NoCowboys: Marketplace for Tradesmen in New Zealand

About the Client

NoCowboys is a review website founded in 2004 in New Zealand. Its users can find and book any kind of home services — from plumbing to house building. The customers can rate businesses from NoCowboys based on their experience to help others find a reliable provider.

CHALLENGE

NoCowboys contracted Greenice web development agency in 2016 after being in the market for 12 years already. Before Greenice, several development teams worked on their system. The code was half-written in Zend 1 PHP framework; the rest of the web app was written with several other frameworks. This made it difficult to add new features. NoCowboys needed us to do the code refactoring, upgrade the CRM system, and enhance the website UX.

SOLUTION

Our team joined the project after it had already been launched, but needed improvements. The scope of tasks that we carried out consisted of:

PROBLEM

Originally, there were two separate systems for Admins that were built with old technologies.

SOLUTION

We combined these two systems into a new CRM by rewriting all the code to Zend 1. This technology was selected because one of the Admin systems was already built with Zend 1. The refactoring improved the performance, enabled quicker development of new features, and enhanced security.

• We combined these two systems into a new CRM by rewriting all the code to Zend 1. This technology was selected because one of the Admin systems was already built with Zend 1.
• The refactoring improved the performance, enabled quicker development of new features, and enhanced security.

A new Admin panel for a Business account

PROBLEM

NoCowboys managers have to notify each customer of the need to prolong the subscription before it expires. Previously, the manager had to check the subscription expiration dates manually, which was cumbersome.

SOLUTION

Previously, the manager had to check the subscription expiration dates manually, which was cumbersome.

PROBLEM

We changed the outdated on-site search engine to ElasticSearch and improved the search logic.

SOLUTION

To retrieve the best results, the system takes into account a combination of factors like proximity to the client, rating of the business, and recency of the last review.

PROBLEM

We needed to create different types of users with different subscription plans within one platform.

SOLUTION

The platform has panels for customers who want to order services and leave reviews and businesses who offer their services.

Additionally, users are divided into several types: Unregistered, Registered, and Customer Preferred.

‘Unregistered’ businesses are unpaid accounts that can be created either by a business or by a customer. They can be listed and reviewed but cannot apply for the posted jobs.

‘Registered’ businesses are paid accounts (subscription). They have advanced functionality, an enhanced interface, and the ability to add links to personal websites and use the account analytics.

‘Customer Preferred’ businesses are paid registered accounts that have fulfilled three conditions: have at least 10 reviews from clients, the last review was written not earlier than 120 days ago, and the overall rating is higher than 85%. Their privileged status allows them to apply for customers’ jobs. When the business becomes ‘Customer Prefered’, the company gets a special badge that gives them an advantage in the search and shows the customers that this business is highly rated.

Registered, Unregistered, and Customer Prefered Businesses

PROBLEM

The trustworthiness of customer reviews is a big issue for review platforms so we paid special attention to reviews validation. We instituted the following measures to validate reviews:

SOLUTION

The trustworthiness of customer reviews is a big issue for review platforms so we paid special attention to reviews validation. We instituted the following measures to validate reviews:

• The system prevents more than one rating or review for the same business from one email and IP address.
• The system accepts ratings only from registered users. The feedback from unregistered users is still displayed but marked as unauthenticated.

Look at the difference between authenticated and unauthenticated ratings:

• Businesses or admins may request a customer to provide proof that he/she really received a service, otherwise, the feedback is removed.
• The aData security is ensured by a certified service that takes measures against DDoS attacks and suspicious behavior; they also distribute traffic among several servers to improve performance.system prevents more than one rating or review for the same business from one email and IP address.
• To prevent spam reviews, we use Akismet, a service that scans the system for spam-like patterns. We also use blacklists to filter bot emails, phone numbers, and content.

BENEFITS FOR THE CLIENT

TECHNOLOGIES

As usual, we made the pre-development analysis to identify the main hurdles, elaborate the solution and choose the appropriate technology stack.

TESTIMONIALS