Pronto Marketing

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the Communications Specialist at East Coast Repair & Fabrication, a leading force in the marine, industrial and commercial sectors since 1999.

What challenges were you trying to address with Pronto Marketing?

We wanted assistance in the creation and management of our website.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Pronto has created and hosted three websites for us, personalized an SEO strategy, provided analytics and reporting, unlimited revisions and copywriting, and 24/5 support.

What is the team composition?

In the redesign of our website, I worked closely with a Project Manager. The Project Manager then communicated our wants and needs with a production team.

How did you come to work with Pronto Marketing?

Once I was hired I took on the role of managing our website and establishing a relationship with the team at Pronto Marketing.

How much have you invested in them?

I think we spend around $347 per month. 

What is the status of this engagement?

Although the company has been working with Pronto for about five years, I’ve been working with them for a year and a half when I joined the company.

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

Our account dashboard is easy to use and shows statistics on how well our website is performing. We are happy with the leads and visibility we've received.

How did Pronto Marketing perform from a project management standpoint?

I’ve had a good experience working with them. They’re prompt in getting back to me. I can submit tickets whenever we have a change request for the site. For more complicated issues, it’s easy to get on the phone and talk to them. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

I don’t have much experience working with other providers. However, I like that they have a chat feature on their website which makes it easy to get an immediate response since it takes about 24 hours for them to respond to a ticket. I’ve had a good experience working with them. Their understanding of design is also impressive. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, not that I can think of. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers? 

I would say not to be afraid to ask for help, part of the service is that they provide continuous support so take advantage of their ticketing system and their expertise.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the president of the TantraNova Institute in Chicago. We’re a seminar business working with couples and singles in the area of relationships, helping them improve and thrive.

What challenge were you trying to address with Pronto Marketing?

We needed to work with a company that was e-commerce-savvy, and one that could provide server hosting. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

We had an e-commerce website in place, which was about the same size as the one being hosted by Pronto now. They took all the content from our old website and fit that into their design format to create the new version. 

They’ve provided hosting management. We could either have group hosting folded in with other websites, or we could have an independent hosting management contract. That was important to us, so that the servers were taken care of and secured.

How did you come to work with Pronto Marketing?

I did an internet search on website design and hosting, and a few options came up. There was the question of which would fit best with us because we’re a small business, not a huge corporation. 

Pronto is designed to support small businesses with website design and hosting. They could provide the e-commerce aspect, the price was reasonable, and they could handle a website the size of the one we had.

How much have you invested with them?

We’re on a monthly contract, and we spend about $500 per month.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Pronto in September or October 2018, and the website went live in early-2019. Currently, they’re doing all our editorial changes and website modifications, and they provide hosting.

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

We have what I’d call a “micro feedback loop” with them, by which we send them a task, they complete it, and we give feedback on how satisfied we are after it’s completed. It’s all automated. If there was something I didn’t like, I’d speak up.

How did Pronto Marketing perform from a project management standpoint?

It’s very good on the whole. I sometimes have to stay with one of their people until I get exactly what I want, but that’s the nature of the work. We went through a design change a week ago, and it took several attempts for the person working with me to really get it and deliver exactly what I wanted. That’s just a part of working together, though. 

There’s not a specific project manager assigned to our account. As a result, there is no coherence in the communication and the understanding of what style we want for the website, in terms of precision, feel, and so on. It can take some time to explain things to a new person.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I appreciate that the project management, website maintenance, and hosting are under one umbrella. Before that, we had a server host separate from our website designer and management. Since we started working with them, we’ve never had a server breakdown. There’s a high level of reliability that I appreciate very much.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There is no coherence in their task management and customer relation structure. In some sense, I consider that the relationship with Pronto is more sustaining our website than bringing in new possibilities to us. That was very different from our relationship with our previous vendor.

The different people who work with me are always very polite and they do their best. This is not a complaint about the people who’ve been working with me. I really appreciate their engagement. However, there’s not a high level of customer relationship management.  

Their workforce is doing well, but the weak link is with project management since there is no project manager.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

I’d mention the pluses and minuses stated here. In addition to that, I’d tell them that they really need to drive the project. You need to provide suggestions for the direction of the project.