Can I Have a Checkatrade?

Checkatrade provides a searchable directory of tradespeople who agree to be monitored through customer feedback, so that the public can find reliable workmen and the trades themselves receive publicity and proof for the quality of their work.

At first Checkatrade came to us with a growth problem – it was growing too quickly to handle all the data that the business generated. They had some ideas about how a website could lighten the load.

Really the problem was much wider: how to take a data-based business growing by geographical spread and make it scalable, so that it could eventually handle national coverage.

We replaced their legacy database with one on the web, with customised views and control for the different parties who needed to see it. This featured real time updates, tools for the staff such as spell checkers and text messaging, and the ability to upload media.

Checkatrade increased its sales and had a much improved website, but data entry was still struggling to keep up. The next step was incorporating an application structured around workflow rather than data, increasing the throughput by 400%, and clearing the backlog.

Since we provided their web solutions, Checkatrade has doubled its membership base and turnover, with fewer staff proportionately, and higher productivity. It is working towards national coverage.

There have been many steps and stages in the development of their systems, new features requiring design and content work to deliver the final results, and the work is ongoing as Checkatrade continues to expand.

They are a fantastic company, with abundant ideas. It’s a credit to their unique business model that the most frequent cold-call enquiry we get in the office is “Can I have a Checkatrade?”