Gold Medal Environmental

Challenge

In January of 2021 the team at Robert Sharp & Associates was approached by Gold Medal Environmental (GME), a large waste management company on the East coast. GME had just purchased multiple smaller waste management companies on the Eastern Seaboard to become a part of their conglomerate.

The main issue they were running into after bringing these new businesses on board is they were unable to access their current websites to make updates and changes. This then led them to be unable to respond to service requests or complaints that were sent via the website. Customer frustration and growing distrust in their customer service was beginning to happen. In addition, they had to find a way to show that all GME businesses serve separate areas, services and needs, but still fall under the Gold Medal Environmental umbrella. In the end, the branding also needed to be clarified throughout five different websites.

Analysis

Certain entities in the GME family worked under contract with the counties they served, so homeowners in the area had no choice but to utilize their services.  This meant they didn’t necessarily have to sell their services to home and business owners in the area. However, it was still important to work on improving their customer service and improve the overall user experience on the website. Other entities are in direct competition with other waste management companies, which meant they needed to prove that their services were superior to the competition in the area.

RSA’s goal with this web project was to design five different websites for each entity that showcased the unique attributes of each separate business, while utilizing design features and color schemes that made it clear all the entities were connected. RSA also had to complete this project quickly since the current websites were inaccessible.

Strategy

Since the buyouts were relatively new, the Gold Medal Environmental team didn’t have a full understanding of the definitive needs of each entity. To determine how we could better serve them and build a website that helped them thrive, the RSA team reached out to the general managers of each entity to better understand their business model. We conducted interviews to determine their service areas, where the majority of their business comes from, and what they were looking for in each new website.

Our team of programmers also wanted to find a way to make it easier and more efficient to update the websites. They developed and implemented a multi-site admin feature that housed all five websites in one convenient admin area. This allowed site admins to login to one area and have the ability to make changes across all five websites.

Results

In the end, all five websites turned out great. By utilizing their unique logos and attributes, we showcased the different service offerings of each entity. However, by developing a similar design theme throughout all five websites, we were able to make it clear that they were all part of the same brand. The multi-site admin area was a huge bonus to their team as they were trained on how to add alerts, make changes, and update the site as needed. Since launch in August of 2021, all five websites have seen very healthy analytic data.