In this content series, Scale and Thrive: Growth Insights for Agencies, by Agencies, we share proven tips and insights from agencies who scaled their operation and delivered proven growth. This blog post was written by Orel Y. Shalom, a successful agency owner with over a decade of experience in the field. Over the years, Orel has led more than 70 employees, producing over 10,000 websites for clients in a wide range of verticals.
In part one, I discussed how scaling a business requires more than just an attitude shift; it’s about setting up a strong organizational foundation and work processes – but it goes beyond streamlined website design.
To refresh your memory, here’s the minimum required for ensuring your business effectively generates a steady flow of customers.
Without further ado, let’s dive into what’s the best way for agencies to arrange their website deployment, approach customer satisfaction, catch upsell opportunities, provide customer service, run their marketing, and renew subscriptions if they want to scale up.
Now the website is in the hands of customer support. Typically, the process is quite technical and, aside from connecting the site to a domain, it demands technical expertise so it’s wise to assign website deployment to tech-savvy specialists, like customer support, rather than letting designers deal with it.
It’s easy to let things fall between the cracks in the process, so it’s crucial to make a “Going Live Checklist” to cover everything from meta descriptions, alt tags, keywords to 301 redirects from the old site (in case it exists), and so on.
Once the website is live, I always recommend sending an email to the client communicating the great news along with login details, step-by-step site navigation instructions, and a number of useful links to how-to videos and guides explaining the website management system.
Ensure your agency’s customer service conveys all the technical aspects of the site to the client. If necessary, provide the client with an option to jump on a customer service call. It will serve your agency well in the long run, sparing nonessential conversations with the designer. Additionally, it will communicate a sense of security and continuous support to the client, possibly securing more word-of-mouth referrals for you in the future.
That saying I mentioned in the beginning of the post “to be in the right place at the right time,” is definitely valid for your client satisfaction survey. There’s no point in sending it right after you published their website. You need the client to get used to managing the website, to get the feel of it. My advice is to wait a couple of weeks before you send them the question “Would you recommend us to a friend?” Don’t settle for a simple “yes” or “no” answer; ask the client to elaborate. Capitalize on that information to improve your agency’s services or leverage it for upselling.
Each satisfied customer should receive a thank you email. Use the thank you email as an opportunity to find out whether they would be interested in hearing about additional agency services like website promotion campaigns on social media, for instance.
It would be wise to gently ask for a referral. There’s a chance they could recommend you to another potential prospect. Be sure to pass any new lead to the sales department.
Excellent customer service is the foundation of any successful business that’s ready to scale up. As one of the most essential business components, the way you provide customer care should be discussed right from the get-go to align expectations with the client.
User-friendly how-to guides that explain the ins and outs of website management and CMS operations should be always available or prepared in advance, ready to be sent to the client as a link in an email. If any unclear issues arise from the guides, I always recommend having a customer service representative available for a phone call.
Customer service operations will run smoother if your customer support team works with tools like Zendesk or Freshdesk where any team member can easily manage customer service tickets and have pre-made explanation emails and answers ready in a click.
Having such a system set up means you’ll improve the quality of your customer service while reducing the time spent on handling customer service inquiries.
What’s great about such a system is that once a customer service ticket is closed, your client has 24 hours to provide feedback through a short survey. Again, use their insights to pinpoint areas for improvement.
Just like your agency’s designer, your account manager should start communicating with your client by setting up an introductory call during which he prepares a detailed brief that covers your client’s business needs and marketing objectives.
This brief will lay the groundwork for the rest of the stakeholders involved in helping the client promote their business. To illustrate, it will become their guide when they conduct marketing research and set up Facebook or Google campaigns based on predetermined work methods. I consider the word “predetermined” key as it eliminates the risk of forgetting crucial steps or details as you go along. I recommend using a project management tool like Monday.com or Jira to organize all the materials in one place.
Consider giving your clients your agency’s WhatsApp number. I’ve found that having one contact person, like the account manager, works great– it’s the recipe for avoiding confusion throughout the process.
However, you should always have an in-house specialist available on stand-by in case your client needs help with a specific issue. I’ve found that it’s best for the specialists to reply primarily via WhatsApp and interact with the client in-between tasks to make sure work gets done smoothly, without interruptions, and redundant setbacks.
Your client should always be aware of the big picture. That’s where monthly reports sent by the account manager come in handy.
Together with the account manager’s in-depth conversation with the client happening once every three months - covering marketing campaign insights, possible improvements and budget updates - these forms of communication boost transparency and trust in your agency from your client’s side. Not only that, engaging with your clients in such a way opens doors for more business opportunities on the one hand while improving your chances to secure bigger budgets and upsells on the other.
Look at the contract renewal stage as an opportunity to warm up the relationships with your agency’s clients. It’s your window to offer extra. In my experience, though, it’s important not to go into it guns blazing and concentrate on contract renewal first.
Let your clients sit on it, waiting a week or two before going in with additional offers. You should let the client know you’re thinking about them and about the next promo service that you think could really fit.
Scaling your digital agency right from its launch is no easy business, but it’s not rocket science either - provided you know what to do. For me, time has proven that the steps in this guide elevate your agency to the next level, helping you ensure it works for you and not the other way around.
Did you find any new ideas you’re planning to use? Got any tips of your own to share? We’d love to hear your thoughts. Join the conversation on LinkedIn.
