Working in web development can sometimes feel like working in IT support. The majority of the feedback we receive comes from when things aren’t working.
Now don’t get me wrong, when a website or update is launched our lovely clients are always quick to say thank you (a crate of beer or a bottle of wine is always welcome), but outside of direct feedback from the client we tend to just hear about the negatives.
This is understandable and something that developers have just taken as part of the job. When do you go to a website that works as intended and think, I know ‘Ill contact the company that developed the website and let them know.’ – it doesn’t happen often. Recently, it’s happened twice!
So when it does it’s worthy of writing a blog post about.
The first example came from a new website we recently launched for Stroud Auctions (https://www.stroudauctions.co.uk/). One of the big issues that users of their old site faced was how difficult it was to navigate and how slow the auctions took to load. The new website was developed with this in mind and we are very pleased with the outcome.
During auctions, when web traffic is at its highest, they receive an influx of calls and emails from customers with questions about lots and bidding. During July’s auction a lovely customer phoned to say how much they preferred the new website and how much easier it was to use. Thankfully Alex at Stroud Auctions passed this on to us.
The other example came from the new ‘Player Ratings’ feature on The United Stand (TUS) website. The focus for the latest round of updates was centered all around making the website more interactive. This included the launch online quizzes (https://www.theunitedstand.com/articles/quizzes) and player rating submissions (https://www.theunitedstand.com/articles/match-ratings). All in an attempt to get their massive online following to interact with them a bit more.
After each of their ‘Watch Along’ shows the host of their YouTube channel goes on to present a live ‘Player Ratings’ show. This stream shows the player rating system live on screen and he provides his opinions and ratings for each player and then compares that to the aggregated ratings of their followers. Viewers for these ‘Player Ratings’ shows are known to rise to about 35k+ live viewers. During each Manchester United game we experience around 20,000 websites views and spikes of around 5000 visitors all at once to the website (this has development problems itself, but that’s for another blog post).
This interactivity and the fact that TUS have such a large social media presence means that it’s inevitable their fans will go to Twitter to post their feedback. Here are a few examples where they’ve praised the website:
shout out to the web designers… this has made the website so much more interactive in real time matches
— Abel to do it (@Abe10UC) July 16, 2020
Rating system is class
— Gunwood (@YanitedDaGOAT) July 16, 2020
They even received an email through the website from one their fans expressing how much they loved the new feature:
I personally would like to say thank you to our clients that pass on these messages to us. It really does put a smile on our developers faces to know that their hard work is leading to positive results.
Now time for some sales; if your business receives positive feedback from your customers then don’t forget to ask them to post a nice review online via Facebook, Google or many of the other review platforms. If you are looking for help to improve your online reputation why not get in touch with Brace and we can discuss what we can do to assist.
