Oyova

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a customer service sports job database. We post jobs in the sports industry and cater to both job seekers and employers.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Oyova?

We were not doing well in retaining our membership and bringing on new members because the site was slow and had issues. wanted to increase membership rate and needed help getting us back on track. We were also looking to offer more services to our employers.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Oyova was able to put in new features for us and implement development so that we can grow membership with employers in particular. They do social media, digital marketing, SEO — everything you can think of.

What is the team composition?

We work with 3–4 people.

How did you come to work with Oyova?

I searched Google and found Oyova. They were close to my neighborhood, so I stopped in and met with my owner.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $100,000 between both years.

What is the status of this engagement?

We signed on in April 2018, and we still use them for our development needs. We have no internal IT people, so for any obstacles we run into, they do our maintenance and IT repairs.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’ve seen drastic growth month-over-month in our membership numbers ever since we started working together. Oyova is always available and able to add new features or change things whenever we need to. They’re welcome to new ideas and great about suggesting things that might enhance our business as well.

How did Oyova perform from a project management standpoint?

I just email the developer I work with. They use Teamwork internally so I sometimes log in to check the project status, but I don’t need to do it often. They’re very communicative. I’ve never had a problem because they’ve always been very open and honest whenever there’s a delay or timeline variation.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I like having an answer right way, and Oyova has been awesome at that. As soon as I email them, one of their account managers is always all over it and reply back immediately. Even if it’s just to say they’re working on it or explain a delay, they always keep us informed.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t think so. They’re great.

Any advice for potential customers?

Go for it — they’re great to work with. Be transparent and honest with them, and they’ll be exactly the same with you. You’ll be super successful.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a payroll tax specialist at a payroll company that works with large and small companies across the United States. I handle all out-of-state, federal, and state tax tasks.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Oyova?

My boss wanted to build his own tax system software.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our payroll system doesn’t render any tax information, so we always have to transfer our data from the payroll system to the tax system. They developed software for us to generate all business payroll documentation and information that we needed to submit to the IRS or individual state. Their front- and backend work allowed us to handle this whole process electronically.

What is the team composition?

I worked with two of their team members, and both were amazing. 

How did you come to work with Oyova?

I wasn’t involved with the hiring process but was the point of contact for our relationship with them because I’m involved with taxes here.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from September 2018–February 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They’ve been helpful in working with our requirements and according to our timeframe. Every time we threw a new challenge their way, they ran with it. When I’ve provided suggestions for improvement to their team, they’ve corrected the issue within the week.  

How did Oyova perform from a project management standpoint?

We emailed back and forth on a regular basis and also met weekly over a screen-sharing call. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’ve never had to wait for a response from them. I knew that I could count on them to communicate effectively with me.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything.  

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Hire them. They’re definitely the right team for the job.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We a digital marketing agency. We outsource our web development to Oyova. I'm the Managing Director at Lure Creative.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Oyova?

We have used Oyova for all of our development work. They now done development for us on over 15+ web projects.

What were your goals for this project?

Responsive design / development on a custom design website. It was a complete rebuild of the front end and the back end.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We have used them before and the quality of their work and their client service is better than any partner I've worked with previously.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

They developed, configured and helped us launch a completely new site. There was a lot of custom development that had to happen to meet the client build requirements. We began with a discovery session so Oyova could ask questions regarding the build requirements and expectations.

Once requirements were defined Oyova started the build. Even with all the custom development Oyova finished the build within the desired timeframe and the finished product exceeded our client's expectations.

What was the team composition?

The team consisted of 3 from my agency and 3 from Oyova (a dedicated project manager, a go-to developer and a technical architect).

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They delivered within the client expected timeline and they delivered a final product that the client was super happy with. They indirectly reinforced my agency's value to our client.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

It was fantastic. Any and all calls / emails were answered thoroughly and very promptly.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I could go on and on but to boil it down to what I think is the most impressive thing I would say it's that they don't just say they take pride in their work, they display it. They always deliver on what they say they will.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No. They are fantastic to work with.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We own a small, family-owned sports nutrition business that exists to connect health-conscious people with excellent products, engaging content and excellent customer service. Our vision is to empower individuals to become the healthiest version of themselves.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Oyova?

Our initial web design was not working the way we envisioned so we hired Oyova to make functional design changes and improve the overall functionality of our ecommerce engine. That has evolved into doing a complete re-brand of the website and we have engaged them in digital marketing consulting as well.

What were your goals for this project?

To create a well-functioning online store that fits within our mission of providing engaging content, excellent products and service. In addition, we wanted ease of use to be a guiding principle when coming to our site and shopping.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

They came recommended to us by another vendor. We spoke with them via a zoom meeting, layed out our objectives and learned more about what they could do for us. We were so impressed with their process, accountability and interest in what we were doing that we elected to go with them rather than do an RFP.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

They re-designed the back end of the website while maintaining the design elements that we loved. They integrated a new development tool that allowed us to make certain changes on our own, which ultimately reduced the cost we would have paid them or another developer. In addition, they helped us learn how to optimize our content for SEO rank and also worked with us in creating a digital marketing campaign.

What was the team composition?

The thing we liked most about their process is having a single point of contact we could interact with. Our account manager, Beth, has been terrific and is very responsive. In addition, during the development phase we had routine updates and calls with Ryan, the chief developer. Finally, the financial aspect was very transparent, with weekly updates on hours devoted to the project compared to budget. There were no surprises on cost.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We are thrilled with our project and have actually engaged them to work on the re-design of our re-branded site.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Very effective. See above---solid project plan, great communication, transparency

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The team was very focused on our business outcomes. It has been our experience that delays and poor communication happen all to much in this part of the business. With Oyova, that just wasn't the case.

Are there any areas for improvement?

The only area for improvement that I can see is on a more formal and timely reporting process for the digital marketing campaign analytics. Sometimes I have to ask for the results when I feel like it should be a routine weekly process.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Board Member and Web Master of ORPCA, the Oregon Region Porsche Club of America. We have around 1100 local members.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Oyova?

Complete redesign of a WordPress based site for the Porsche Club with heavy use of multimedia. The site supports the clubs event calendar, registration for event, payments of dues and event tickets, club news, tech blog, monthly club magazine, online shop.membership management. Oyova provided development support for picking and configuring plug-ins, PHP functions, customizations as well as hosting of the site on WPEngine.

What were your goals for this project?

High reliability, low maintenance cost, easy content management, membership management, blogs, event photos and videos, weekly news. Online payment support for dues and tickets as well as online shop.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Recommendation from our previous hosting and development partner who had moved into a different market niche. Oyova offered flexible development support, hosting support, availability for rapid debugging, excellent cost

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Oyova provided the hosting for the life, the staging and the back-up of the old club web site. In addition Oyova supported the selection and customization of key plug ins for flexible import and export of membership data, membership management, site database transfer, forms, content management.

What was the team composition?

I did the front end development for the site, another club member did QA and content transfer, Oyova provided up to 3 developers for configuration setup, script development an php custom function development. Prior to launch and post launch Oyova provided functional debugging support and stability testing support.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The maintenance cost of the new site compared to the old site is 80% less, a significant cost saving for a non-profit car club. Easy of use is excellent, maintenance effort is low. Member use of the site has increased significantly. Virtually all financial transactions are now handled by the web site (previously labor and time intense check and cash payments).

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

During the design and dev phase we had weekly conference calls supported by cloud based project management tools. In the weeks prior to release we had almost daily phone and video conferences.Tasks and bugs were tracked in cloud based tools.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Flexible, excellent communication, willingness to dive into deeper issues without charging learning time, pragmatic, cost sensitive.

Are there any areas for improvement?

We are very happy with Oyova!

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We manufacture commercial indoor and outdoor furniture we have 17 employees in Florida and manufacturing plants around the Canada and Italy. I am the Manager of Independant Agents

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Oyova?

We needed to update our Web site, Oyova helped us modify our web site about 5 years ago and now we were updating again to make it more user friendly for our customers.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted our details of the product to be easier to access, we wanted to add more specifications to each product page and make it fewer clicks for our customer to find what they want.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We worked with Oyova previously on our web site and a few others, we really like the way they worked and communicated the project pros and cons. They also have great customer service.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

We need to add links and additional pages to each product, we also wanted related images to be related to the product shown. We needed to add yardage requirements and dimensions when needed, we changed each product to bring up the price list for that collection so customers don't need to leave the page and can pull up prices for everything in that collection in one click.

What was the team composition?

There were 2 people from our company working with Oyova. Those two people communicated the thoughts of 4 others involved in the project.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We saw changes on our site quickly within a week and a few days of talking to them about the changes.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

The team was always accessible for us to ask questions or make changes quickly. Our site was always live and changes done to the live site so it was important not to lose time with it down while editing.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I like their quick responses and serive for our project. We can be a little demanding and don't like to wait to long once we have a request for change. They are always happy to help and answer questions we may have as we update and manage the site after completion.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Not from my standpoint they did great.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m one of the founding partners at a law firm.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Oyova?

We were trying to grow our business and move beyond a cookie-cutter web provider.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Oyova built our website. Their team continues to manage our SEO, PPC, and print advertising efforts. On the SEO side, they created a deeply content-driven campaign. Their team writes blogs and other content. They also direct a link-building strategy.

What is the team composition?

Originally, my main point of content was Jon (President and Chief Revenue Officer, Oyova) but he changed roles. Since then, Brandon (Senior Account Manager, Oyova) has been my main point of contact.

How did you come to work with Oyova?

A colleague, who was collaborating with them, recommended Oyova.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve been working together for at least six years and continue to do so.

What is the status of this engagement?

We've spent close to the tune of $300,000.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

When we met them, our websites received less than 1,000 unique visitors. Now, we’re at over 20,000 a month. We’re the biggest voice in our segment of the market. Most of our leads and people trying to contact us come from Google.

How did Oyova perform from a project management standpoint?

We’ve had standing weekly and phone meetings when Oyova lays out strategies within reason. We've also sent a ton of e-mails, which has been how we get our information generally.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Compared to who I was using before, they’ve been constantly tinkering and adding content as well as paying attention to our website. Oyova doesn’t just create a pretty website, but also one that gets traffic.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There’s always room for improvement. PPC’s one area where they have opportunities for improvement. Their team could be more agile with campaigns and more reactive.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be involved. You can’t just set it and forget it. You’ve got to be active in marketing your own business.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

My company is a distributor and converter of pressure-sensitive adhesive tape products. We purchase large log rolls of material from manufacturers and transform those into either custom split rolls that can streamline our customers’ processes.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Oyova?

We’re trying to get our website revamped because we had some issues with our previous web developer and the security of our website. We wanted to work with someone local in case we needed to have face-to-face interactions at any point.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our site had been hacked, so the first thing they did was fix all of the security issues that we had and move our website over to their secure server. Our previous developer had taken almost three weeks to get the site back up, so Oyova also set up digital backups that update every night so that we can get back up and running right away if anything were to happen.

Now that that’s been completed, they are building some new landing pages for us as well. We’re redoing the structure of the website right now so that people who go to our website can easily understand who we are and what we do. Our website isn’t the main driver of our business by any means, but we do want to increase our incoming leads from that source.

What is the team composition?

Their account manager has been our main point of contact so far. She’s the one that came in and met with us to explain what they do. We’ve also been meeting with another person on the technical side of things recently and have had a few conference calls with both of them.

How did you come to work with Oyova?

We basically just did a Google search of the local web development companies. We have great relationships with our local customers as well, and we kind of asked around people that we trusted about who their web developer was and if we could get some contact information, and Oyova was recommended through both of those.

How much have you invested with them?

At this point, we’ve spent somewhere between $500–$1,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started in July 2019 and the project is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

It’s a little bit hard to gauge since we haven’t been working with them for that long, but the biggest impact so far is definitely just knowing that our site is more secure. We’re a small business so it’s not like we have an IT department, and we really had no way of handling a hack. We didn’t even realize that it had happened until customers couldn’t get into the site.

Beyond the security, we have noticed already that more people are filling out our contact form on the website since we started the redesign. They also expanded the website into more pages to make it more searchable on Google, so our traffic has increased a little bit from that as well.

How did Oyova perform from a project management standpoint?

Our experience has been great. After every call, they will immediately follow up with recap notes. In general, they are very detail-oriented. They are very proactive about asking us if we have any deadlines and giving us estimates on timelines for different parts of the project, as well as communicating questions or anything else that might come up during the work.  

What did you find most impressive about them?

They really took the time to understand who we are and what we do before diving into the project. Some companies have a cookie-cutter approach to how they handle their clients, but we’ve felt very taken care of and given personalized service since day one.

We feel like we aren’t treated any differently because we’re a small company compared to how they would treat a larger one. Our company takes pride in our relationships with our customers, so it’s great to partner with an organization that shares our same ideals.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There’s nothing I can think of that they need to improve.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Like with any engagement, it’s good to have an idea in mind of where you want to go, but you don’t need to have everything mapped out for them. They are helpful in guiding us as well as in completing the work.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the operations manager of a heating, cooling, electrical, and plumbing company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Oyova?

They’ve practically been with us from the beginning. They help us with everything related to digital marketing or the web.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

At first, they designed and built the entirety of our website. We wanted our site to be integrated with our finance options, so homeowners could apply for them online. Additionally, they published our top Google reviews on the site. 

They’ve also helped us with our SEO efforts. We designated keywords with their team to ensure that we always showed highly on search results for home repair in our area. Our owners collaboratively tackled strategy with their team to do so.

What is the team composition?

I work with Jon (President & Chief Revenue Officer, Oyova), Derek (Digital Marketing Specialist, Oyova), and Angela (Director of Marketing Services, Oyova). 

How did you come to work with Oyova?

Our owner has been working with Jon since he started his own company years ago. They have a long-standing relationship.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve likely spent close to $1,000,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working with them for about 15 years, and continue to do so.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We went from having no web presence to consistently showing in the top three search results on Google. Because of that, we’ve definitely noticed an uptick in web traffic and leads.

Our team used to invest heavily in TV, but things have shifted toward online ads. Over the past few years, we’ve noticed that about 80% of our business comes from search engines. We also have a catchy jingle that gives us top-of-mind awareness. Now, when customers search on Google, they’re reminded of our presence and capabilities. 

How did Oyova perform from a project management standpoint?

Every month, Derek and I will talk through plans for digital or social promotions. They post everything online. For instance, they’ve been promoting our home show events lately. We communicate mostly over email and phone. But, once each month, Jon will meet directly with our owners to discuss progress. I’ll also occasionally attend a lunch meeting with them.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Our team feels important to them because of how seriously they handle our account. They’re very hands-on, personable, and dedicated to our projects. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

There’s always room for improvement. But, I can’t think of anything specific offhand.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

You’ll be impressed if you give them a try. Make sure to explain your business and plans for the project, while letting them apply their expertise to the situation. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and CEO of a company that provides software to state athletic associations, high schools, and middle schools across the country. Our software manages all aspects of those departments and associations.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Oyova?

Ten years ago, I brought them on as I started my company. I needed them to develop the website and underlying software involved.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We created a new platform from scratch, utilizing PHP, LAMP stack, Apache, and MySQL. Because it was a new technology, they discussed our vision and then visited with end-users at state associations, high school athletic departments, and school districts.

They took that opportunity to learn what our users expected from the platform, so we could best present the technology to coaches, students, and parents. It was a collaborative effort between our company, Oyova, and our users. 

The software was originally supposed to present schools with the opportunity to live stream video of games or significant events within their schools. For the time, that was very cutting-edge.

Since many other platforms now offer similar services, we’ve pulled away from that initial offering. But, there were aspects of the software that our users really liked, so we converted it into a fee-based SaaS model and continued with that. 

What is the team composition?

It started with just David (Founder, Oyova) on the project, because they were just launching at that point. As we both continued to grow, he added more staff to support us. We were an early client for them.

How did you come to work with Oyova?

I found their service through mutual contacts. David worked with some people within my network who put me in touch with him. He had experience creating software for less technologically savvy users, and I knew that was needed to succeed in my marketplace. Oyova seemed to understand how to make interfaces intuitive, so they could benefit anyone. 

How much have you invested with them?

The initial contract was about $40,000. But, over the years, it’s something well in excess of $1,000,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in 2009 and are still collaborating on projects. Soon, our company will merge with another. Even then, they’ll have an ongoing role for the foreseeable future. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Because of their developments, we’ve been able to expand our platform to over a million users across 15 states. They’ve been key in allowing us to support that many users. Oyova is effectively our outsourced technology department, proving all the services that a typical technical staff manages.

How did Oyova perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicate in-person, over email, and text. For a while, we were located in the same office building, so we were able to work very closely with them. In those days, we had hourly interaction between our company and theirs.

What did you find most impressive about them?

While this is not their desire for future partnerships, they were able to provide a turnkey solution for us. They managed our servers, email provider, and all sorts of software. While that’s no longer their intent, they were fantastic in that capacity. Now, they’re more focused on web work. 

They have competency in multiple languages and deep API knowledge. That’s driving our marketplace now. Their ability to connect data in multiple coding languages in-house is very impressive. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, they do very good work at a fair price. They’re responsible and run a great business.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

If you’re looking for a long-term partnership like mine, make sure you understand each other's objectives and concerns, addressing them immediately. It doesn’t matter how great the technology is, focus on the people you’re working with. That’ll make the project successful.