Town Web Design made it easy for the city of Bowling Green, Missouri, to switch from CivicPlus and launch a great looking website for a lower price.
Bowling Green City Clerk Linda Luebrecht was drawn to the clean, attractive websites Town Web had designed for other communities. Prior to taking bids, Town Web provided Bowling Green leaders with links to examples of their website designs. “We liked the look of their websites,” Luebrecht said.
“Anything was better than what we had. It was so outdated,” Luebrecht said of the city’s old website design.
Town Web’s websites “looked visually appealing,” Luebrecht said. “What we had was so outdated.”
The city accepted bids, including from Town Web. Luebrecht can’t remember what the other sites looked like. “This one, it caught our eye,” she said of Town Web.
The overall design remains her favorite part of the new website. “When you first go in, just the homepage is so much cleaner compared to what we had,” she said, noting it was extremely outdated. The content didn’t even fill the screen, and nothing had been done to it for ages, she said.
“This one was just sad looking,” Luebrecht said of Bowling Green’s old website.
Not anymore. The clean design is inviting and helps residents find what they need. Town Web and Bowling Green staff continue to tweak it, even after it launched. Luebrecht said some website users weren’t sure where to find the online payment option, so Town Web made it even easier for users to find.
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Luebrecht said it was “really easy” to switch to Town Web. “I didn’t have to do anything,” she said, then amended that she had to stay in contact with their original company, CivicPlus, and Town Web, to ensure content was accessible to Town Web to build a new website. She said both companies were professional and made it easy to switch.
From the start, Town Web staff were “very approachable, easy to speak with,” Luebrecht said. “They just seemed to be a little quicker to respond back to you."
“They were so easy to work with. If we ever had any questions, they were extremely easy to get ahold of,” she said.
Luebrecht said Bowling Green started looking for a new website provider when she noted the bid was coming due. City leaders didn’t like the looks of the old site and the former company was kind of pricey, she said.
“I wouldn’t say it was money first,” Luebrecht said of the decision to go with Town Web, which was not the least expensive. But “the cheapest isn’t always the best,” she added. The board considered the bids and website examples when choosing a provider. Town Web was the “second to lowest (for price), but the main thing was we liked what we saw in their website.”
Luebrecht said she was surprised by how quickly Town Web launched the new website. “They got us up and going in a quick manner. The turnaround time was way quicker than what I expected.” She said the board made a decision in August, and their contract with CivicPlus expired Dec. 31. The new website launched in the beginning of September.
“We are very happy we chose them. We don’t have any regrets in choosing them,” Luebrecht said of switching to Town Web Design. “It was a simple process.”
Moving forward, Luebrecht said the city will have to rebid the project “to let taxpayers know we are using their money wisely.” But with Town Web Design’s “three-year redesign, we may not have to go anywhere else” to have a good price and a great looking website.
