“We are so happy with the switch [we] made from our old site to our new [web]site. It works 100% better for our customers' needs and looks so clean and modern. And we're saving so much money,” says Crystal Kiser, Marketing and Event Manager for Joymongers Brewing Company. “We're also insanely happy with the customer service we've received. Although, we haven't needed it much as the website is so user-friendly.” 

Three Greensboro, NC natives opened Joymongers Brewing Company in 2016. Joymongers is a locally-owned brewery that wants "to provide our community with the freshest, most interesting variety of beers every day. We are your neighborhood gathering spot. We're the place you come to unwind with friends and make new friends," according to their website. 

Two years later, they opened a second location, Joymongers Barrel Hall in nearby Winston-Salem, NC. “We felt Winston-Salem would be another great market that was close enough to Greensboro to manage and easily keep supplied with our fresh, constantly changing lineup. Our partner, Brian, actually moved to Winston-Salem, bought a house, and not only operates our Barrel Hall taproom but is part of that community. We think that’s crucial to delivering a great, local experience. Our Winston location is located in a huge, 6,000 square-foot former garage built in 1929. Instead of building new, it allowed us to preserve, renovate, and restore a great old building in the historical West End neighborhood. It also gave us the room to barrel age (thus the name) a variety of beer styles in whiskey and wine barrels to create interesting new flavors.”

“Our brewery is dedicated to serving authentic versions of many popular styles from IPA’s to sours to stouts, along with exciting, experimental offerings. We constantly rotate 17 taps of different beers and hard seltzers ensuring that even frequent visitors will always have something new to try. We don’t distribute our beer, preferring to serve to our local friends one pint at a time,” says Joymongers Co-Owner Jim Jones.

Joymongers is a mash-up of two different words that help describe what the company is all about. “Joy, for the pleasure of craft beer and friends, and mongers, which is defined as someone who sells or distributes a product. So, ‘we spread joy one pint at a time’,” say the owners.

“We always envisioned our taproom as more than just a space to drink great beer. We wanted it to be a ‘third place’ (that place between home and work), a community space where people of every background can join together in the spirit of friendship, fellowship, and entertainment," according to Joymongers' team. "That’s why we constantly program local, live music, trivia, food trucks, and lots of other events. We have thousands of regulars who visit us daily, weekly, as well as monthly.”

Joymongers has brewed hundreds of different styles and variations on styles in the past six years, so it is impossible to pick one favorite. Joymongers keeps five or six beers on tap that their regulars always call for, like their session citrus IPA, American pale ale, and Hefeweizen. “You can be sure that whatever style is your favorite, we have it on tap," says the brewery's team.

So how did Joymongers find Zibster? Crystal is a former employee of the company and “knew it was the easiest way to create and maintain our website with ease. We needed to be able to make changes quickly, on our own. With [the] weekly/daily changes we needed to make, our past website had to go through the web designer, was EXTREMELY costly, and to update the old look was just not worth the money.” With Zibster, Crystal knew she could design a new website, and easily and quickly keep the style and content updated.

Crystal shared it took about 2-3 days to get the site designed. She used Zibster’s live chat support services to help define the brand’s website and look. Support team members suggested Crystal make lists to show Joymongers’ ever-changing tap list, so it would be faster to load than what she was trying before. Everytime Crystal had a question, someone quickly helped her and sent easy-to-follow articles. Crystal says the live chat was everything. She doesn't have time for long phone calls, and she spends plenty of time on the phone for other parts of her job. She was able to use the chat while multi-tasking and get more done.

“We chose Zibster because of the customer service,” says Crystal. “When we need quick help, it is really important. Also, having the ability to change information to keep up with our changing lineup of beers/events, etc was one of the main reasons we wanted to go with the ‘do it yourself’ style website versus a web designer.”

The owners of Joymongers wanted to let Crystal make changes to the website as needed. The clipboard tool and speed of the site were both extremely important in their decision to use Zibster. They also love the modern website template options. “We know changing the template won't be a big fuss, and we won't have to start from scratch when we decide to update our site's design again,” shared Crystal.  

The team says they are happy with the switch from their old site to Zibster, saying, “It works 100% better for our customers' needs and looks so clean and modern. And we're saving so much money. We're also insanely happy with the customer service we've received. Although, we haven't needed it much as the website is so user-friendly and easy to use.” 

Joymongers say their future looks exciting. They enjoy serving Greensboro and Winston-Salem, and “We think the most likely future for Joymongers could be adding one or two more tap rooms in surrounding cities. We are in no hurry to expand further and would only do so if we were sure we could bring our formula of great beer and friendly customer service to a unique location.”

As for the key to starting your own business? Joymongers offers these five tips:

1. It has to be your passion
2. You have to understand your market’s demand and how to satisfy that demand
3. You have to be well capitalized
4. You have to have a great staff
5. Your systems and your staff have to be prepared “day one” for success

You don’t get a second chance to make a great first impression.