Archive for January, 2009

Conquer - Efficient - Love in 2009

Monday, January 19th, 2009

How about a little insight into our 2009 company goals? If curious see:

cel_v3b
To keep our focus, our entire team is focusing on three major goals this year:

CONQUER: Even with the state of the economy our goals are to see another year of double digit growth and pass the $2 million mark in custom web development services. To do so, we will continue to innovate and deliver super premium web solutions.

EFFICIENT: Increase our operating margin by 11%. Being a custom web design agency, we like to finesse the details. In the past we have not focused enough attention on measuring our time investment throughout the development lifecycle. Attention to detail will always the stay the same. At the same time our entire team is working hard to proactively measure the health of all our projects throughout production and make adjustments as needed.

LOVE: One of the big things that makes us different is our approach to servicing our clients. Managing web projects can be like juggling running chain saws on fire. On that note, our team is fortunate to have some great project managers. To help share ideas and gain feedback with our project management and discovery team, we have kicked off a new program with all clients to help better connect and spread the love.

To remind us of our 2009 goals, many of us use the “CEL” image as our background for our computer’s desktop while others have a small cut-out taped to one of their monitors. I am really confident we will cross the finish line with all three goals reached.

So get some love and contact our team today about your next custom web development project.

Steve C. Kahle
Managing Principal
White Lion Internet Agency

Posted in White Lion Tidbits |

Keep it ultra simple when asking for user feedback

Thursday, January 15th, 2009

I recently had a problem with my Quicken personal software. Knowing I would probably be routed to an offshore call center, instead of calling I decided to go the route of online chat for help. Even though I ended up chatting with a support rep in India, I must say the experience was efficient and solved my problem quickly. The typing I bet must of helped with overall comprehension in both directions.

The next day I received the following:

quicken_11

Still reflecting on the positive customer experience, I was prepared to take a few moments so I clicked the link to find:

quicken_2

Do you know what happened? What would you have done? I was faced with 6 required field and one optional field. I bailed and didn’t complete the online form. We think Quicken is missing the boat by asking for too much information. Quicken should take a “gradual engagement” approach where they ask one, maybe two questions initially. The following screen could ask a few more so if the customer bails out, at least Quicken benefits from the first set of questions being answered. The other approach is to have perhaps one rating component on the page (perhaps five stars) and a comment box.

Compare with:

media_temple

Our team loves complex web site development. We understand the importance of keeping a very macro perspective working hard to listen and understand our client’s business landscape and objectives. Like engineering and designing a simple customer feedback form, we also get a thrill out of executing the small details paramount in creating a memorable online experience. So give us some feedback and tell us about your new web development project and experience our way of thinking.

Steve C. Kahle - Managing Principal - White Lion Internet Agency

Posted in Usability |