4 Ways Your Agency Can Improve Client Experience

Regardless of what your agency specializes in, client experience is critical to keeping your doors open, learn these 4 easy ways to improve client experience.

When was the last time you called that agency or business?

You know, the one that really needed to improve their client experience. That’s right, you never did, because their customer service was so bad.

When you go to your favorite local coffee shop, it’s not just their unique brew that keeps you coming back to their door. It’s the pleasant, friendly server waiting for you at the register, the warmth and comfort of their window-side seat, and the soothing blues playing in the background. You’d not only recognize the aroma of their hot mocha, but also that unique swerve in their logo, because it reminds you of that morning smile and of that sun-soaked seat.

Not much is different for any agency out there in any industry it serves.

It’s not just about the superb service, because no agency today could survive the fierce competition without a quality product on offer.

Greater success lies in how you anticipate, proactively create, and provide those services, and how you build relationships with your clients. For agencies, it might be a tad more difficult to formulate that greeting smile when you interact in the digital realm alone, but everything you do should mimic that genuine beam and inspire one from your clients every day.

Here’s how you can improve client experience in 4 easy steps.

1. Feedback is your goldmine

Even when all seems perfectly well, there’s room to grow.

To be able to see those gaps in your own service, you need to step out of your agency shoes and hand over the mic to your clients. Simply put, ask for feedback. Not just at the very beginning of your relationship when you know there are ways to adjust your collaboration, but all the way throughout your partnership. The information you can get from your clients by simply asking the right questions at the right moment can be priceless. They are your goldmine of data to drive the improvement of client experience.

After all, they know best what makes them happy and what you could tweak in the future. Depending on the kind of agency you’re running, you can devise targeted questionnaires or surveys for your clients to complete. When you work with smaller businesses, you can have a face-to-face and note down all of their suggestions through a transparent, constructive conversation. A mix of both is always possible, even via Skype. A genuine relationship requires you to show your willingness to adapt, and their feedback is the best fuel for change.

2. Reporting refined

Agencies nowadays heavily rely on different tools to do their jobs better and to provide a service that surpasses that of their competitors. Whether you’re in marketing, web development, or any other niche, your agency constantly needs to deliver informative reports with actionable information that will justify future actions and drive business decisions for their clients. Most clients aren’t too happy about reports. Not because they’re useless, but because the manner in which they are presented can be excruciatingly tedious.

The truth is, it doesn’t have to be, especially when you’re dealing with detailed data of reporting SEO results and actions. Instead of traditional, manually-crafted presentations, charts, and graphs, there are cutting-edge SEO reporting tools for agencies that transform raw data into digestible, meaningful, actionable reports. These real-time platforms combine the simplicity of automation with the beauty of tailor-made results that every single client appreciates. Add to that your expertise in how they should implement the data, and your clients will be swept off their feet.

3. Work on bonds as much as goals

The first priority of every agency is to deliver the promised results (and preferably then some), so the focus on providing stellar service is only natural. Returning to the analogy of that cozy café, that would mean that serving the finest coffee in town would be enough, and serving it in an industrialized, impersonal, cold setting by a drill sergeant would make zero difference. Alas, it would. Even if your key service is as ingenious as you claim it to be, you need to step up your game when it comes to the manner in which you deliver it.

However, there’s no grand gesture or a single strategy that will help you execute such a plan. Service with a smile needs to be embedded into the very fabric of your brand identity, and as an agency, you need to rely on little actions that will make a difference. Some examples include how you greet them in your office – do you stick to business at hand or offer them a guided tour of the town? Are your presentations dry, or do you imbue your reports with their brand’s essence? Do you incentivize referrals, send them congrats on their own achievements, and celebrate your long-term collaboration? A little can indeed go a long way.

4. Get to know your clients

Agencies like to present themselves as experts. That’s a huge plus today when anyone can build a classy website and claim a decade of experience, but if you’re a marketing agency and you work with a range of extremely different clients – from plumbers to insurance companies – you also need to gain a little knowledge of their own expertise.

How else can you write compelling marketing strategies, competitor analysis, or relatable social media campaigns?

In fact, a detailed report on the issue of client relationship has shown that one of the main problems clients list includes the fact that “agencies do not understand the clients’ world”, and you need to if you want to present valid arguments, build cases, and get creative with anything from graphic design, brand voice, or blog content. You need to fill that gap of understanding your clients on a deeper level, get to know their industry, and by combining your own marketing expertise with the knowledge of their world, you can be their right hand and their partner.

Agencies have plenty of room to rethink their current business models and how they build relationships for the long haul. Instead of focusing just on ongoing education, which will always be relevant, you need to move past your limitations and expand your impact by learning about your client, about innovative tech, and various industries where you offer your services. Only then will you see just how much your client experience can grow.