WebCastle Technologies LLC

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the e-commerce and marketing executive at a perfume trading company that imports top luxury brands from different countries to the UAE. We deal in home fragrances, hairsprays, and diffusers as well.

What challenge were you trying to address with WebCastle Technologies LLC?

We created a website three years ago with a different agency, but it did not really work well so we had to cancel the contract. Now, we’re working with WebCastle to take over the website development and maintenance.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We’ve given WebCastle around 15 points that needed to be changed about the website, with the main issue being that it was very slow. The first thing their team has done was to improve the site’s performance and loading time. They then went through our website and discovered that we didn’t have the tools to motivate customers to complete their purchase, so they’ve helped us create promotional blogs and posts both on the website and on all of our interconnected social media pages. 

WebCastle has recently provided us SEO services, selecting and researching keywords that would best attract our target market. They’ve also set up PPC ads for us before the COVID-19 pandemic.

The team has not touched on the web design, though, since we’re planning to close the website in the future and redevelop a new one. They’ve tried their best but have found that some aspects of the site could not be changed, like the e-commerce functionality. We will work with them to create a new platform from scratch later on.

What is the team composition?

I’ve worked with two groups, one that gathers information and another that manages our social media.

How did you come to work with WebCastle Technologies LLC?

We invited different agencies and got several petitions, deciding to go with the other agency to create our website. At that time, WebCastle was handling our social media marketing. We saw that they were always on time and delivered on their promises, so when we needed someone to maintain and make changes to our website we decided to hire them. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested 77,000 UAE dirham (approximately $21,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with WebCastle two years ago for social media marketing and PPC, but the website maintenance project didn’t start until March 2020. We are still working with them, but are currently on pause due to budget constraints.

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

Since WebCastle has taken over the site, we’ve seen great improvements. We used to get 2–3 customer complaints every week, but now, we only receive a major, easily-resolved complaint every two or three months. The speed has also gone up from 9%, below average, to 40% since they changed the server.

How did WebCastle Technologies LLC perform from a project management standpoint?

WebCastle sends reports and evidence of work through email and, since they have an office close to ours, I could simply hand them a flash drive when I need to give them large files. I can always get in touch with their team, even when our server crashes in the middle of the night, because they are online 24/7. We could approach them anytime and expect a response. 

They deliver on their promises and adhere to the schedule for each task, working step by step so that we could follow where they are in the process. The project that should’ve taken a year has taken them only four months to complete. 

There were also some projects that they were supposed to charge us for, but didn’t. When they sent an invoice for the social media tasks, we told them that it could be delayed since we didn’t have the budget, so they did it for free. They’re really after keeping a good relationship with their client.

What did you find most impressive about them?

WebCastle cares about our business. We feel like they're part of our team. They never ignore us and try to solve a problem even if it’s not their duty to. They are so helpful and supportive.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They have a department handling Arabic translations and writing, since some of our content needs to be in that language, but they could do this in a more professional way.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Give WebCastle clear details and make sure that you’re communicating with the right people. They are a huge team so it could cause problems if you give information to the wrong person. With WebCastle, though, you don’t need to worry about anything. Let them understand your business so they can help you.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a construction company dealing with airport infrastructure. I’m the project controls and planning manager.

What challenge were you trying to address with WebCastle Technologies?

Our company was new and it was growing, so we needed to build a website.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They designed and built our website from scratch. They also designed our logo and helped with email creation. They’re in charge of our shared web hosting and continue to upgrade the website. They have trained our in-house IT person to make small changes to the website.

How did you come to work with WebCastle Technologies?

One of the employees at WebCastle is a friend of someone in our company. We decided to have them design our logo to see how their work was. The logo was perfect, so we moved on to the website.

How much have you invested with WebCastle Technologies?

We spent under $10,000 for the website project.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in November 2015 and the project was complete in December 2016.

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

The logo was designed very well, so I was expecting the website to be the same. I changed some of the design on my own and now it looks better. The website is still new, so right now we haven’t seen an increase in traffic. I feel that the loading time of the website is too long.

How did WebCastle Technologies perform from a project management standpoint?

They met or exceeded the deadlines and they’re very responsive. Our communication was mostly through email.

What did you find most impressive about WebCastle Technologies?

The experience was good. They are well experienced, which is why we chose them.

Are there any areas WebCastle Technologies could improve?

They could have done better with the design.