Vecro Tech

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the Head of Safety and Environment at LNER. LNER operates mainline rail services between London and Aberdeen/Inverness on the East Coast Mainline.

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

We hired Vecro Tech to build a mobile risk assessment tool for our station management team to risk assess the platform/train interface risks at our stations.

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

Competitive Tender

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

We held an initial scoping session to understand the system specification we had in mind. This was followed by a design phase ending in a customer expectations/review session to look at the first design. This was followed up by an approval of the design before progressing to weekly engagement meetings with our project manager.

I was able to view progress on a web based system as and when progress was made. We then progressed to a test phase where we were given access to the app via testflight. We progressed through testing with bug resolution and building in quality of life improvements and we are currently very close to signing off the final build.

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

1 Project Manager 3 Developers 1 Senior Manager (for account engagement and customer satisfaction)

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

London North Eastern Railway (LNER) approached Vecro Tech in 2019 to develop a bespoke risk assessment tool (LNERisks) for a specific industry set of risks. We approached a series of app developers and met with varying responses. What impresses us with Vecro Tech is the level of engagement and excitement for our ideas early on.

The team seemed interested and curious and were able to take a hand drawn flipchart storyboard of our ideas and turn that into the product we had imagined. Our project manager Stewart was attentive and kept the project moving forward, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic when frequent distractions had taken our attention away from keeping this project moving forwards.

Stewart was patient and did the legwork to understand our needs during this time and work with the developers to improve the product behind the scenes. The developers suggested improvements on our ideas and seemed to understand our product and what we were trying to achieve.

The end result is a slick product which looks good and meets all the objectives of our design specification. Testing took as long as we needed, no hard deadlines to complete, testing was complete when we were happy with the product which is exactly what we needed. Each stage was delivered on time.

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

The project management style was structured but attentive and approachable not overly formal/traditional. Communication was varied and in whatever manner we needed as the customer, I have worked with suppliers in the past who rigidly apply a tool they have to communicate leaving their customers utilising dozens of different systems to talk to different suppliers.

Timeliness was very good and if anything where we were slow to respond Vecro Tech stayed in touch and ensured we had what we needed to keep the project moving.

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

Attention to our needs. Everything seemed possible and when we wanted to make a change that was seen as an opportunity to improve what we were developing not a nuisance. I found Vecro Tech to be very competitively priced also.

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

None that I can think of.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and CEO of Dream Drivers. We supply businesses in the foodservice sector with delivery drivers through the use of a platform.

What challenge were you trying to address with Vecro Tech?

Our main challenge was to create processes and an overall system that allowed us to scale our operations across Scotland without hiring more staff and saving on business costs. The challenge we faced was dealing with requests from the business and drivers' availability nationwide. We wanted to operate across Scotland, and dealing with Excel spreadsheets didn’t work. 

We needed to create a system that allowed businesses to post their driver’s shifts and enabled the drivers to claim shifts or fill out their availability so there is less human error. Not only that, but we also required information regarding clock-in and clock-out times for each driver on shift to bill out our commission and pay the drivers for the hours they worked.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Vecro Tech sat me through a technical spec process and really helped me define what I was looking for. They helped me identify each avenue of functionality and how it connected with other functionalities.

Vecro Tech started working on the backend development of our web-based admin system. The project is an extensive platform, managing every aspect of how we operate. Vecro Tech initially made an MVP and then added functions and features to it.

They also developed and finalized a mobile app for iOS and Android. Once it was complete and tested, we switched everything from our old system to the new one. They helped fix any bugs and issues during that process.

We log in to the web-based admin panel and have access to all the driver and business data. We can publish shifts on behalf of businesses, which is sent as a notification to all active app users. Companies also have a web portal where they can publish shifts. Drivers can see open shifts, pay rates, routes, and locations on the mobile app to help them know which shifts are most relevant.

The drivers select a shift, clock in when they start, and clock out when they complete it. There is a box when they clock out for comments. We receive timesheets after each shift worked by a driver, which we need to approve to get paid. Once we approve their timesheet, it appears on their app and is grouped for their pay period, allowing them to see how many shifts they worked and their expected pay.

Finally, the drivers input their banking information to receive their payment. There is also a basic Facebook feed where drivers can post about shifts and make comments. Vecro Tech also revamped our website and currently manages our SEO.

What is the team composition?

Jaris (Director & Project Manager), Greg (Director & Account Manager), and Stewart (Content Marketing Manager) are my points of contact. They oversee their team and developers.

How did you come to work with Vecro Tech?

My mom recommended them to me. We had four short-listed companies that we gave a document to which included what we were looking for. Each company gave us a proposal, wireframe designs, and budget. 

We chose Vecro Tech because they were the only company that showed us the step-by-step process and what they visualized for the project in their wireframes. They also had one of the best price points and used universal coding platforms.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested £50,000 (approximately $70,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together around July 2019, and the collaboration is ongoing.

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

There have been 600 drivers who have downloaded the app as a result of our advertising. We’ve been helped significantly by this system, even more than the drivers have. Managing workloads is easier, and we’ve reduced time spent on processing driver payments from 4–6 hours to 15 minutes.

Sending invoices was reduced by half, and we are still working to reduce it more. Feedback from drivers is positive. They say that it’s easy to navigate and use the app and make changes to their profiles and banking information. The quality of the work produced by Vecro Tech is worth every single penny.

Their process made me think outside the box about our development process and allowed me to create a very fine-tuned and detailed technical spec that ultimately helped both of us.

How did Vecro Tech perform from a project management standpoint?

It took a little time to figure out the intricate things that need to be managed, but everything is working efficiently. We regularly update a task tracker, which keeps an eye on everyone from management down.

We email our updates, which are added to the tracker. Vecro Tech’s team is available and responsive, regardless of day and time. We have a group chat on Skype and use Loom videos sent via Skype to show anything that isn’t working properly.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Vecro Tech's 24/7 support and customer service are next to none. Any day, I can reach out at any time, and the people are on hand to help with whatever I request. I can be demanding at times, and they’ve kept up with me throughout the development process, which I’m very impressed with.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything that they should improve.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

To help the development team of any business succeed, they need to understand what exactly needs to be created. Be very detailed in your requests regarding functionality, what the user will see and how it all comes together. Ultimately, this will not only help you, but it will also help the developers.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of international programs for an NGO that focuses on the harm done by pesticides. We are part of a global network.

What challenge were you trying to address with Vecro Tech?

Globally, there was a lack of data on the incidence of acute pesticide poisoning, so we needed to develop an app that could collect data directly from farmers who’ve had experience with it. Vecro Tech is helping us address this challenge.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We began by providing Vecro Tech with quite a tight set of specifications and field-level research that they could use to feed into the work. It is a complicated system we’re requiring, and Vecro Tech had to make it flexible to work in the rural areas, across multiple countries, and in different languages. 

We had already put a questionnaire on KoBoToolbox and gave Vecro Tech access to it along with  the specs. The team then proceeded to develop the Android app from scratch. We’ve gone through an eight-month testing phase in different countries and different languages, starting with a small test in West Africa and in Tanzania. Now, we are currently testing the app in India.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with one person who’s sort of on the customer service side. She is brilliant and translates everything into layman’s terms for us. There is also the head of the technical team working behind the scenes. We don’t quite know how many people were working on the app, but we’ve interacted with at least 4–5 people from Vecro Tech.

How did you come to work with Vecro Tech?

After developing the specs with someone who knew more about it than I did, I sent it out to various companies on a tender basis, and about 30 of them had expressed interest in working with us on this project. A lot of them understood the specifications and the need for the app to work in developing countries, reassuring us that they could handle various technical issues that would come up, but price point was also critical, since we’re a small NGO and run on a limited budget dependent on donor funds. We had a lot of conversations and met with Vecro Tech face-to-face before we decided to go with them.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested under £18,000 (approximately $25,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

Our engagement started in March 2020. We’re now in the phase two of rollout and testing, so we’ve still got a close relationship with Vecro Tech.

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

Vecro Tech has built the app with a dashboard that shows initial data analysis. We’ve been able to do about 700 surveys in the Caribbean and just under 200 in Tanzania using the app. We’ve had a bit of an issue in India because the Android System seems to work differently there, and Vecro Tech has had to develop a workaround for that. In total, however, we’ve probably done about 1,000 surveys including the test or dummy ones. 

How did Vecro Tech perform from a project management standpoint?

Vecro Tech has been really good in terms of project management, keeping tabs on the whole development. 

We use mostly email, Skype, and WhatsApp to communicate. They’re really responsive and the person they assigned to interface with us was perfect. They knew that we had very low technical experience so they translated all the technical terms into standard, understandable English. It’s been tough, but that is what we like about them. 

I wouldn’t be giving this review had they not been worth it. They deserve the encouragement. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’ve been very nimble and can respond to us in simple English. Their being flexible is important because we are feeling our way through a new system and had a lot of issues that needed to be addressed. They’ve also been very good at resolving those issues so I can’t fault them. 

Vecro Tech also thankfully came in with pretty low budget requirements, which is what we were asking for. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

Sometimes we got a bit lost along the chain of communication, especially when we were developing the dashboard and had to relay things from our contact person to the developers. Some small issues got dropped and needed to be revisited, but overall, I really couldn’t fault them. They are great. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

It’s good to go into a project with a clear idea of what you want in terms of clear specifications. We were learning as we went, but it would really help everybody, especially Vecro Tech, to have a clear description of what you want. 

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am an award-winning Architectural Designer and Illustrator.

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

To rebuild a website, that would include a webshop and online course platform and market it through SEO, PPC and Paid Social Media promotions. The goal was to increase my orders, make it easier to teach people and also sell more of my courses.

How did you select Vecro Tech and what were the deciding factors?

My friend Alex suggested the company because they have done development and advertising for his company. I did not know much about SEO and PPC - I was purely focusing on Instagram. I was getting sales through Instagram and did not know that it is just a fraction of what I can get with organic traffic and pay-per-click advertising. I was simply trusting them because they showed me other clients and explained the process and how long it can take. Probably comfort was the most important factor and trust.

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

We agreed to do designs in Sigma, so I can follow the process online, custom PHP site, with integration of Woocommerce on shop page and Learndash for courses. We started by sketching the website layout in Figma, because my previous one was on Wix and it was all over the place and we decided not to take anything from it, but rather start from scratch.

There was simply no structure. Guys asked me for some inspirational Pinterest pins, which I provided. Within 3 days, first drafts of designs were ready, and I had to choose among 3 design options and then provide bullet points for content.

Once I chose designs and bulletpointed structure for content, copywriter turned that into nicely written content. That was enough to put together a base, which consisted of static pages, shop and course platform and all this work was done in 3 weeks time.

After that, we started working on Pay-per-click advertising. We launched a first pay-per-click campaign, which recorded data and then optimised ads, delivery and target areas and I started really see results then. That was about 4-5 weeks long process. We do Microsoft Advertising mostly and SEO-wise my main source of leads is Bing search engine. SEO took about 3 months to kick in

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

A total of four:

• 1 Designer
• 1 Developer
• 1 Digital Marketer
• 1 Project Manager

Overall the synergy was great. We had had one main chat and a call every Friday with Project Manager to catch up on progress.

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

I am averaging about 33 enquiries per month that are commission jobs from US, UK and Japan and that is during the pandemic, so can't imagine how it will change afterwards. But I am very positive about the outcome. I can pick and choose which projects to work on.

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

Stewart, the project manager, coordinated everything and told me step by step what to do because I had no idea. I just trusted the process. It was a regular chat and phone call every week to catch up on progress. I actually prefer this type of work, because you are clear about where your money goes.

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

I think that going extra mile for me. I was so picky about designs and they did over 20 revisions, which (I understand) is too much as I am getting same from clients myself. Also just how much of communication I was getting, because I felt like I'm the centre of attention. I even had to think about introducing that into my own operation.

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

I can't think of any. It was a very smooth process - I would rate it 10 out of 10.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the I.T Operations Manager for Johnston Fuels, a leading independent fuel supplier.

For what projects/services did your company hire Vecro Tech?

We engaged with Vecro Tech last year with the goal of producing a customer facing mobile application for our Oils division.

What were your goals for this project?

The goal was maintain the improvement of our digital services. Digital communication and the ability for customers to serve themselves has become an integral part of Johnston Oils service and we’ve improved the user interface through several rebuilds of our website.

It’s important that we offer our customers a variety of communication channels to meet with their lifestyle. We currently communicate with our customer using our website, social media platforms, SMS and email and believe that a mobile application will complement our current digital communication channels.

How did you select Vecro Tech?

We searched online for app developers within the central belt, and compiled a list of 3 companies based on price, case studies and overall portfolios.

After hearing the initial pitches, we allowed 2 to tender and Vecro Tech won comfortably based on the quality of their final proposal, the price point, and their understanding of what we were trying to achieve.

Describe the project in detail.

The main focus of the mobile application project for 2020 was to replicate the current quote, order and account functionality offered through our existing webservices.

Continued development to enhance the application was planned over Phase #2 & #3, providing services that were not currently available within our existing web services. The app was developed for use on both iPhone and Android devices.

What was the team composition?

Intitially, we were assigned a project manager to serve as the main point of contact throughout the project, as well as a lead developer. Both were always available throughout the process.

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Due to the nature of our business, the app was developed with the goal to launch moving into the spring of 2021. We did however give the app out to all staff internally, as well as a soft launch to a percentage of our domestic customer base.

Overall feedback of the look and feel of the app was very positive. It was very easy to use and we started recieving orders almost immediately through this channel.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Both the project manager and lead developer were always available throughout the process. We communicated daily via e-mail and both were always available for a call if we wanted to discuss things in more detail. Having a lead developer as part of the calls allowed more technical queries to be understood and resolved quickly and easily.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Vecro Tech were exceelent at keeping clear lines of communication open and keeping Johnston Fuels up to date on the process from start to finish. They were able to work with our core software supplier and quickly resolve any unforeseen issues, as well as any changes in a timely manner.

They consistently provide a high level of support and we are able to get hands-on assistance immediately.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Allowing them to spend more time communication with our core software supplier at the start of the project would have given them a greater understanding of how the API worked and how best to utilise it. At the very least this would've eased a few points of develpment where further clarification was required.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the owner of Chefiesta, a catering company specialising in weekly global cuisine Meal-Preps, corporate buffets, private dining and events.

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

We had created our website by ourselves prior to this and we found that the way we had structured it had confused a lot of customers.

By working with Vecro Tech the goal was to increase traffic to the website and have a much more user friendly website.

How did you select Vecro Tech and what were the deciding factors?

We found Vecro Tech through some of their previous work in their portfolio of clients they have worked with and was amazed by the designs of their sites.

On top of this, unlike other developers we spoke to, they were a pleasure to speak with from the onset and due to their rich experience in multiple industries were able to identify additional areas in which we could improve on that weren't initially in our brief.

Their experience mixed with their great customer services was the deciding factors

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

We had an initial meeting to go over our goals as a business as well as for our site. Followed by going over our briefing. From there, the team went away to design mock designs of how the site would look.

After this was approved the main website development began with various points of update meetings which was very helpful.

They developed a brand new ordering/shop page for us as well as integrating social media into our home page.

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

We had 3 in total. One was a Business Development and offered the overall out look on the project.

Another was a project Manager who ensured timely deliverables and utilised key business experiences to offer advice where needed.

The final was the Web developer who was doing the coding for the site in the background. This person worked along side a designer but this was not someone we spoke to directly.

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

The finished look of our site is amazing and far exceeded our expectations going into this.

Using their experience they provided us with a much more future proof site that will enable growth as well as a much more user friendly site that would aid in traffic to the site.

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

We had regular calls at important milestones using whats app. In between this we would stay in touch through the whatsapp group or via email.

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

I believe the most impressive part of their company was both the willingness to go the extra mile and the other was to really understand our offering.

Their customer service and communication far exceeded what we were used to and often went the extra mile by working on areas they saw would aid us even if not previously spoken about.

Whilst making themselves always available to speak to. Similarly they really took the time to understand what we do whilst using their experience to create what is an amazing site.

Often as owners of a business you want to work with people that care about what you are doing and buy into your vision. From day one this is what they were doing.

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

In this particular experience I think everything went very smoothly and their isn't actually much they could have done better.

Due to their experience mixed with their great customer service all areas both from a technical and social standpoint were covered.