NEW Website launch

Released On 24th Mar 2018

It is with a huge amount of pleasure that we can now confirm the release of our new website. This website is our shop front, our pride and joy and reflects the same pride that we take in our work.

Historical website

Our previous website was great, fit for purpose and was designed and hosted by a great friend of ours, Ian Hempstock, who did a fantastic job. Moving the business away from Ian was done so with a heavy heart. While Ian was always on hand to help us, the downside for us was that we didn't have a huge amount of spare time to keep it updated as we were too busy focusing on growing our business. When we did find time, we had to keep refreshing our memory from the training information provided by Ian and the task became a chore and we found ourselves abandoning any updates rather than completing them. We do accept that this may reflect more on Adrian's ageing memory than anything else but accepted that this was not going to improve!

Choosing a supplier

With this in mind, we set about looking for somebody local for assistance. This was important to us for a number of reasons, keeping work local is good for the community and we needed the ability to go and sit in the room and thrash out our requirements, and make some notes to assist the ageing memory! We did lots of research and we came across a local company called Kontrolit, a 5 minute walk from our office, ideal.

Adrian descended, unannounced, on their office on Monday 18th December 2017. Despite not having made an appointment, he was made very welcome by one of the business owners, Richard Howes, who was keen to listen and took the time to go through some example websites, addressing any questions Adrian had along the way. It was clear that this guy knew exactly what he was talking about and ran a tight ship.

They weren't cheap, far from it, but we all know what happens when you buy cheap and besides, we don't promote cheap ourselves, we promote quality and customer service, clearly the same ethos as Kontrolit.

The truth of the matter is that before Richard had even given us a quotation, I (Adrian), in my own mind, had chosen his company to do the work. Richard did not know this, but I am certain he will soon find out. Why had i made this decsion so quick, because his websites were lightening speed, secure, he had a great team around him and he was approachable, knowleldgeble and extremely passionate about his work, very much like us. We are firm believers that business is about people and if you strike that connection quickly, the rest falls in place with little effort.

The Build (and coffee and cake!!)

So, 3 days later, Richard and his team were instructed. He provided us a comprehensive proposal and a plan and it was time to kick it off. Huge excitement all round and 1st gear engaged.  I guess this is where I thought it nice to add in a picture of what I am doing while writing this blog, my 3rd blog, as I familiarise myself even more with this simple to update system. (I still need notes at this point in time, did I mention about my ageing memory?)

Ok, So Richard's design team contacted us swiftly, introduced themselves, outlined the plan and what was needed by us. Yes, despite engaging a great company, this website was only ever going to be as good as the information put into it. Never underestimate the work required in doing this. In fact, us providing this information was the only thing that added to the delay of the launch. Moving swiftly on, we provided an overview of our requirement, a draft home page was designed very quickly and near perfect first time around, a couple of meetings with the team later, lots of words provided by ourselves, some in house training, a few tweaks here and there, a lot of tests taking place and here we are, the finished result.

Summary

We cannot praise Kontrolit enough for their efforts and patience through the process of delivering what we believe, is one of the best websites around. In fact, we believe it is an award winning wesbsite, it is easy to navigate, full of great features and is very clear and concise. As if we haven't praised our supplier enough, please be sure to contact them yourselves here and make sure you throw our name into the mix when contacting them - Kontrolit, it's a 10 from us ....