Bespoke Website Design and Development by Rafe

EnoSayv

Date

: February 2009

Www

: www.enosayv.com

Technologies used

• CSS2.1
• MySql

  Database

• PHP

  Primary programming language

• XHTML1.1

  Fallback to XHTML1.0 Strict for non-supporting User Agents

Problem / Request

EnoSayv approached us to assess their current website and suggest any possible improvements.

Initially they just wanted a web presence in compliant, modern code.

Solution

Their original site was so badly coded by today's standards (basically a 'sliced image' with no textual content) that the only real option was a complete rewrite.

EnoSayv being an Energy Savings company and having a green logo, dictated the site colour scheme.

The site was originally rewritten by us with 100% validating and compliant code, and a new design to enable the layout to stretch between 640 and 1000 pixels wide.

We had earlier suggested to the client that the site could in fact do a lot more for them than just being an 'online presence' and be more of a business tool and EnoSayv asked us to look into this further for them.

With EnoSayv, we went through their processes from initial contact through to installation, and took note of places where there was a lot of time spent on things that could really be automated and save them the cost in man hours of their current methods.

The first thing to be tackled in this way was the quotation system.

Previously this entailed a client requesting a quote through the website, followed by a salesman going to the clients site and taking down measurements and fixture counts and other details for the buildings to be quoted. This information was all written down on paper to be transferred to a spreadsheet when back at one of their offices. The next thing to be entered into the spreadsheet was the cost of the lighting units, wiring and controllers. The spreadsheet then gave cost analysis and breakdowns for savings over various period settings and the expected payback period. This spreadsheet was then emailed to the client.

This turned into the simple task of the client adding their own information when they requested a quote through the website.

Doing this, all that had to be done back at the office was going into the website, selecting the currency being dealt with, entering a currency conversion rate, selecting the light unit for that room and entering whether bulbs were required (or the client source their own). The prices of light units are maintained through the site along with the costs for sensors and controllers, so once that information was updated each year, the figures were always correct.

When the client comes back to the site to look at the quotation, it is all there waiting for them. Cost analysis, projected payback, projected carbon savings and everything else the spreadsheet used to do.

This simple change saved them many hours work from every quotation they ever do. Not to mention that this 'cost' was happening whether the client decided to purchase or not.

The EnoSayv website is no longer merely an 'online presence' but a 'business tool'.

And don't worry, if the Internet as we know it fails in the future, we also rewrote their spreadsheet so it was a little more usable.