Empowering The Small Business Website Owner
by Ben Wilson on June 25th, 2015
The founders of Web Force 5 have been involved in the development of websites for the small business sector in Australia for more than 12 years. Working with a variety of traditional website providers and website content management systems they identified six years ago that the typical small business website customer faced a number of common issues when engaging with website developers:
- The whole process was frustrating, unstructured and ambiguous
- The time it took to deploy their new website dragged on for far too long
- The prices charged by some developers were prohibitive
- Once the website was live they were reliant on their developer for any changes – more costs
- There was no support usually and certainly there was no proactive support offered
The original Web Force 5 team that is still together today embarked on a quest to provide an option to the small business website customer by providing a viable and affordable option that addressed all of those frustrations.
Web Force 5 Cracks The Code
Over the last five years we are proud to have created a business website system and supporting processes that are unique to the website industry. Designed to allow non-tech business people to take control of the website planning and scoping process and also the ongoing management of their website, Web Force 5 is unlike any other website provider. A fundamental difference is that most website developers talk in a language that an average person cannot understand, we talk plain business English so that our customers remain engaged and involved at every stage of the website planning, development and ongoing management process. Supported by a unique set of tools designed for the non-technical person we demystify websites so that our clients can make informed decisions.
Our engagement process brings a level of transparency to the website scoping and quoting process that many of our competitors cringe at. The education combined with the quotation documentation we provide every customer for free is specifically designed to equip clients (business owners) with the information they need so they don’t fall victim to common traps that the website industry sets for unsuspecting non-technical customer.
All of this is done pre-sale, but it is what happens post-sale that really sets Web Force 5 apart. The Web Force 5 Content Management System (CMS) is quite simply the easiest to use and most flexible CMS on the market. Big claim – we are happy to show you so that you can make up your own mind. Combine that with the fact that a Web Force 5 wrap the easiest to use CMS in an unprecedented level of support via locally based staff (that’s right no more waiting to talk to people who don’t speak your language or understand your business) and you have a website solution that is “unique”.
Our Customers Are Our Marketing Team
Most businesses offering website development services measure success by the number of new clients acquired. More progressive, service based provider’s measure success by the length of time they can retain their clients. Neither of those measures means anything to us because anyone can:
- Build a better mouse trap and catch more mice
- Make them reliant on you so that it is hard for them to go elsewhere
Our key measure of success and our proudest achievement is not that 63% of anyone that participates in our scoping meeting becomes a customer. Nor is it that we have retained 97% of our customers over a 4.5 year period.
Our proudest achievement is that each new customer refers 1.63 additional customers to us over the first 12 months that they are a Web Force 5 customer.
To us, this tells us that we are doing something right. Nobody refers their friends and colleagues unless they think that the referral they make will reflect positively on them. In turn this means that they are happy with their relationship with Web Force 5 and by default new customers become active advocates who perpetuate our growth.
Unfortunately the website industry does not have a great reputation for service or for keeping promises. The Web Force 5 culture and our own internal measures of success are diametrically opposed to those market norms.