CUTcnc are a high-quality CNC routing service operating from a state of the art workshop, serving artisans, international airports, film studios and more.
When we first visited CUTcnc we were blown away by the technology inside the building. It wasn't just the machines, which were mighty impressive both in scale and capability, but the way the entire building operated.
Without a doubt this was probably the greenest industrial building we've ever visited, featuring everything from a giant wood burner which recycles the sawdust and offcuts to heat the factories to enough solar panels on the roofs to power all of the machines inside the building.
This was clearly a company that takes its green credentials seriously, and we always enjoy to work with the more ethical companies.
A website that wasn't working hard enough
The problem came in that CUTcnc are a relatively small company in terms of staff numbers, and driving new business to be able to keep the new machines running wasn't going a smoothly as everyone had hoped. And this was no fault of any employee at CUTcnc. We often tell people that their website is the face of their business. It's the only member of staff working 24/7 and therefore your website should be invested in to drive new business.
The issue was that the previous website didn't do enough to answer potential client's most basic questions, and didn't guide them through the potentially daunting task of getting a project underway with CUTcnc. As a result, the sales team were spending entire working days on the phone acting as a sort of live FAQ.
Social proof
Another immediately obvious pitfall of the previous site (for us at least) was that it didn't really showcase what CUTcnc can do. When we stepped inside the building we were immediately overwhelmed by the sheer quality of the work produced and also astounded to learn that a lot of very recognisable brands were directly working with CUTcnc as well as one of the world's largest film studios!
Why didn't we know this? Why hadn't we seen this wonderful work front and centre when we'd visited the previous site?
Freeing up resources
It was immediately obvious what was needed. Asides from the usual responsive design, improved SEO requirement it was clear to us that the website should enable the sales team as a reference tool for commonly asked questions and to allow clients a quick and easy way to order or at least initiate projects.
Herein lied another problem. CUTcnc offer a bespoke service to every client and every client has a different level of ability and skill when it comes to "machine ready CAD files" which are the technical drawings the CNC machines work to. Between our experience at Pivale and the specialist expertise of CUTcnc we were able to create 4 key user journeys for the quotation form, catering for all levels and abilities and ultimately saving the sales team valuable time.
This in turn has allowed the sales team to focus more on outbound, rather than inbound sales.
Content management
The FAQ section is a visually simple but appealing section of the website which sits under the general banner of "Advice". The intention of this section for the user was to present lots of important information in an easy to navigate way, whilst also keeping the process of adding this information nice and simple for the website administrators at CUTcnc.
This is where Drupal became the perfect platform and CMS for this project, allowing incredibly complex data to be organised and displayed in a clear and digestible format. Everything from material types and sheet sizes to machine cutter types and cut depths etc, and from delivery and packaging enquires to accounts are taken care of by this section as well as the most frequently asked questions.
For longevity the team at CUTcnc can quickly amend, add and remove information from these sections without intervention from the team at Pivale; saving CUTcnc valuable time and money.
Content relationships
Next we set about creating the other two major sections of the website: the services page and the showcase page. The intention of these pages is to quick present an overview of each CUTcnc service as well as provide a case studies section to allow CUTcnc to showcase some of their fantastic work.
Under the hood are some nifty relationships between the two sections, allowing showcase case studies to be tagged with the services that were used, which automatically generates data feeds on the individual services pages so that a user can see examples of where this service has been used.
Having developed some very high profile websites myself in the past, I had high expectations for the new CUTcnc website. Pivale met and exceeded those expectations, both in their approach to the work and the finished article. It was a pleasure to work with such an organised and responsive team.
— Peter Forest, General Manager, CUTcnc
Looking to the future
Right now it's probably too early to say how much of a success this project has been, but it is clear that the website is already doing its job. Orders are flooding in through the quotation form, and the organic SEO of the site has improved. The initial feedback from the team at CUTcnc and the website users has been positive and we look forward to further developing the website to hand some of the more complex business processed over the coming years.
