What was it that initially drew you to Cre8ion?
Well, Darrell and I had met on the Natwest business accelerator scheme, and a couple of months into that I realised that the business was due to scale up, and I felt the website needed to reflect that, but it was consistently Darrell and the team who really seemed to get what we were trying to achieve, and what we needed structurally, and branding-wise, and Cre8ion just felt like the natural partner for us.
What challenges have Cre8ion helped you overcome?
I think the most significant one came about 5 or 6 months into our relationship with Cre8ion. The new website was delivered in October or November 2019, and we were looking at a 2020 which was going to be our best year, to date. We had a wedding season which was completely booked out with couples and events, but we all know 2020 didn’t work out how it was originally planned, which put us into something of a crisis.
Darrell was one of the first people to call me, actually, when the lockdown was announced. He just put a call in and said “we’re thinking about you, we know that hospitality is going to be hard hit, we’re here if you need any help”, which meant an enormous amount to me at the time. We were really struggling with the enormity of what was happening to our business, but we took our time and decided to pivot towards home delivery of comfort food meals, which is something that we’re really known for. So, I went to Darrell with the plan of making a web shop, so that people could order our food for local delivery.
It worked fantastically, the team were great at understanding what we needed, that we needed to edit the website ourselves and have some control over it, have it simple to use, and it was delivered faster than I thought it would be, and we were supported all the way.
What one thing stands out working with Cre8ion?
The thing that I appreciated the most is the transparency around the process. I’ve struggled in the past with knowing what was happening sometimes with other developers and designers, and that has proved a point of frustration. But right from the beginning with Cre8ion, I knew what the process was going to be, I knew who the people were, who I needed to speak to, and I got a really good sense of how I could contribute my needs and my opinions and my creative ideas, and how they could be incorporated into what was happening overall. I never felt like my ideas were being taken over or changed. I felt they were being incorporated the way I wanted them to be, the branding was maintained exactly the way I wanted it to be, and I always knew who I needed to speak to, and I always felt confident that elements were going to be delivered exactly on time, and they were.
Can you share what working with Cre8ion looked like?
We always felt involved every step of the way, which was really important to me. I really liked the workshop aspect at the beginning, it went so much further than “what do you want on your website”?. It was a process of really understanding the business, and how we work and most importantly how our clients contact us, how they find us. There was a lot about who they are, and honing in on our ideal client, and how they’re going to reach the website. It was a really great process for us to have that workshop because it kind of crystallised a lot for us as well. That is a great part of the Cre8ion process that we really appreciated.
Would you recommend Cre8ion to someone else?
I have recommended Cre8ion to quite a few people actually, who were in the position that I was. I have been so impressed with how friendly and approachable everyone is at Cre8ion. I’ve never been made to feel that any enquiry I had was inappropriate or too much. I just felt supported through the whole process. It’s all very deliberate, the process was really clear from the start. Timelines were made very clear to me. Which is vital when we’re trying to launch something new, we could coordinate all our efforts and everything came together as we were told it would.