Pivot is a marketing and customer experience agency based out of Portland, Oregon
They have roughly 75 “Pivoteers” spread out throughout the United States. A little over half of them are in the Portland area.
Pivot is a full-service agency. Their focus and specialty is in the broadband space, helping businesses who provide broadband internet in rural communities throughout the US. A good portion of their business is building and managing websites for rural telecommunications companies.
Travis Chillemi, Web Services Director, said “One of the core values we have at Pivot is to be able to pay it forward. So we also do a fair amount of marketing and web work for nonprofits.”
Travis has been with Pivot for over three years and directs the Development team, which comprises front and back-end developers, designers, and project managers.
The range of Pivot’s work includes companies looking for marketing support, research, customer experience (CX), new websites and branding assistance.
Travis has a technical background in creating and designing websites based on web standards and combines his knowledge of design and development to lead his team effectively.
The need for web governance
Pivot experienced a lot of growth and initially used a wide range of different tools to manage their work, including SEO, marketing, analytics, and accessibility.
Travis said “I think those tools were great but often you needed a Masters or PhD to understand them all thoroughly. So what I needed was a platform that could do most all of these separate things at a really good level.”
“With Silktide, I didn’t have to spend a huge amount of time training people on all these in-depth tools. I just log in, go to Analytics, and see the click, scroll, and heat map data. It’s your basic analytics that my designers can understand.”
My team only had to learn one tool to do 95% of what they were looking to achieve.
Web Services Director, Pivot
“I think developers that understand design are better developers, and designers that understand development are better designers”, Travis continues. “Silktide gives that opportunity for both of them to play in the same sandbox.”
“Having visibility in the platform of all these things without having to train people for a month and a half was huge”.
Travis specifically mentioned mobile device testing and user experience optimization. Seeing how pages rendered on mobile, along with the accompanying click and scroll map data, gave him actionable insight for improving the customer experience.
“Traditionally, the mobile sites would just be stacked vertical versions of the desktop. And this was fine and a good place to start from, but with the analytics tools we’re able to say ‘Hey, instead of just stacking everything, it’s ok if we rearrange things for mobile’”.
“And this helped us determine when and where to do that. We found that on mobile we’re hiding more images and reducing the vertical scroll depth, and putting the most important information at the top.”
Accessibility
Pivot utilizes Silktide primarily to enhance accessibility for its clients. While many of Pivot’s clients are well-versed in SEO and understand the necessity of avoiding broken links, they often lack knowledge about accessibility.
Clients frequently suggest the addition of an accessibility widget (overlay), but Travis believes there’s a better approach. He believes in building solutions correctly from the outset, rather than relying on temporary fixes.
Using Silktide, Pivot can credibly claim that their work is verified by a third party.
“This isn’t just about adhering to best practices; it involves rigorous testing and striving to achieve high standards. Although achieving a perfect score is rare, we aim to consistently score in the high eighties to low nineties”
“Our clients know they need an accessible website but they rarely know how. They are keen to get to the end result and are happy for us to help them do that.”
Managing over 100 websites
Before joining Pivot, Travis was part of a team using one of Silktide’s competitors, which he recalls was not as focused on accessibility but more on website governance. He found their service prohibitively expensive, especially since their pricing model was not scalable for an agency managing multiple websites. Each client required a separate account, which was not feasible for an agency supporting over 100 websites.
Pivot sought to provide value to their clients while absorbing the costs themselves, necessitating a flexible and scalable cost structure. Silktide’s model, based on page usage, suited Pivot perfectly as it accommodated both large and small websites within their portfolio. This flexibility allowed Pivot to manage many domains efficiently.
Travis was particularly impressed with the gamification approach and percentage-based scorecards inside Silktide. The dashboard system was a highlight, providing a comprehensive overview of all aspects of website management.
As Pivot delved deeper into Silktide’s dashboard functionalities, they assigned a new hire the responsibility of maintaining these dashboards. This role is crucial for managing core web vitals reports across client sites, particularly as clients manage their content within WordPress environments. For instance, if a client uploads a large image it could significantly slow down the website, negatively impacting core web vitals. The dashboard allows for quick identification of issues, with the ability to filter reports to highlight urgent problems.
Travis also appreciates the utility of Silktide’s ‘what’s on fire’ report; widely used to identify and address immediate issues. Another significant benefit is the detection of broken links, especially when content links to third-party sites that may no longer be operational. This feature allows Pivot to promptly inform clients about issues.
Results and workflow improvements
Travis explained that a key part of Pivot’s client engagement process involves taking an initial snapshot of the client’s existing website using Silktide, analyzing up to 50 pages. This initial report typically reveals good marketing scores but poor accessibility, content quality, and sometimes a poor user experience, especially if the client has not fully optimized for mobile.
Once Pivot begins redesigning the website, they conduct another evaluation in the development environment and compare the results to the initial snapshot. This comparative approach allows them to demonstrate tangible improvements to clients, showing enhanced performance across all metrics after the redesign. The visual elements like bar graphs and charts help illustrate the ongoing improvements and setbacks, emphasizing the continuous partnership Pivot maintains with their clients beyond just designing and launching a website.
We’re able to compare the before/after reports and confidently show the client’s website is better on all fronts.
Web Services Director, Pivot
In terms of workflow efficiency, Travis highlighted the value of Silktide’s actionable insights, particularly when developers encounter accessibility issues. The platform offers direct suggestions for fixes, which is highly effective and efficient compared to searching for solutions online.
This feature enables developers to quickly understand and rectify issues, enhancing productivity and ensuring compliance with best practices. Travis appreciates this aspect of Silktide as it simplifies problem-solving and allows the team to maintain high standards effortlessly.
Our clients see the value of us being an ongoing partner as opposed to just designing the website and moving on.
Web Services Director, Pivot
Closing remarks
Travis was complimentary about the workflow improvements that Silktide offered.
“Before Silktide, having to manage 10 different tools, use 10 different tools, and train people on 10 different tools was a nightmare”.
“I like how everything is just a couple of clicks away. It’s very fast to get in and to switch modes. Before, that was 12 browser tabs. Now I have everything I need within 2 clicks.”
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