straight from our customer’s keyboard
The best way to find out how you are doing as a company is to hear it directly from your customers. Recently, we had a prospective client ask for some referrals to find out how lyonscg functions and if we can deliver on what we promise. Below, you can read what questions were presented to our client, Andrew Ruggeri from Oneida, and exactly how he answered them. Thanks so much for the referral Andrew – we are still blushing from all the great remarks!
Q: Was the implementation completed on or before the date quoted by the vendor? If not, why?
A. Yes. We gave Lyons an extremely tight and aggressive deadline to hit completion and they delivered right on time.
Q. Was the implementation completed at or below the cost quoted by the vendor? If not, why?
A. Costs came in right at what they quoted. Quite honestly, we got a bit more in development than they even quoted us but they did not go back and ask for more money – they simply did it.
Q: What is the most positive comment you could make on the implementation phase?
A. Positive — attention to detail in all phases of the project. Requirements gathering, build, testing and implementation — nothing slipped through the cracks.
Q. What is the most negative comment you could make on the implementation phase?
A. Negative – communication. Our project manager (who is no longer with Lyons) was out in California, we are in New York. Synching up in terms of emails, calls and overall communication had it’s challenges.
Q. Were there any front-end product features (visitor shopping experience) that fell short of your original expectations of the product’s capabilities? If so, which?
A. No — we (Oneida) knew exactly what we wanted and did the majority of the design and layout. Magento delivers what is advertised.
Q. Were there any back-end components (site management tools) that fell short of your original expectations of the product’s capabilities? If so, which?
A. I wish there was more flexible reporting. Any custom reports you want, Lyons can build but it does need to be done by them. I wish I had better access to the data.
Q. Have you experienced any unscheduled outages for your ecommerce site since launching? If so, roughly how many outages, and what was the duration of the longest occurrence?
A. No outages due to Lyons or the hosting company. However, we have experience some viral campaigns that made traffic spike by 20-30x our normal levels. No site could handle that but any instance that has happened, Lyons worked around the clock to remedy by throwing hardware at it.
Q. What do you feel are among the most robust and lacking areas of the product?
A. Robust: Overall — there is nothing Magento does not have that platforms 10x more expensive have. It’s the real deal in terms of offerings Lacking Overall – documentation and training. It’s been a couple years since we implemented so hopefully they have fixed that.
Q. How satisfied were you with the level of training and/or product documentation?
A. See above 🙂 — luckily – Magento is very intuitive and I do believe Lyons did their own documentation of the product recently. That was not available to us a few years ago.
Q. How accessible & responsive is/was your Account Manager or Client Support team during the implementation phase? Did they resolve all questions/issue that you raised?
A. Again, there was a geographical hurdle but had he not been responsive, there is no way it could have launched on time.
Q. How accessible & responsive is/was your Account Manager or Client Support team after the implementation phase was completed?
A. As of right now, I would say without a doubt, that is one of Lyon’s BIGGEST assets. Their team is unbelievable in terms of help, response andaccessibility. In 14 years doing this, the best I have ever seen. You won’t find better.
Q. What advice would you give to a new client starting out with the Vendor?
A. Lyons — what you see is what you get. No BS with them. That is refreshing in this space. Magento – be diligent in the ‘discovery’ and requirements gathering stage. Some things will implement very easily and nicely into Magento, some things will not. For those that do not, flush it ALL out before the build begins.
Good luck and any other questions, just let me know.
Andrew Ruggeri
Vice President, Ecommerce
For more information regarding lyonscg’s services, please visit our ecommerce services page.
