- Launch: May 2019
- Current: On-Going Website Services
- Client: Interstate Rescue
A few years ago, Interstate Rescue, an emergency equipment supplier in Winchester, VA, had little online presence—and what they did have didn’t effectively reflect the company.
“We had kind of a college-level business with an elementary school-level website,” says Brian Gallamore, president of Interstate Rescue, which provides fire service training as well as equipment sales, maintenance and repair.
He knew they needed to do something different, but didn’t have the time to take on the project himself. He heard about First Arriving’s web design and support services through his sales manager, and chose the company to take their website to the next level.
“Now more than ever, without face-to-face conversations, that’s the first thing people go to—they look at our website,” Gallamore says. And now, their website accurately reflects their professionalism with its modern look and usability, he adds.
“What we had before was very archaic, and now we’ve turned the corner. People can see that we’re a legit business.”
He can especially see the impact, Gallamore says, when he speaks to new manufacturers and customers for the first time. Many will mention they’ve been to his website and will already have a positive impression and clear understanding of his company. “They base our business off our website without ever setting foot in our buildings,” he adds.
On top of that, Gallamore can now direct customers to the website to view all of the products that Interstate Rescue carries, replacing any need for a catalogue. “The cost-effectiveness of printing a catalogue in 2021 is just not palatable because stuff changes so much,” he adds. “By the time you can print one, it’s out of date.”
That’s not a problem now that Gallamore has the support to maintain a current website. Interstate Rescue continues to utilize First Arriving for ongoing web services.
“It takes a lot of work to keep up,” Gallamore says, “but we don’t do anything ourselves. We just put in a support ticket, and it’s done.”
When he shopped around, Gallamore says, he found that some companies were far more expensive while others lacked First Arriving’s attention to detail and background in emergency services.
“I think it’s a value to understand the business,” he says, noting that has spared him the work of educating his selected web company, and provided a lot of nuance in their back and forth conversations on design, searchability and social media.
Those efforts have paid off, in increasing the company’s search hits and website traffic, Gallamore adds, and in the future he hopes to add additional marketing services.
All in all, perhaps what he appreciates most is the timeliness of First Arriving’s updates, he says.
“In our industry a lot of stuff changes very rapidly, so we’re always playing catch-up, trying to get everything done,” he says. Now they have a partner to manage that critical aspect for them.
As an example, Gallamore says, they recently added a registration portal for upcoming training classes, along with an online payment option.
“It was up within a couple of days from the time we said we needed to get this done, to the time they did it,” he says. “That’s pretty important to me.”
