As the Director of Client Services at Clix, after all my digital advertising responsibilities, client relationships are always top of mind. Last month, I wrote “Why Every Agency is Not Cut from the Same Cloth” as I wanted to share some pretty amazing things that have been happening with our agency. However, that post didn’t touch much on the “magic” that makes our client relationships so strong. So, in this post, I want to touch on that a little more. We all know that maintaining strong client relationships is essential for long-term success. While it may seem obvious, some of these aspects can get buried in the daily grind or inadvertently neglected due to deadlines and all our numerous responsibilities.
Client Communication
Effective communication can make or break any relationship, but in the business realm, it’s even more essential. You might think everything is fine, but have you asked your client recently what they think of your communication? This is really important if you have a change in your primary contact or leadership team. You might be surprised at the feedback you receive. If you’re hesitant to rock the boat, feel free to start with lower-touch check-ins. For example, ask about your call notes templates to see if anything needs to be adjusted. We have had clients ask to have notes to be simplified or more robust, depending on their specific needs or interests. Regularly touching base with your clients to understand their evolving needs, challenges, and goals also helps. Lastly, send action items, budget changes, follow-ups, and updates in writing and regularly. It’s always better to over-communicate than under-communicate.
Ask Questions & Listen
Asking thoughtful questions and actively listening to your clients is key to understanding their needs, shifts, pain points, and wins. Being proactive shows your continued interest in their account and commitment to improving results, processes, and performance. Keeping communication open also builds the relationship, furthers credibility, and ensures their accounts (and spend) are in good hands. This moves you beyond a basic relationship to strategic vendor to an indispensable partner. When challenges arise, continue to be proactive in finding solutions. By going the extra mile, you show that you genuinely care about their success, building trust and loyalty in the process.
Evaluate, Customize, and Improve
It’s easy to use a template approach across clients but it’s just that…easy. Take your efforts up a notch by evaluating if your templates actually meet your clients’ needs. Do what you can to customize your templates for each client. Ask for feedback (see point one above) and then adjust as needed. As time goes by, see what you can do to improve. Maybe you have reports that could use some custom formatting to make performance metrics easier to read or maybe you segment out some performance metrics to showcase certain areas. Recently, we redid some of our ad copy review templates to make them more intuitive and easier to read through for our clients. Sometimes, it’s helpful to go through this just to make sure all reference points are up to date (Meta vs Facebook references anywhere?). Refreshes like these show initiative, reflect staying on top of our industry’s constant changes, and enhance the value you bring to your clients.
Streamline Processes
Look for your own pain points with clients and see what you can do to make improvements for the future. No one likes feeling the tug and pull of struggles or being the bottleneck. Depending on the client, we’ve done a few things to intentionally ease the barriers to effectively launching new efforts. While these might seem intuitive, each was customized for the client at hand. A few examples include:
- developing timelines
- creating libraries for images, ad copy, lead gen forms, and more
- mapping out tests
- project trackers
- shared Google drives
There are others, of course, but the bottom line is, don’t just accept that “it is what it is.” Instead, find a way to ease the struggle and make improvements to be more efficient.
Share Your Knowledge To Showcase Your Expertise
Offering value-added resources can significantly enhance your client relationships. Share educational content, industry insights, and relevant resources that empower your clients to make informed decisions. Provide them with case studies, competitor analyses, and examples of what you see working for other clients. Don’t be shy about relying on some Channel reps for reports, betas, ideas, one-pagers or anything else. Feel free to also use your or your team’s own blog articles as well. Of course, you don’t want to overwhelm your clients, but you want to keep them up-to-date.
Conclusion
Remember, while your ultimate goals should always be based on account performance to meet your clients’ needs and goals, your agency manners matter. By prioritizing effective communication, personalization, continuous improvement, collaboration, and sharing knowledge, you establish yourself and your agency as a trusted partner to ensure create long-term success. This relationship and trust credibility increases client retention, referrals, and contacts coming back to you when they move on to another company. So strive to go above and beyond when delivering quality services. Find your own ways of going the extra mile to add more value to your client relationships.
