About SoftSwift

SoftSwift has been in business since 2005 developing cutting edge websites and software. We specialise in the design and development of technical websites such as:

• websites that have complex database functionality
• websites requiring back-office systems designed-in
• websites needing to be integrated with existing back-office systems
• websites requiring sophisticated Ajax capabilities (interactions on a web page without the need for a full page refresh).

Whilst we have considerable in-house creative talent we also have a pool of talented freelancers and design companies who's skills we draw upon when a cutting-edge design concept is required. We also undertake Windows application development and server software developments.

Expertise

SoftSwift has expertise in the following main technical areas:

.NET	We prefer Microsoft .NET technologies for the majority of our technical website and software development. We have considerable expertise in the VB and C# .NET languages.
SQL	We prefer Microsoft SQL Server and can employ rapid development paradigms when developing to MS SQL that dramatically reduce development time and thereby cost to the customer. We are experts in LINQ-to-SQL which provides enhanced reliability and security and a stronger coupling between software and data.
HTML & CSS	We prefer to develop our websites using conventional HTML with CSS due to the Search Engine Optimisation benefits that this approach has over Flash.
Ajax  & Javascript	We are experts in Ajax techniques either coded in pure native Javascript or drawing upon standard Ajax libraries such as functionality ASP.NET Ajax; JQuery etc.
Flash	Where needed within pages to provide advanced font handling, graphics or animation we can incorporate flash.
Communications, Networking & VOIP	We run advanced communications and networking architectures for ourselves and on behalf of our customers including firewalling architectures, load balancing & redundancy. We have experience of integrating VOIP telephony solutions into CRM and website systems.
CRM & Back-Office Systems	We have very strong experience of building CRM systems as part of an online solution and are able to closely align the CRM design to the business requirements of the customer and to drive sales and provide responsive, effective customer service.

All the projects we undertake are professionally managed and taken through our own lifecycle management process. All projects incorporate software design best practise including versioning, source code control, configuration management, change request management, user acceptance testing, documentation etc. Please check that any other software design companies you approach are employing these principles.

Hosting

SoftSwift retains a co-location facility at a state-of-the-art data centre in Bristol with Tier-1 connectivity and 100mbps of dedicated bandwidth. We provide dedicated server hosting to our software development customers and to trusted third parties with ethical businesses. Please contact us if you have a hosting or co-location requirement and would benefit from a location in the South West.

A Sample of our Previous Projects

Instant Live Quotes	Quotes live up-to-date prices whilst the customer remains on the website within as little as 2 minutes of arrival.
Scrolling Quotes	Implemented in pure HTML and javascript, the price comparison page provides animated scrolling vertical quote panels in which full product information is provided.
Active Price Comparison	A combination of sophisticated features such as tailor your quotes and refine your quotes (see below) and ActiveQuote’s price comparison page provides access to all details of all policies through expanding panels and PDF documents.
Tailor Quotes	Adjust each quote live with the price instantly updated for things such as excess, hospital list, discount scheme, optional extras etc.
Refine Quotes	Select which policy benefits are critical and automatically remove quotes that don’t match. You can also remove any quote manually.
Sort Quotes	Quotes can be sorted by price or by insurer name.
Minimum Questions	Doesn’t waste a customer’s time with pages and pages of questions. ActiveQuote.com asks just one page of questions before presenting quotes. Any questions that an insurance company requires for a particular policy are reserved for the price comparison page. If the customer is interested in that policy, then the additional questions are asked in a popup box and the prices are updated live to reflect any changes.
Ethical Approach	Brings a well needed ethical approach to the world of price comparison with accurate pricing and all policy options available for the customer to choose from with live price updates on the price comparison page.
Cheapest isn't best	Shows the best policies around the customer’s stated budget rather than leading with the cheapest quote. Leading with the cheapest quote is not responsible particularly when it comes to the sensitive area of health.
Live Advice	Built-in 'chat to staff' facility with associated software for advisors that rings their computer when a customer requests assistance.
Integrated CRM	The system incorporates state-of-the-art CRM facilities for advisors and staff allowing sales opportunities to be tracked and developed through the sales lifecyle. The CRM system is entirely web based with ajax functionality throughout. Our CRM incorporates features including: email integration (send and receive), task handling, document management, shared calendars, telephony integration (VOIP - see below) etc.
Services for Intermediaries	The website allows third party brokers to sign-up and use the quote generation and price comparison facilities to provide quotes to their own customers without ever exposing their own customers to the ActiveQuote brand. The brokers can use the same CRM facilties described above to manage their own customer base and opportunities. Enhanced facilities are available to allow brokers to integrate a quote generation page on their own websites with quote generation passed off silently to ActiveQuote.
PDF form automation	The site takes the insurer's own PDF application forms and pre-fills fields (even ones that are not defined as true PDF form fields) with all the information and selections the customer has made. A PDF Mapping application (MS Windows) provides a graphical UI that allows the broker to map database fields to any PDF form in a few minutes.
Instant online purchase	Allows customers to complete a policy purchase including provision of payment details where possible using secure eCommerce best-practise.
Live customer tracking	SoftSwift developed a live tracking system called AQ Live to accompany ActiveQuote.com to allow live visitor tracking by staff. AQ Live is a Windows application that displays and groups visitor sessions live providing information about previous visits by cookie and IP address and a live display of pages as they are hit and all selections made on each page as they are taken (including Ajax controls). The system also provides reverse IP lookup and geo-location so that competitor and hostile visits can be scrutinised to allow PPC campaigns to exclude costly fraudulent clicks as effectively as possible.
Redundancy & Scalability	From the outset the data model and software architecture has been designed to accomodate redundancy and scalability. Web service can scale out across multiple web servers, the database design supports clustering of database servers and high-bandwidth media resource are located on separate servers. The quotation engine is based around a design in whcih the quotes for each individual insurer are generated asynchronously and remotely by a distinct robot server. The architecture supports dynamic relocation of robots so that at times of heavy load more servers can be brought on stream to cope with demand.
Policy Versioning	The system allows new policies and rate versions to be entered live and tested. New policies can be published to the live system and preset to transition from an earlier policy version on a particular date.
Insurer Portal	The system incorporates a secure portal for each insurer through which the insurer can enter and update policy information and benefit information to enable the strongest compliance.
Audit Trail	The system incorporates an audit trail of every discreet action taken by customers and staff including each page visited and even client side only (Ajax) web page actions.
News feeds	The system incorporates an integration news management and automated import capability to allow news feed suppliers to inject their content directly onto the website and authors to utilise content management facilities to prepare, edit, publish and review their articles.
VOIP Integration	The system is fully integrated with the companies VOIP telephony system allowing single click automated dialling, call recording and call logs - fully integrated with customer and opportunity management.
Affiliate & Partner Account Management	The system supports the company's affiliate and aggregator partners with integrated tracking and reporting of all inbound traffic sources whether CPC, CPL or CPA and reporting based on the different commercial parameters of each partner.
Hospital Mapping	The system includes a fully searchable database of UK hospitals by Country, Region, County and City with online maps.

Utellus

SoftSwift designed and developed of a suite of websites for Utellus Ltd. As well as customer facing websites which allow consumers to post complaints about leading consumer providers in the UK, the system also incorporated a sophisticated back-end system to allow staff to manage the process of forwarding and tracking complaints as they are passed to the supplier. The system incorporates the ability to forward queries to suppliers using XML feeds and/or emails. Also a major innovation is that the system allows staff to dynamically create questionnaires and define possible answer sets. These questionnaires can be applied to the customer service process for one or many suppliers. The system included statistical reporting and analysis services.

Beauty2u.com

SoftSwift designed and developed the Beauty2u.com eCommerce website for KleverStuff Ltd. This elegant website encompasses full eCommerce retailing capability for the sales of low value, low margin beauty products online. The system integrates a leading eCommerce suite which SoftSwift customised for the customer. The back-end system provides full content management (CMS). Post launch, SoftSwift manages SEO, PPC and viral marketing campaigns for KleverStuff on an ongoing basis.

SoftSwift.com & Enhanced Windows Backup

In 2005, SoftSwift developed state-of-the-art computer backup software supporting Windows 2000, XP and Windows 2003 Server called Enhanced Windows Backup. The software enhances the capabilites of Windows internal backup engine known as NTBackup. Whilst NTBackup is capable of reliable, fast backup using a file format supported across many plaforms and with wide third party support, its user interface is severely limited. SoftSwift's Enhanced Windows Backup software hides away the NTbackup UI and presents a modern easy to use interface. SoftSwift markets the software as shareware via its SoftSwift.com consumer facing website although no further development of the software has been undertaken since 2006.