majestic

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the operation manager at Merlan Scientific, a company selling science and educational equipment to Canada’s education and other industries. 

What challenge were you trying to address with Majestic?

Our old website was outdated, not user-friendly, and it gave us problems with our checkout process, conversion rates, and others. Because of that, we wanted a more modern site to improve our sales. 

The COVID-19 pandemic had significantly impacted our business. Our primary customers were schools that transitioned to online learning, so there wasn’t as much demand for our products. We were looking to invest in digital marketing to grow our revenue. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

Majestic has built our Shopify website, and they’ve found various plug-ins for our platform that can help with our business needs. We wanted to maintain some of our old website’s look, and they studied our old site to see what could be copied. However, the new site has been developed from scratch. 

First, we presented Majestic with what we were looking to achieve in our website’s look and feel. They came back with some recommended templates, and I picked what I liked based on its aesthetics. 

We carry over 10,000 products, and Majestic told us that that was too much to put on our website. I reviewed our offerings, and I found that we had thousands of products that we had never sold in the past 5–6 years. They were still available to our customers, but it didn’t make sense to upload 10,000 products on our site when 5,000 of them weren’t active SKUs. 

We modified our assortment and only included what made sense for our business. Still, the amount involved required a lot of work from Majestic’s end. After that, they conducted user acceptance testing, and they were very good at going back and fixing things for us as we gave them new information.

Majestic has already completed most of the development work, and the site is about to go live.

What is the team composition?

I’ve worked with John (Client Strategy VP), who has conducted the initial groundwork to figure out our needs. Their creative lead and head developer are my primary contacts, and there has been another developer on our conference calls and email threads. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about $10,000 CAD (approximately $8,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in November 2020, and it’s ongoing.

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

Overall, I’m pleased with Majestic’s work — they’ve put together a good website. Our new site is much better compared to our old platform. 

In addition, Majestic is good at bringing their expertise to the table, which is helpful for someone like me who doesn’t have a lot of marketing resources. 

How did Majestic perform from a project management standpoint?

Majestic has stuck to our budget, and our communication has been excellent. If I send an email request, they’re good at responding very quickly. They acknowledge emails, and their follow-up comes within a reasonable timeline. 

We communicate through Google Meet and phone calls.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Majestic has worked with our relatively smaller budget, and they’re really good at helping us find solutions. Additionally, I’m happy with their communication and responsiveness. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could’ve been more intuitive about improvements rather than having me initiate changes all the time. They could’ve also been more proactive with their work instead of being reactive to my requests. That said, my experience with Majestic hasn’t been different from my experience with other developers. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Set your expectations with timelines and other things up front, and make sure they understand your business. Give them as much information as you can about your business so they can do their thing and work their magic. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We're a Canadian bank with retail operations in a number of countries, and we’re heavily focused in Latin America and the Caribbean. We have football sponsorship programs in Latin America. It’s very similar to what we do in Canada with hockey. I’m a senior manager in global media and marketing.

What challenge were you trying to address with Majestic?

We were building a campaign website. Our internal IT team is focused on building apps and websites that enable online banking and other services. Majestic fills the gap when it comes to websites for marketing campaigns and contests. This enables our internal team to focus its expertise on security and service-delivery.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Majestic developed a marketing website with a look and feel matching that of our bank.

What is the team composition?

The team size varies depending on our need on any given task. For the projects I’ve been involved with, the team size has been 3–4 people.

How did you come to work with Majestic?

They were a current vendor, and I appreciated their understanding of both coding and marketing. My first connection with them was on this project, which had begun when I started my position at the bank. I had a vision for revamping the site and making it more user-friendly and engaging. During that time, I came to learn that Majestic wasn’t just a coding team, they really knew how to engage people.

How much have you invested with them?

The annual cost varies from $500,000–$1,000,000 CAD (approximately $379,100–$758,200 USD) across all our projects with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We've been working with them since about March 2016.

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

Majestic has handled several campaign-focused projects, centered around websites we’ve built for sports contests. The campaigns have all exceeded expectations. They build sites and provide feedback on UX, but there’s also a media and marketing team behind our success.

How did Majestic perform from a project management standpoint?

The standard protocol for a Majestic project is to start with an initial briefing from me through email or phone. We follow that up with a more formal discussion on specifications. Majestic will return with a comprehensive specifications document that outlines the features, timelines, and costs.

Then, they’ll usually assign a dedicated project manager. I’ve mainly worked with one project manager, except for one instance when she was on leave. Having a single point of contact is great.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re diligent in reminding us when we need to provide collateral or feedback. They’re good at making sure projects are rolling along without being controlling.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Sometimes, they make an extra feature without charging us for it. Typically, that's a great thing, but it’ll cause a bit of a delay on our end. For the most part, I really have no complaints.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Based on the feedback from other teams in the bank that I've worked with Majestic, laying out everything that needs to be accomplished is key. They work best when they know what the goal is. Because they understand how digital marketing works, it’s always helpful to tell them what we actually want to accomplish.