Yesterday, a customer wrote in to tell us they loved our web site. They wanted to know what agency did it. This was quite flattering, because the answer is… us! 
While everybody in the company is at least a little involved in everything we develop at BatchBlue, BatchBlue.com is more or less the brainchild of Michelle and me. We’re constantly making updates, looking for ways to refine our message, grow our reach, etc.
But for this customer (and anyone else), what I want to do is make a list of what I would look for in an agency if (gasp!) BatchBlue were to outsource the development of BatchBlue.com.
Make sure they work with web standards.
It wasn’t long ago that just about every web developer (myself included) was building websites with tables and embedded styles. Now designing with web standards using HTML (or XHTML), CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), and Javascript) is the way to go. The thing is, to many small business owners, you really can’t tell the difference between a web site built with these up-to-date standards and one built on the legacy “table and font tag” approach just by looking at it.
So, what’s the big deal then?
A web site built the old way just might do the trick for you. Unless, of course, you want to do anything with it. Like change your logo. Or change your colors. Or add page with some special offers. Or optimize the site for mobile devices. Or have another developer work on it. At this point, a site built the old way can be terrible to work with.
You can see where I’m going here. If you want a quick website thrown together that you plan to completely replace in the future (when the budget is bigger or whatever), then maybe your nephew’s FrontPage skills will be just fine. But if you want a web site that will grow with you over time, get someone who knows about HTML, CSS, lean code, and “bulletproof” web design (designing with future modifications in mind).
You should see how different BatchBlue.com is compared with a couple years ago. Because it is built with clean code and CSS, every change is really just a tweak. No full redesign has ever been needed. The same could be said about BatchBook… but I would never show you what BatchBook looked like two years ago!
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Tags: web agencies, web design, web development
Last night we made some (mostly) cosmetic updates to BatchBook. Here’s how she looks today:
The highlights:
- We consolidated help text and screencasts into a context-sensitive footer that provides support options for the tab you are currently on.
- We reorganized the rest of the footer as well.
- We anchored the primary column to better establish the visual hierarchy of the main column vs. the sidebar.
- We removed redundant headers to make more room for the data that matters.
- We moved the search bar to the header, bringing other sidebar elements up the page a bit more.
- We used more subtle color to cater to those not in love with blues and oranges.
- We made an assortment of other minor tweaks.
When it was all said and done, we removed a lot more than we added. To me, that’s the sign of a successful redesign. We’re curious to hear what you think!
Tags: batchblue, batchbook, design, small business CRM
With the imminent demise of several prominent Software as a Service (SaaS) businesses recently announced, I’m sure folks are wondering about the reliability of this “cloud computing”. People who are trusting their relationships, their daily routines and their future fortunes to an unknown, unseen geek posse at the other end of the Internet deserve more respect. Honestly, I think these trusting folks have taken it on the chin this week.
As SaaS developers, we’re not building tools that people pick up, use, and put down again when they are done. Our code isn’t burned on a disk, packaged up and then sent off to be sold at some superstore. We can’t just walk away when we’re tired of playing the game, or get a better offer from a cooler friend.
That’s not how it works when selling software as a SERVICE. We are building a relationship with every single person using our product and we have an obligation to take care of them. Not to legally cover our butts, but to really take care of our customers; to listen to how they are using our product, involve them in the implementation of our vision, to give ample warning if something unforeseen does happen, and do everything in our power to make sure they will be okay without us.
With this goal in mind, we at BatchBlue make the following pledge to our users: (more…)
Tags:
CRM , Social CRM, Contact Manager, Address book on steroids, the ‘wow you guys really like blue’ app.
These are all terms we’ve heard to describe BatchBook and we agree with all of them. Another thing I would add to that list is “Your own dev team starting at $10 a month”. When you chose to purchase a BatchBook account, you’re buying much more than a place for your contacts. You’re buying a baseball stat-obsessed user interface designer, a Customer Service specialist who loves cats, and a karate chopping product manager among other things. You’re investing in a team of people who are work-obsessed and probably sleep too little.
The beauty of a SaaS (software as a service) offering is that your purchase does not stop bringing you benefits after your initial purchase. You’re buying into Batchblue and as such, our entire company is here to support you. Take a look at our forums as well as our series ‘Our Users Are So Smart’ to see our philosophy in action.
There’s been some press lately extolling the virtues of free web applications and services. While we agree you can get by on these to an extent, free can also cost you in terms of lack of support and not having a say in the direction of the product.
At BatchBlue, we’ve put a stake in the ground. We’re publicly saying that we will work hard, keep our prices low, provide stellar customer support and deliver an application that is constantly being refined and advanced at no extra cost to you. We feel strongly that there is real value in that and hope that you agree.
Tags: batchbook, crm
Now that we’ve hit BatchBook 1.0, it’s time to start looking at what 2.0 will be. To us, it means seeing how your contacts are interacting with and on the web. This translates to many things (syncing, sharing contact information with other apps, etc.) Each of our upcoming “social” features will more fully leverage the power of BatchBook and as a result, your contact network.
Feed Reader
For the first big addition in this more social direction, we’ve added a new SuperTag type: the Feed Reader. The Feed Reader SuperTag type lets you add any RSS feed, Twitter streams and Delicious streams to a SuperTag. You can add the Feed Reader to an existing SuperTag, or create a new SuperTag using new Feed Reader fields.
Here’s a screenshot of the Feed Reader in action. We’ve created a SuperTag called “social media” and added Feed Readers for personal blog, Twitter stream and delicious links. Currently, we show the last three updates to a feed and link back to the original feed source.
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Tags: batchbook, crm, social crm
