Gather is a delight for the busy clients of DesignFix
Our clients are really delighted with it. I think not only does it put everything in one place, it gives them a lot of control and 24-hour ability to interact with us. They also love the budgeting feature.”
The DesignFix team needed a better tool for their business and their clients
DesignFix is not your traditional interior design firm. They’re located in Silicon Valley where there are a lot of younger people who relocate for great jobs. But they also tend to have small places to live and move fairly often because of housing costs.
Amanda Giles of DesignFix says her business offers turnkey interior design for this particular clientele - people who often hit the ground running with their jobs when they arrive. This leaves them no time to design or set up their new homes. DesignFix does it for them.
And with this need for quick communication and turnaround with clients, Amanda says there wasn’t time to waste.
“We had complicated spreadsheets and you had to remember to verify that your columns added up correctly when you put something new in.
And then for specifications we would have to take a screenshot, save it onto the hard drive, put it into the document, choose a size for it, and then put a name next to it. I did all that in desktop publishing software to make it look nice, and it just took forever. Our clients aren’t looking for a long process.”
She and her business partner Shelly Ostman were taking care of these details themselves. They weren’t aware there was a tool such as Gather to help them smooth out their time-consuming process.
They found Gather and became early adopters
“We started using it a couple of years ago. Learning to use Gather was easy. I feels like we’ve grown with Gather because the functionality keeps improving.”
Amanda says it’s also been a great experience for her clients.
“One of the things about working with people in Silicon Valley is that it's really a 24-hour work cycle. People are awake all the time and really want to do as much as possible digitally. So it allows us to communicate with our clients and they can respond at 1:00 am. And then we can see the notes that they left and get buy-in on big items before we go in and do a job.”
She says her clients haven’t had an issue with a learning curve and enjoy the convenience Gather provides them.
"Learning to use Gather was easy. I feels like we’ve grown with Gather because the functionality keeps improving.”
DesignFix says Gather is a win win
“Meetings used to take forever. So the more we can communicate digitally and get feedback, the happier we are. And our clients are happier with it too. It saves them time - they don’t want to use their limited time in meetings. And it saves them money, which gives them more of a budget to spend on things that are going to look really good for their homes.”
She says it’s also more effective at explaining the design visions because clients can actually see the colors and specifications in Gather.
“I’m able to show them the range of colors we’re looking at instead of cutting out paint chips, taping them to a piece of paper, and then going to see them personally. They really prefer this process."
She says that Gather really is a win win for designers and for clients.
“We love using Gather. The customer service is incredible. The tool has completely changed our process for the better. I’ve just recently shown another interior designer Gather, and she said she was starting today because it’s so helpful. “
When asked to sum up Gather in a few words Amanda said, “Arriving at a better design within budget with client buy-in.”
