Focused on Personalization, Innovation, and... Downsizing?
In 1995, Americaneagle.com designed its first website and ever since, has worked on 12,000 web design projects of every size, from almost every industry. This comprehensive digital history, spawning back to nearly the dawn of corporate web pages, makes americaneagle.com a sage in the sector— an example to learn from, insightful, and experienced.
Americaneagle.com holds the esteem of being the number one global Progress Sitefinity partner three years running, as well as being a top solution partner with platforms such as ROC Commerce and Hawksearch.
The CMSC Media team was able to sit down with Craig Briars, Sales Director at Americaneagle.com, to discuss their association while Progress Sitefinity. For every year that Americaneagle.com has been a Progress Sitefinity partner, they have been honored with a Progress Sitefinity website-of-the-year award. This is an incredible feat and why we were eager to speak with Craig. Craig explained how Americaneagle.com is growing a product channel within Progress Sitefinity and how they are focusing on new features that help drive them towards efficiency and personalization for their customers.
Craig Briars — Sales Director at Americaneagle.com
When asked what is new for Americaneagle.com Craig told us, “what we have been doing recently, is really working with the Progress Sitefinity community and customers to figure out the best ways to maximize the of some of the great features Progress Sitefinity has been releasing. One of the great things about Progress Sitefinity is their focus on the roadmap and having the features that people actually want, and they’re going to use. So, helping our customers adopt all these new features with A/B testing, advanced marketing, predictive analytics, that’s where the key I think to maximize the benefits of Progress Sitefinity and getting the best use out of that investment initially.”
Craig shared an experience with us about a star client of Americaneagle.com, Crystal Cruises, a luxury travel brand. For the website design, Crystal Cruises was keen to maintain the lofty bar set for a high-end style to appeal to their clientele—those who enjoy the finer things in life. Craig told us by that working with Progress Sitefinity, Crystal Cruises were able to customize the site to embody the opulence they desired fully. “It needs to be very on point, exude that luxurious style, and have the right messaging and be highly visual,” said Craig. “So, with Progress Sitefinity, we are able to deliver that kind of experience, and now we are looking towards the use of digital experience cloud to make it more personal to guests... we intergrade with salesforce community... that’s really going to allow us to drive a much more personal experience, which will lead to overall a better experience for customers.”
Implementing new features and maximizing customer experience is a top priority for Americaneagle.com. Craig also explained that a trend they see in the industry is that of businesses looking to downsize in terms of their infrastructure footprint and overhead of all the code and resources that it takes to keep a website live from day-to-day. So, while Americaneagle.com continues its efforts towards personalization and customization, they are also diligently keeping everything compact and efficient. Progress Sitefinity has been a great partner to help them achieve this goal. Craig told us that Americaneagle.com has an ‘objective perspective’ as they work with many different CMSs, and Progress Sitefinity has been a standout and top choice.
Michael Svanascini — President at ROC Commerce
CMSC Media was pleased to be able to have a conversation with Michael Svanascini, President at ROC Commerce, the B2B and B2C enterprise-level commerce platform. Given that ROC Commerce is an Americaneagle.com partner, we were interested in asking about their current processes.
Michael Svanascini told us that ROC Commerce has been doing quite a few upgrades—they have a .net core with React on the front end. These upgrades have resulted in ROC Commerce being faster and much easier to use. We asked Michael about realization times, as we all know how crucial speed can be in the implementation of projects. “For most customers, it’s about a six-month implementation time period,” he said. “So, the key with most customers is making sure that they have everything ready to go and their data in good shape and then they can even go faster than that if that’s the case.”
ROC Commerce is not only an Americaneagle.com partner but was built to be integrated with Progress Sitefinity. “ROC is completely integrated into Progress Sitefinity,” Michael told us. “So as long as someone is familiar with Progress Sitefinity... they can jump right in, and the dashboard for ROC and the dashboard for Progress Sitefinity are completely integrated.” This makes ROC Commerce an excellent tool for marketers and straightforward for programmers to integrate into the system.
Michael Benedict — General Manager at Hawksearch
CMSC Media also had the chance to connect with Michael Benedict, General Manager of Hawksearch, another Americaneagle.com partner. On top of being Americaneagle.com partners, Hawksearch also boasts about being one of Progress Sitefinity’s core search providers.
“Search is bigger than search,” Michael Benedict told us. “Hawksearch is so much more. It’s about search and delivering the right result to the client. It’s also about recommendations.” Search is becoming a more in-depth subject with ample area to explore. It is not only about searching within your site; it should be inclusive of recommendations and SEO optimization. A robust search solution can help brands to stand out and have a chance to compete with the likes of Amazon.
Michael B. told us that Hawksearch has SEO functionality and “[the] ability to push out to all that content to SEO, so Google can also help find local businesses.” This gives Hawksearch a full range of search solution benefits. “It’s really three-fold; it's around search, it's around recommendations, it’s around SEO. So, it’s a comprehensive platform that really helps websites be successful,” when he described Hawksearch.
With this interview taking place hot on the heels of the Progress Sitefinity cloud announcement, we asked Michael B. to share his thoughts. “We think it’s great,” stated Michael B. “…it will help Progress Sitefinity be competitive in the market, [and] we’re a cloud-based platform... so it’s a perfect marriage with our go-to market.” The cloud gives Hawksearch a prime integration point with Progress Sitefinity.
Ending Thoughts
Between Americaneagle.com, ROC Commerce and Hawksearch there is an extensive offering of compatible Progress Sitefinity connectors. With similar focuses of personalization, innovation, and downsizing, these solutions aim to reign as top Progress Sitefinity partners.
Erika Jones
Erika Jones is a Tech Reporter and Content Marketer with CMSC Media. Erika enjoys combining her creativity with her technical skills through graphic design. She has a background in communications and marketing and has a flair for social media and content creation. Erika is an avid traveller and enjoys seeing firsthand how technology connects us all in business and pleasure.