John Linton
From its first day in business Exetel has only used web sites to 'market' its services and has only used web based ordering, provisioning and support processes. Over the time Exetel has been in business we have constantly (daily) made changes to every aspect of our own web site and added more and more, and more and more sophisticated, capabilities to it.
The original design hasn't changed very much - except cosmetically - (although it has grown from around 60 'pages' to over 300 'pages' and from three backend functions to over 50 backend functions) and despite the various "knowledgable" people who have made disparaging comments about how it "looks like it was done by a five year old" it has been sufficient to grow Exetel from zero to a company with over 65,000 customers and revenues in excess of $A3 million a month. By no means very large but a reasonable achievement for a start up company yet to complete its fourth year in business that did/does no advertising or marketing of any kind.
We have been looking at having the web site completely 'overhauled' to meet the now changing needs of the business and the various directional changes that will need to be made over the coming months and sought some base information from web design houses and individuals. I was surprised by the large number of responses we received from a simple request for information posted on our forum and an email to the members of the Exetel Forum - we received over 100 responses in the format we requested plus another 50 plus telling us we were "insane" to try and get a new web site properly developed using the methodology we had employed.
I was very impressed with some of the responses and some of the reference sites provided as examples, in my obviously amateurish and untutored opinion, were almost 'works of art' in themselves. It was a very difficult process to select a 'short list' of three to hold detailed discussions with but I did that over the 'surprise' NSW Government mandated long weekend just past.
While I appreciate 'beauty' in my own particular way (like every other human being does in their own particular ways) my idea of a good "selling" web site has been built up over almost 15 years and for 5 different technology companies prior to Exetel. The web designers I shortlisted were selected because of the boring criteria of:
1) Simplicity of layout/design
2) 'Cleanness' of visual impact
3) Ease of complex navigation
4) Cleverness of complex interlinking
Doubtless the 'customer' of the selected designers had a great deal to do with the end result but that is always going to be a very real factor in any web site. The problem I've always had in getting web sites designed has been allowing the designer enough freedom to do their job as they wish to do it. My issue with allowing 'freedom' was, and remains, that I'm responsible for the success of the web site (Exetel is 100% dependent on the web site generating business and then providing the basis for us staying in business) and I've never met a designer that even begins to understand that basic viewpoint.
Most of the 'proposals' I discarded were because the person submitting them gave every indication that they knew what was required to sell technology products and services better than Exetel did. While that could, possibly, be true for an exceptionally gifted and experienced person I find it puzzling as an almost universal attitude. Perhaps I'm just too old to hold the responsibilities I do in today's technology marketplaces because I actually still have the view that I understand, based on practical day to day experience, how to use a web site to reach commercially set revenue and other targets far better than someone who has no knowledge of either the products or the prospective customers for them.
It's obviously going to take far more time than I had envisioned (and therefore far more cost) to develop a new web site that will meet all of the needs that Exetel has in mind for it.