Worth eCommerce

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the owner of an online company that sells Tunisian sweets in the US.

What challenge were you trying to address with Worth eCommerce?

We’re an e-commerce company, so email marketing is a big part of what we do. As a result, Worth eCommerce was hired to help us with email marketing.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They fully manage our email services — from the flows, campaigns, designs, copywriting, and more. They also set up strategies to collect our emails.

What is the team composition?

I’ve met four people from Worth eCommerce, but there’s a project manager serving as a point of contact. The project manager talks to everyone else on the team and organizes their work.

How did you come to work with  Worth eCommerce?

I interviewed Worth eCommerce and I thought that they were good, so I started working with them.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $20,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in January 2021, and our partnership is ongoing.

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

I love working with Worth eCommerce. They’ve improved our workflow and our revenue has increased from 30% to 45%.

How did Worth eCommerce perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project management has been very smooth. The team is organized, and they know what they’re doing. We mainly communicate through email and Zoom.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re specialists when it comes to email marketing. That’s mainly why I hired their services.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Honestly, I don’t know. I can’t think of anything that they can improve since they’ve been very professional.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

If you’re just starting, invest time to really get to know the Worth eCommerce team. Share your experiences with them so that they can learn more about your brand. Above all, trust them with everything else.

Introduce your business and what you do there.
I am the Founder and CEO of SGDstyle. We house two brands, UrbanUndercover and TowelTopper.

UrbanUndercover designs and develops better travel apparel and accessories for the modern traveling woman. We focus on versatility, fit, functionality, and style. We place emphasis on sustainability, superior craftsmanship, and longevity of your clothing. We’re seasonless minimalists who believe in encouraging and creating a better world.

TowelTopper is our other brand and these are patented towel bands that will wrap around the towel on your body or your beach chair to secure it in place. It’ll turn any towel into a spa wrap to keep you covered at home or away. When you wrap it around the towel on your lounge chair a the beach or pool, it’ll mark your spot and secure the towel from falling down your back or flapping in the wind.

What challenge were you trying to address with the vendor?
We needed a lot of help with our email marketing. Not only did we need help implementing the actual emails, but we also needed help with the overall strategy. Basically, I was looking to increase our email activity but needed a lot of help and guidance.

What was the scope of their involvement?
For many, many, many (too many, if you get what I mean) years we left our email marketing unattended. We would gather names and emails but then fall short of doing anything with them. From time to time we would send a campaign, but it would have little to no direction nor would it be optimized correctly. We switched
email platforms as I didn’t like our previous one and signed on with Klaviyo.

However, this was at the start of the pandemic and I quickly realized that we really needed to do more than just send an email from time to time. We needed a smart, aggressive yet not overwhelming strategy and then we needed to implement that. I really didn’t know what I was doing and needed help. That is when I reached out to Worth. (Side note: Klaviyo is an amazing platform, and we are really pleased with the functionality as well as with their customer service. I reached out to Worth because we needed to really devise a plan to use Klaviyo to the best of our potential.

What is the team composition?
I was the point of contact from our side and I worked with an account manager, Sarah. She worked with Jaqueline, the designer/copywriter on their team, for all our project needs. It was seamless.

Sarah was absolutely amazing in her communication, advice, and patience with me as we were learning and strategizing. Sarah helped us devise the strategy and discover what we needed most and how to accomplish it. Jaqueline took the information from Sarah and ran with it - beautifully. She totally understood our brand and was able to both speak to the copy and create the visuals better than we would have in-house. Both are an ultimate joy to work with

How did you come to work with the vendor?

I knew we needed help, I just didn’t know how and what direction to take. I watched a live presentation by the owners of Worth Ecommerce and was impressed with their knowledge, the information they shared, and how much they seemed to care. I think I heard about the presentation via an ad on Facebook. After that, I reached out to them for help.

How much have you invested with them?
To date, around $15K.

What is the status of this engagement?
Email marketing is an ongoing project, so this isn’t something we are looking to “complete” but rather build upon in partnership with Worth as we grow. They really know what they are doing and as technology and algorithms and rules and everything changes rapidly, they are on top of their game. They care and I want to
continue to foster our relationship.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
Email marketing is now responsible for 81% of our sales online. I am 100% sure that it was responsible for less than 5% before I started to work with Worth. I believe, if it weren’t for them, we might not have made it through the pandemic

How did the vendor perform from a project management standpoint?

Beyond Fabulous. Sarah, our Account Manager, absolutely knows what she is doing. And I can tell, she’s not just offering a cookie-cutter solution; taking something from another client and just implementing it for us. She took the time with us to investigate and analyze what we needed and then take action from there. She is smart, efficient, easy to communicate and work with.

What did you find most impressive about them?
I am very pleased to be working with Worth eCommerce. I really love everything about them. I would have to say the most impressive aspect is how much they truly care. As I mentioned, they aren’t offering a cookie-cutter solution, because every brand is different. They are taking their time to dive into our brand and our needs and then applying their knowledge and expertise accordingly. The communication was fun and exciting and had
heart. We are a very small brand, but I felt they cared just as much about our success as they would a much larger company.

Are there any areas they could improve?
Nope. I am absolutely beyond thrilled working with them. Knowledgeable, professional, caring, and hard
working.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the operations manager at an emerging e-commerce company. Our online store specializes in affordable luxury goods such as watches, sunglasses, and cell phone accessories.

For what projects/services did your company hire GobySavvy?

We hired GobySavvy to set up a sophisticated email campaign strategy and system to funnel more signups and increase our revenue.

What were your goals for this project? 

Originally, we just wanted a few emails to welcome people, address abandoned carts, and send newsletters. However, once we saw their early results, we decided to expand their role to fully develop an automated system and take over most of our email marketing.

How did you select this vendor?

We found them on Upwork where they were highly recommended and rated. 

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail. 

To begin, GobySavy organized a video conference to meet our staff and learn about our company. We discussed our strengths and weaknesses compared to our competitors and highlighted our marketing efforts for the next three months. Their team used this information to build out an automated email system and strategy.

Once the system and first campaign launched, we worked with them to improve our email pop-ups and Instagram ads. They constantly A/B tested subjects, optimal send times, and content to better engage our subscribers. For each campaign, their team would typically present me with a list of relevant topics to go over with their copywriter. They’d then deliver a first draft, and we’d go through a round of edits before emailing it.

After about six weeks, we trusted Goby Savy to fully take over the A/B testing and most of our email campaigns. They now send out campaigns twice a week along with a dozen flows. Lastly, they’ve helped with a few of our website efforts such as a referral program and customer reviews.

What was the team composition?

The team consists of 3–4 people, including Ryan (Founder, GobySavvy), a project manager, a copywriter, and a designer. At some point, Ryan switched our copywriter with another team member who was interested in our company, and campaign performance jumped.

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

Never in my wildest dreams did I think we could achieve such dramatic results. Within two days of the first email campaign, we had about $1,500 in sales, a 35% open rate, and 25 positive responses. The response rate exceeded our expectations because we didn’t think we would get any feedback or questions. The welcome series and browse abandonment emails performed at the next level, bringing in about 18% of our total revenue alone.

After 2–3 weeks, we had increased sales, ranging from 2,000–3,000 sales per campaign. Email pop-ups were responsible for signing up 20% of our visitors and brought in 40% of our revenue. We also started to see more repeat purchases and customer loyalty after a few months. With all of the generated revenue, we were able to increase our ad spend. 

How was project management arranged and how effective was it? 

GobySavvy has been efficient and thorough throughout the entire process. The team is always on time and have come through on all deadlines. We also have open lines of communication with each team member.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They’re experts in everything we ask them to do. I’m impressed with how well their campaigns reflect our companies and delight our subscribers. The team knows what will or won’t be successful, backing up their suggestions with sound reasoning. Having Ryan involved during strategy sessions and getting his input have been paramount to our success. 

Are there any areas for improvement? 

No, there’s nothing I can think of. GobySavvy consists of real professionals, and I can’t speak highly enough of them. While the initial costs were a bit high, they more than made up for it with the ROI.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of a pet supply company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Instant Email Copy?

We wanted to grow our revenue. We don’t have a subscription model so wanted to increase our emotional connection to our customers to ensure repeat buyers. I had decided on an email marketing system called Klaviyo but needed copywriters and other people to put the system in place.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Instant Email Copy established our email marketing system. They manage our different email messages including our welcome series, our abandonment series, our daily emails, and newsletters that were originally weekly and are now twice a week.

We work on a bimonthly schedule. We give then the topics we’d like to push and information about what’s new at the company. They create the sales copy to land on those pages. They do a lot of testing as well as segmentation of our audience.

What is the team composition?

We work directly with two or three team members.

How did you come to work with Instant Email Copy?

It was hard to find someone that was partnered with Klaviyo that was in an agency. We wanted a smaller boutique feel without the agency price. We were very fortunate to find them.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in October 2016 and it’s ongoing.

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

Within the first month, we increased our revenue from $50,000 to $100,000. Klaviyo’s analytics show that between 25–35% of our sales come from email marketing. For example, last month we made 35% of our revenue through email and this month it was 25%.

We’ve now grown from a $100,000 company to a more than $3 million company. Our growth is at 1,400% over the last two years. There are many contributing factors—email marketing, social media, other marketing efforts—but their work has been a huge part of it. They voice our work in friendly tones that bring people back to our websites.

How did Instant Email Copy perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicate mostly through email it's a lot easier to get things done. If things are a little confusing or unclear, we have a phone meeting. They’ve been excellent.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They don't need too much direction and they're able to work on their own. That’s been phenomenal. For example, I'm working with an agency right now to develop a new website that's been nothing but a nightmare. I appreciate that Instant Email Copy can take directions and go ahead with the work.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Not that I can think of at this point. We couldn’t ask for more than 25–35% of our business from email marketing and they’re constantly testing to make improvements. I’m pretty excited.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Email marketing is absolutely necessary to create an emotional connection with your brand. Having a series of emails for when someone purchases from you or abandons from you is the first step to sales. Once you have a sale or a brand that resonates, send weekly newsletters. All of that is critical to email marketing for any business.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am a director with Biomedical Research Laboratories.

What challenge were you trying to address with Instant Email Copy?

We wanted help utilizing email in order to improve our bottom line.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We met with them to impart our tribal knowledge of the brand and what it represents. Instant Email Copy put together an email strategy and campaign, using content from our website to write the emails. They set up each email flow using the Klaviyo and Shopify platforms, as well as integrating with Justuno. They also do AB split tests of each campaign in order to make sure that they’re hitting our income goals.

What is the team composition?

Our main contact is the owner.

How did you come to work with Instant Email Copy?

I was specifically looking for an email marketing specialist that was a Klaviyo expert. We thought it's important to work with somebody who has experience using our platforms. We spoke to several large companies, but we like that they’re a smaller boutique agency.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in June 2017 and the engagement is ongoing.

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

We've seen tremendous results from the first month of working together. The email marketing campaigns are generating revenue well above 25% on one of our Shopify websites. That’s quite significant to our company. We’ve made a profit above what we pay Instant Email Copy, which we consider to be a really good return on investment.

How did Instant Email Copy perform from a project management standpoint?

Part of why I love them so much is that they don't require a lot of work from me. They’re excellent at what they do, so I've been pretty much hands off. If there’s a month where I don't have time to sit down and strategize, they pretty much self-manage the project.

We use Asana for project management and to communicate back and forth. They're good at reporting and putting everything together for us. We do go in and review all emails before they go out.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The return on investment is absolutely huge. They do superior work all the way through.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I have no complaints.

Any advice for potential customers?

Go out and compare what other companies promise. Unlike some of the large agencies, Instant Email Copy really under promises and over delivers. I don't think you can find any better partner.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I was the marketing and business development manager at Luxe Fitness, an e-commerce company that provides supplements, protein powder, and apparel.

What challenge were you trying to address with Instant Email Copy?

When we first started the business, we didn’t do any email marketing; I simply would send out weekly campaigns. There also wasn’t any SEO at all.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They reset the website’s entire traffic and also took on email campaigns. We use Klaviyo, which is an email marketing platform. Instant Email Copy was able to identify the segments, group them out, and target them.

What is the team composition?

My main point of contact was Dean (Founder, Instant Email Copy).

How did you come to work with Instant Email Copy?

We found them through Upwork.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent between $15,000-$20,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in November 2017 and the collaboration is ongoing.

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

Since we didn’t do anything at all at the beginning, we were shocked at how much revenue was reported within the first few weeks of using Instant Email Copy. Only in the first two weeks, our email revenue increased by 20–30% and our customer retention went up as well, which helps us in the long run.

They came up with many creative suggestions for us from the start, such as a spin-the-wheel popup, which was later integrated. They also do a lot of content strategy, which is something we didn’t think of, updating the site constantly every month or so. Furthermore, their experience with nutritional companies was very useful. They also did a lot of AB testing as well as SEO. Overall, we’re extremely happy with the results.

How did Instant Email Copy perform from a project management standpoint?

They took over project management and have done a great job. They know exactly what we were after, what will work, and deliver on time. We communicate directly with Dean through Slack, though we discuss campaigns over email and Skype. He’s always able to jump on a call immediately.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re efficient and creative in coming up with different content strategies for us. They performed a lot of AB testing and went the extra mile with their suggestions and design ideas. They take the time to optimize our email flows every month, which are our main source of revenue.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No. They do a great job.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I definitely recommend them.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a co-owner of a start-up operation called Beach Cities Wholesalers. We sell Gold Medal products and machines, such as gourmet popcorn, funnel cake, other snack foods, and the equipment to cook them.

Since opening in February 2011, BCW has grown into one of the largest Gold Medal Products dealers in the United States, earning back-to-back Golden Eagle awards for excellence in 2012 and 2013 and becoming one of the few Gold Medal Medallion level dealers in 2014, 2015 and 2016. We also distribute J&J Snack Foods products, Haagen Dazs/ Nestle Ice Cream and other select snack food items.

For what reason(s) did your company hire GobySavvy?

We had developed our website ourselves weren't interested in switching platforms or building a brand new site. Our customers are old school and we needed a solution that would make the website easier for them to navigate.

What were your goals for this project?

Our ultimate goal was to increase the number of sales and leads from local Southern California businesses on our website. We also needed to improve our local search rankings on Google. I didn't anticipate any significant impact (and boy was I surprised!) but just wanted to make it easier for current wholesale customers to work with our website.

How did you select this vendor?

I worked with my wife and business partner to figure out which of 5 agencies would best understand our needs, who we might enjoy working with the most, and who offered competitive pricing.

GobySavvy stuck out from other options because they have an expertise in the psychology of how to get website visitors to accomplish our business goals. Other agencies talked jargon and didn't seem to understand our specific goals to just optimize our existing site and push more sales and contact requests with what we have.

Describe the project in detail.

The scope of the project included the design and development of an improved website structure that would be easier for our customers to find products and machinery without confusion. Additionally, we needed to improve the contact options via phone or email.

We also wanted to improve our website's content to appeal more to our customers and also reflect the nature of our popcorn/snack foods business. Finally, we want to get our newsletter followers more engaged and lead them to purchase more products and attend our live events.

What was the team composition?

We had a dedicated project manager, Jessica [Project Manager, GobySavvy] who was an absolute pleasure to work with. The rest of the team included a UX designer, CRO expert, content strategist, email marketing expert, and the owner Ryan who helped with certain strategic decisions. We started with just the project manager and designer and eventually expanded as we realized our content needed to be improved.

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

Within 1 year of updating our website and expanding our email marketing efforts, we saw over 300% revenue growth, between the combined alternative efforts of SEO and the sales team. Our leads generated on the website increased by at least 10 fold. Finally, our customers also needed much less support to find things on our site.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Communication was very smooth. We mainly worked through phone calls and emails but had a few in-person meetings.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

What I found most impressive about GobySavvy was the knowledge and organization of both Ryan [Owner, GobySavvy] and our project manager, Jessica. They pushed us in a forward-thinking direction that we weren't originally comfortable with. It was an enlightening experience; I understand how to navigate the digital world much more confidently now.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Things could have gone faster and they could have quoted the content strategy budgets from the start, but I understand these things aren't always revealed until a project is underway.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work for a large beauty brand, and I work in the digital technology and innovation group. We work with brands across the portfolio to develop apps for in-store and for consumer-facing products. I’m a senior UX designer on the team.

What challenge were you trying to address with GobySavvy?

This was a couple years ago, and we were designing an app. At the time, I didn’t have as much experience working with Axure, which is a prototyping tool. We brought on GobySavvy to fill in that gap. Originally, I was trying to learn it on my own, but because of timing, we really needed a partner that could help us not only create a prototype but to also bring an extra set of eyes from a UX perspective. And then in general, we tend to work on very tight deadlines and very quick turnarounds, so GobySavvy was able to help us with that, often with less-than-two-day turnarounds. They were very successful in that.

What was the scope of their involvement?

I can’t give too much detail on the project itself, but it was a consumer-facing app for one of our brands, and it would allow users to access their accounts, their loyalty points, and also to shop from the app.

Before GobySavvy came on board with this specific project, I had created all of the wireframes in Axure, and they turned those wireframes into a clickable prototype. I worked with Ryan directly. He came into the office. We had a lot of phone calls. But it was really beneficial to have someone local who could come in and meet with me and go through feedback and brainstorm different ways to approach the problem within the app or to solve a usability issue. It was so long ago, it’s hard to say the timing, but I would say we probably worked with him for a couple of months. But it was such a pleasure working with him because my team is just me and my manager, who’s the ED of UX. I didn’t really have a team of designers to work with, so it was great to have someone who knew Axure, was very skilled in that, but then also knows UX and was able to contribute different problem-solving ideas.

Because I felt like he was so successful in that project, I told my colleagues and they brought him into other projects. Ryan went on to work with other colleagues of mine on more web-based apps. One project is live now, and it’s a digital flower bouquet builder for Mother’s Day. You can send it to your mom with a personalized note. It had really beautiful animations. He basically had a designer that created the UX for it and the prototype. I wasn’t involved in that project, so Ryan was the lead UX designer.

And then some other things that we’ve worked on? We built an appointment-booking app, starting with loose wireframes, not totally developed, just high-level, low-fidelity. One of his designers and I worked very closely together. That designer also had a lot of UX background, but also experience in Axure, and it was really important that we built the prototype because we wanted to make sure we could test it fully.

There was another project, but I can’t remember what it was. But it was also UX related. All their projects involved Ryan or his team creating wireframes, a prototype, and even helping with user testing. For one of the projects, he helped me set up the test questions and go through the feedback and figure out what we should change. They were involved in different stages for various projects.

How did you come to work with GobySavvy?

At the time, Ryan, the founder, had just started the company. I was one of his first clients. I found him as an independent designer on one of these websites, Freelance.com or something like that. We hired him thinking he was just one guy, but then I found out that he had his own company. I guess it was fate.

How much have you invested with GobySavvy?

I don’t really know how much the other projects were, but I would say no more than $20,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The summer of 2015, maybe May, is when we first started working with them. I don’t know about my colleagues, but I think they use him once in a while. I don’t really work with him anymore because we’ve hired more internal people to take the workload. But I also believe that his focus as a company has shifted from what it originally was. Originally, his focus was creating projects and doing usability studies, and now I believe he’s more focused on e-commerce and providing long-term solutions. We’d still bring him on if we needed an extra set of hands, but in the beginning, it was the perfect time for us to have an external partner. Now that we have more internal people, we don’t really need the extra help right now. I guess we stopped around November 2016.

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

I don’t have any metrics, but before I even joined my team, they weren’t working in clickable prototypes. All their wireframes were static. I wouldn’t necessarily give a specific metric, but in terms of how GobySavvy has helped my team rethink our process and how we create our products, his team really helped us go from static to prototype. When we present to the president and executive directors and global partners, it’s invaluable to have something that’s as close to the real deal. It seems more official as opposed to a static wireframe, and it also allows us to gather feedback.

How did Goby Savvy perform from a project management standpoint?

They were amazing. They met every single deadline. They’d get on a call with me anytime during the day, they’d respond to emails … they really made themselves available. They realized that my team and my company, because we’re so large, things are constantly changing. They were really able to keep up and meet all the deadlines that they promised.

We just used Google Docs as our project management software. At one point, we tried Slack, but it just made more sense to use Google Docs.

What did you find most impressive about GobySavvy?

I’ve worked with a lot of different agencies and independent contractors, and I’ve realized that everyone has the skill. But what you can’t teach someone is the work ethic, the passion, the drive to create something amazing. Usually agencies just want to get paid. They want to come in, do the job, do exactly what you tell them to do, and leave. With freelancers, it’s the same thing. They’re not tied to the company or the project. But with GobySavvy, they were really dedicated to supporting me, to supporting the project, and providing feedback to make sure that whatever we create is actually the best thing. It was really refreshing to work with someone who shares my passion.

Are there any areas GobySavvy could improve?

GobySavvy could improve on the wires design style. I’ve come to realize that UI designers follow the UX exactly and don’t necessarily update or come up with alternative visual treatments for some elements.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Q2E is a software startup that is developing channel enablement software to help enable large technology companies better manage their channel distribution processes.

What challenge were you trying to address with GobySavvy?

Our startup had a couple of early iterations of our software, which evolved organically with different aspects, attributes, and features being developed over time. It's not uncommon for startups to develop the first version of their product, and then they realize that they're going to pivot to a new market segment or further redefine the software as a result of the pivot. When customers begin to use the software, they have different ideas for how it should perform or be used.

Our software evolved in such a way that we realized we were serving a specific market need, this channel enablement needs, that was not what we originally built the software for. We had a much broader target originally. Basically, we had been grafting features and processes onto a piece of software rather than having a cohesive platform specific to our current needs. It wasn’t holistic.

So the business challenge for GobySavvy was that we had software that had many disparate parts that weren’t integrated into a cohesive whole. The UX wasn’t easy either, since it, too, was fragmented. We hired GobySavvy to help us redesign the entire software from the ground up and design a holistic and cohesive framework for the entire feature set that would be easier to use.

What was the scope of their involvement?

The first phases of our work with GobySavvy involved defining the key users for whom we would be designing. We identified the key roles or people who work at technology companies and with their channel sales and distributions networks. GobySavvy helped conduct interviews with people in our market who occupy those roles, so they further fleshed out the specific challenges individuals face on their jobs when using software to do their work. For example, a channel chief has different software needs than a vice president of marketing, a sales manager, or a salesperson.

After defining the key roles, we sat down and developed a roadmap of all the key parts of the software that needed to be redesigned. We considered the point of view of each of those different roles, and what different users would need to see, do, or achieve with the software. GobySavvy then proceeded to wireframe a complete redesign of the software and then subjected that wireframe to some usability testing with people who represented those key roles. They then took the results of those tests and further refined their designs.

Parallel to this, one member of their team was working on the visual design guide — the fonts, colors, icons, and certain specifications for the visual components —  by working with our vice president of marketing to visually represent our brand values in our software. She learned from our marketing team to understand our brand — what it was trying to say and achieve — and work with our core color palette. She then translated all of that into a visual design guide with which the eventual wireframes would be implemented.

GobySavvy completed and refined the wireframes and tested them, and they developed a visual style guide that reflected our brand. They then put together several mockups for how we would implement the wireframes and how we would apply the style guide.

That was the first phase of our process — redesigning the user experience. We’re now in the middle of our second round of engagement, which is rebuilding and redesigning the admin experience. We have a powerful set of admin tools for power users, and we’re going through a similar process with that component of the product.

How did you come to work with GobySavvy?

It took us a few months to find GobySavvy. We searched through and posted in a lot of different venues, freelancer sites, LinkedIn searches, etc. When we found individuals or companies, we would interview them, take a look at their work, get their feelings about design, gauge their comfort level with working with startups, and see if they had any experience with working in agile environments. (We’re an agile shop). We finally decided to choose GobySavvy, because they seemed to be the right kind of fit.

What is the status of this engagement?

We first contacted and began vetting GobySavvy in November 2015, and we began our first engagement with them in February 2016. We’re still working together, and I think our relationship is fantastic.

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

About a month ago we released the first phase of the redesign, Q2E 3.0, that GobySavvy worked on with us in 2016. We’re in the middle of converting our existing customers to the new version, and they’ve relayed positive feedback so far. They’re saying things like: This is so much easier to use. This is so much cleaner to look at. This is so much easier for us to find what we’re working on. This is far less confusing than your earlier version. Managers using the new version are saying: This is great. This gives me the information I've been looking for. This is really helping me measure my team’s performance better.

We’ve also begun showing the new version to prospective customers, people with whom our salespeople are speaking. Our prospective customer pool has gotten more active and more interested in the product after seeing the new version. Several pilots are being proposed, and a much larger group of customers are interested. We’re getting more referrals for potential customers from people who have seen the new version.

How did GobySavvy perform from a project management standpoint?

GobySavvy performs really well from a project management standpoint. We use Basecamp to work together and communicate. GobySavvy makes it clear how the project is going to be managed, what the milestones are going to be, what the check-in meetings are going to be, and what the deliverables will be at each phase of the project. But they’re also flexible. They’re able to make the work go as fast as they can, and they’re able to slow things down if there are bottlenecks on our end and we need to adjust the schedule. It’s been great.

We like GobySavvy’s designers. They bring a wide variety of perspectives to the project, and they have a flexible team of people that they assign to us at different times depending on what we’re doing. They have one person who does testing, one who designs dashboards, one who does visual design. We’re currently working with someone who is doing complicated admin tools. We’ve been happy with every person with whom we’ve worked. They’re all specialists who have deep-seeded experience in the particular aspects on which they’re working.

What did you find most impressive about GobySavvy?

I would say GobySavvy’s biggest strength is that they understand business, and that’s a big deal for us in designing enterprise software for businesses. It often has been my experience that a lot of designers are great at design, but they struggle to understand how business works and what business users are trying to do in the course of their jobs. GobySavvy has created a team of people who understand what corporate environments are like and how that needs to be reflected in enterprise software. That’s a hard skill to find: so many of the UX people we interviewed were great at consumer apps, but it’s rare to find people who understand how businesses and departments function, and how the software needs to be easy to use in that context. GobySavvy has been fantastic in that sense. They get business. They get the enterprise.

Are there any areas GobySavvy could improve?

Whenever we’ve spoken to GobySavvy about areas for improvement, they’ve been really responsive. I would characterize them as being an agile, learning group of people who are able to roll with any feedback we give them. I have no concerns or complaints.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of an importing firm. We import from China and other Asian companies and we distribute to 10,000+ retailers around Australia and the Pacific Rim, including New Zealand, Fiji, Micronesia, and Singapore. The company is about 45 years strong.

What challenge were you trying to address with GobySavvy?

Most of our users, our retail buyers, are older folks who aren’t tech savvy, so we needed to simplify the website, which is what we hired GobySavvy to do. We needed to take out all the bells and whistles that didn’t need to be there.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We pretty much let them run the entire project because we didn’t even know what UX was when we started getting into it. We asked them to do a deep dive into the site and come back to us with all of the pain points that they could see. They did surveys to people all around the world to figure out what was working and what wasn’t, and the results were more in-depth than we had imagined based on our internal testing. There were buttons in the wrong spot and color schemes that didn’t work and funny wording that could all be improved. We really believe that those little tweaks make a huge difference in making customers happy and making money.

After they did the research, GobySavvy worked hand in hand with our developers to make sure that the changes were implemented in ways that worked for us. There were some things that are industry-specific that GobySavvy couldn’t have tested for in their surveys, so having them work with our development team was great. We implemented about 90% of the things they suggested. Now we go back to them every few months for little improvements. The web is an evolving thing, so we have to be continuously looking at new technologies and new improvements to stay current.

How did you come to work with GobySavvy?

We researched UX people and GobySavvy came up at the front of that. We did consider a few other firms, but they were by far the most professional. They had a good reputation. We continue to work with them and recommend them to people we work with. But we don’t recommend them to our Australian competitors; we want to keep our secret. I’ll tell the world about GobySavvy, just not other people in Australia!

How much have you invested with GobySavvy?

I think it’s been about $5,000-$10,000 USD over the past few years.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working with them for two or three years, and we go back to them for extra work two or three times a year. It’s ongoing relationship.

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

We get a huge amount of positive feedback from our customers. We’re continually told we have one of the best websites in the industry, which we love to hear. Our website is so good that two or three of our competitors have basically copied and pasted text off our page and put it on theirs (it’s still got our name on it; they haven’t even changed the details). You know what they say: Imitation is the highest form of flattery.

How did GobySavvy perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re easy to work with. They give us an offer of how much it’s going to cost for them to do the work, we say yes and they go ahead and do it. They come back and it’s done. From a project management view, they’re really easy to work with. I run most of it and I’m fairly tech savvy and I could do some of this myself, but I use them because they know what they’re doing and they’re fluent across many levels of tech. We use Basecamp and Lighthouse to manage the work.

What did you find most impressive about GobySavvy?

I was surprised at how quickly they understood our industry and identified pain points that I couldn’t see after having been in the industry for 30 years. For them to be able to deep dive that quickly was really impressive. They got it right away. Our main thing was that our users aren’t tech savvy and it needs to be simple, and they knew exactly how to carry that out.

Are there any areas GobySavvy could improve?

There are no areas I think they could improve on. Maybe they could come up with a plan where you can just pay a certain amount of money and have them take care of everything, but I think they’ve got everything pretty much covered.