At Blayzer we offer full service, integrated web development. That means we are there for our clients from concept to completion. Here’s how a typical project breaks down:
Phases
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0StrategyWhether we’re building a website or running an email campaign, we start every project at the strategic level as we seek to understand how our efforts and resulting solutions must integrate with the core of your business and marketing plans. This big picture analysis and discovery process enables us to fully understand where you are and where you want to be – the foundation of any successful project. -
1KickoffOnce your strategy is clearly defined, we head into design and production of your solutions, starting with a kickoff meeting with project leadership and key staff to get everyone on the same page. In this meeting we will review all contract deliverables for clarification as needed, go over some info-gathering checklists, confirm timelines, and otherwise discuss the project.
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2ProductionKickoff is followed by production. Armed with information from our kickoff meeting, Blayzer’s design and development teams will get right to work creating your solution, with our content team getting to work as soon as possible to start the lengthy and complicated process of creating, migrating and inserting content into the new site.
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3TestingWhen production is complete, we test the solution thoroughly, running through all the key interfaces and processes and updating to ensure error-free performance.
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4LaunchAfter final approval the website will go live. At the launch we setup all CDN Services, 301 redirects, migrating customers, orders and current inventory. Our ultimate goal is to make sure you have all the necessary pieces in place to make your solution a success.
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5MaintenanceJust like your business, websites nowadays are no longer static pieces of marketing content. An ecommerce site in particular should be a dynamic hub for all of your current inventory, branding, marketing, and engagement initiatives. This requires continual updates, maintenance, and even larger changes over time. At Blayzer we make a special point of making all this maintenance possible by choosing easily manageable software platforms, offering monthly maintenance service packages, and setting up additional site management tools and processes where applicable.
Account Management
Every Blayzer client works with both an Account Manager and a Project Manager as their main points of contact (for business matters and project matters, respectively). On our end, these individuals work together closely to ensure the proper delivery and success of your project and experience working with Blayzer. On the client side, we find that projects are most efficient and successful when point-of-contact is limited to one or a few key staff. This reduces miscommunication and redundancy.
Project Management
Over the years we have learned that the best way to ensure a successful project is to use the right communication and collaboration tools at every step of the process. Here are a few of the tools and tactics we currently use to manage our projects and communicate with clients:
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Blayzer uses a sophisticated CRM solution to track and manage accounts, contact information, and interactions between clients and our team. It serves as the central hub that connects all of our project management solutions. This is how we are able to run our shop with no blind spots from beginning to end.
- Basecamp
During production we use web-based software (currently Basecamp) to communicate and collaborate with clients. Each project has a private, secure space online where Blayzer and client contributors can organize and discuss everything they need to get a project done. See it, track it, discuss it, act on it. Tasks, discussions, deadlines, and files – everything’s predictably organized and accessible.
- Client Portal
Once websites go live, we provide a Client Portal where clients can submit support tickets and other requests, and track the resolution process.
- Project Tracking Software
Internally we utilize a project management software where the Blayzer team logs detailed notes and tracks time spent on all the work they do for project. This creates a convenient chronological record of every step we take and every move we make, so we can stay on target and refer back to past work notes when needed. This software helps to keep our team working efficiently and also allows us to quickly and easily answer questions about your project as they come up.
- Sandbox/Development Sites
Where it makes sense for ongoing collaboration, development, marketing, and maintenance needs, we can create a sandbox/development site to control changes rather than do all work directly into the live site. Contributors make their updates to the dev site, which then pushes updates out to the live site on a routine basis. Specifics on this setup are hashed out on a per-client basis.
- Code Repositories
For projects requiring intensive ongoing development or involving multiple production sources, we may use source control tools like GitHub or BitBucket to create a private repository to properly manage the source code. Not all projects will require this, but some do and we are prepared to meet the need.
