As a small business owner, you handle many competing priorities to ensure your business is running smoothly. When it comes time to update your website, you need it to be quick and easy. Most business owners aren’t website experts, so even a seemingly simple update can be time-consuming or frustrating.
This was certainly the case for one of our customers, Lilly. She runs Graduates on Tour, Inc, a tour operator and student travel planner that specializes in high school senior class trips. A family-owned and operated business since 1997, Graduates on Tour has been providing long-lasting memories for high school graduates and chaperones for 21 years.
To take her business to the next level, Lilly required a website that could meet the needs of her customer base. It had to have simple, easy navigation and clean formatting so they could continue to provide fast, friendly, economical trips for future senior classes.
Approximately two to three times per year, Lilly has to adjust prices and add any new Florida attractions to the Graduates on Tour website. Despite her excitement over adding interesting new service offerings, Lilly knew that for people like her who aren’t super tech-savvy, updating a website alone would be a stressful endeavour.
But Lilly knows that as a Web.com website builder customer, she has access to a whole team of experts who can help support her through making the updates to her website. She just has to call the Website Modifications Team and they provide the assistance needed to get her website changes implemented.
We understand that many of our customers don’t have the time or the technical know-how to make updates to their website. That is exactly why our Website Modifications Team is ready to help our customers with their needs every single day.
Meet the Team
We sat down with four members of the Website Modifications Team to get a better understanding of the kind of support and assistance customers like Lilly can expect when they require website updates.
When you contact the Website Modifications Team, you’ll connect with one of these talented professionals:
Ralph King, Supervisor, Modifications Call Center
Before he took his position at Web.com, Ralph worked in freelance graphic and web design. He studied multimedia and interactive design techniques and established his own small business clients.
Ralph’s background helps him provide good solutions and design recommendations to customers. Before his current supervisory role, he worked in the Modifications Call Center and also on the Modifications Fulfillment team.
Andrew Sidock, Modifications Specialist
Andrew’s role is focused on supporting Advanced Custom Website customers. Prior to Web.com, he worked in construction and had no formal background in technology but received extensive on-the-job training from Web.com.
Prior to being on the Modifications team, he worked in the Technical Support department, which assists customers with setup and maintenance of domains, email, SSL certificates and hosting.
Alex Cook, Modifications Specialist
Alex works on the post-publish team, which helps customers with their websites once they are live on the internet. His role focuses on custom-designed websites as well as eCommerce online store updates.
Prior to working at Web.com, Alex was a Retail Manager. This background gives Alex a unique understanding of how customers’ websites are there to serve their visitors. Alex grew up creating websites as a hobby and has an educational background is in IT support, so the Modifications Team is a natural fit.
Annabelle Shettel, Modifications Specialist
Annabelle works on the post-publish team. She has a Bachelor’s degree in digital media and has studied both website and traditional graphic design.
Back in the early days of the Internet, she helped friends with coding their MySpace pages. These projects ignited her passion for all things website related.
What the Website Update Team Does
When customers want to make changes to their website or have an issue with their website, the Website Modifications Team prioritizes these phone calls, emails, questions and support tickets.
This includes:
- Making website modifications for advanced custom website customers.
- Implementing modifications for custom-designed websites.
- Updating eCommerce products and images.
- Upgrading websites to a secure, responsive design platform.
The team also works hands-on with customers who have just seen their finished website for the first time and walks them through a tutorial on how to use the website builder in the future.
The team is focused on delivering the best service possible to our customers. As Andrew explains, “We mostly adhere to website best practices, but what the customer wants, the customer gets. Our job is to make recommendations based on our expertise. If they make a request for content or design that we think could be even better, we work with them to get the final version of what they want.”
Bringing Service and Expertise to Customers
As a company, Web.com serves small to medium-sized business owners, ranging from entrepreneurs trying to start a new business to established brick and mortar businesses trying to create a web presence or generate leads.
Ralph shared this about the wide range of clients they work with: “We work with so many different types of SMBs. Graphic designers, restaurants, service providers of any kind and more. We serve any business that needs or wants a website! One thing we love is how passionate our customers are about their business. We’re honored to be a part of that process and want to do what we can to help them succeed.” Plus, on the eCommerce side of things, the team also works with many artistic entrepreneurs who sell clothing, accessories, handmade items, artwork and more.
To help make website dreams a reality, the team works with customers to provide expert guidance on what works and what doesn’t work with their website. “The first step of any modification is trying to get a clear picture of what the client is trying to do with that page or what they’re trying to say or do with the website. Once we understand that, we work out a plan on how we can create or translate what they want through the website builders or the store builders that we work with,” Alex explains.
A Day in the Life
Depending on the team member’s specific role, they may spend time speaking with customers on the phone or fulfilling offline customer requests that have been submitted either by the customer calling in or by sending a request for updates online.
For customers calling in to get help, depending on the nature and complexity of the request, it can either be fulfilled while they are on the call or opened for fulfillment later, if the time required to complete it will be more lengthy.
Modifications specialists work with customers to break down what they are looking for and then assess whether it can be completed in real-time. Not only does this depend on what they want to be done, it also depends on how much time the client wants to spend on the phone at the moment.
For customers requiring time-consuming updates like a website redesign, the team takes detailed notes of what they want and then completes the project offline. As Annabelle explains, “How much time it takes to make changes varies greatly so we work to determine if it’s a change we can do it real-time or if we should do it offline. If we do the change offline after someone phones in, we’ll follow-up with them to let them know the update is completed.”
The team supervisors’ days consist of checking the status of certain tickets and addressing expedited requests. They also monitor the phone queue to ensure clients are being served in a timely manner. Supervisors are responsible for troubleshooting any issues that arise throughout the day. They also monitor employee calls to check their quality and provide coaching or feedback.
While many small business owners know what they want for their business, they don’t know how to translate that to a website. Specialists work to understand what the clients are trying to accomplish with the website or within a specific webpage. Because specialists understand how a customer’s ideas will best translate to their website, they help create a plan of action to bring the customer’s vision to reality.
Whether it’s adding new products to an eCommerce store, updating a webpage or giving your website a fresh new look, the Website Modifications Team is here to help. If you’re looking to build or upgrade a website for your small or medium business, check out Web.com’s website builder to get started!
Image Credits
Feature Image: Unsplash / Brooke Cagle
Image 1-2: via Graduates on Tour, Inc
Image 3: via Web.com
Image 4: via Kari’s One in a Million
