ServiceCrowd

Your clients’ perception of your agency impacts everything - your offerings, your service team, your delivery standards, and your ability to retain clients. So, understanding where your agency stands is crucial for sustainable growth. Knowing how your clients perceive you and how you want to be perceived in 1/3/5 years can guide your investment strategy as well. Think you're mostly in the Basic Provider category but aspire to become a Partner? Investing in senior-level billable talent is likely a top priority. Can't make those investments in the next fiscal year? Doubling down on being the very best Basic Provider you can be, and understanding the implications for churn rate and pipeline needs, may be the smarter move. If you want to dive deeper, Nathan Smitha's blog post will be linked in the comments.

There are a couple of critical moments over the course of an engagement where you solidify the kind of experience the client is going to have with your agency, and one of them doesn't involve the client at all - it's the internal handoff between the sales team and the services team. Our latest blog by Kristin Anne Carideo breaks down: 👉 Why this handoff is so important to client experience. 👉 Key steps to ensure all the context and expectations from sales are transferred seamlessly. 👉 How standardized processes like kickoffs and roadmaps can align your team and set projects up for success. If your team has ever struggled with handoff issues or you’ve heard clients express frustration about “bait and switch” moments, this one is for you. 🔗 in comments below.

Controversial topic: How much of the individual resource's target and actual utilization rates should an agency make transparent to them or hold them accountable for? Should you base compensation on utilization rate? Should you base bonuses on it? Is it just billable work, or productive internal work as well? At ServiceCrowd, we believe that utilization rate can be effectively used by management and leadership as a part of the operating model to ensure realistic profitability forecasts, but we disagree with managing individual service staff to achieve those goals (themselves). Most agency service staff are eager to deliver results for their company and their clients, and having them manage individually to a number they have little to no control over will result in a bad employee experience. ...and a bad employee experience will ALWAYS translate into a bad client experience. Want to know more about how we think agencies should use utilization rate? Link in the comments🔽.

Trying to get a handle on how much it really costs to run your marketing agency? You can't rely entirely on a Quickbooks accrual report to show you how your business is doing. Start by recognizing revenue the right way: -Remove passthrough revenue from your monthly metrics report -Report on revenue based on the month the work was completed, not when the invoice was sent. We have some other tips at the link in the comments 🔽

A seamless client experience doesn’t just happen on its own. It’s the result of intentional alignment across every team and function in your agency—from sales to service delivery to account management. Our latest blog dives into the steps agencies can take to build a unified client experience, including: Breaking down silos between teams Creating a shared language and goals for all departments Ensuring every client touchpoint reflects your agency's values Curious about how your agency can achieve this level of cohesion? Check out the full post on our site, and let’s start a conversation about who you really want to be to your clients and how you can show up that way. Read it here 👉 https://bit.ly/4fgovmK

How you manage your agency should depend on the client experience you want to create. When you think about optimizing your agency's profitability 📈 -it can’t just be about minimizing inputs ↘ and maximizing bill rates ↗ Consider your agency’s pricing and positioning, service offering and team structure -all of these aspects impact the client experience, and changes to them must support your agency’s ideal client experience. When agency leadership has a shared vision for the type of client relationship the agency should support, it becomes easier to identify areas for improvement, misalignment issues and even over-investment. 💡 The correct decisions become more obvious. Learn more about why alignment matters and the types of client relationships, check out my latest post on the ServiceCrowd blog. 🔗 in comments

We've have been having some great conversations lately about the real challenges agency owners and operators face—and the ones we believe we can uniquely help with. The agency service provider space is crowded, and that makes sense—everyone’s coming at it from different angles and with their own perspectives. Some vendors are bookkeepers and operations execution teams. Some vendors are coaches and strategists. Some vendors are M&A specialists. So where does ServiceCrowd fit these days? We’ve boiled it down to a common pain point we keep hearing from marketing agency owners: “I know where I want to go, but I’m not sure how to get there.” We love working with marketing agency owners and execs who have a clear vision but need help building the roadmap to get there—especially when it comes to aligning business operations, service delivery, and client management to support that growth. If you’re looking to grow sustainably while staying true to the vision you have for your agency, reach out! Link to our contact page is in the comments.

Agencies: Are you focused on the right results? Spoiler alert—your clients don’t just want deliverables; they want impact. Every agency sells on solving a specific problem. Whether clients come with an outcome in mind (“I need 20 new customers by December”) or a tactical ask (“My paid social manager quit—help!”), the key is uncovering what they really need to feel successful. Shifting from “How do we fulfill our contract?” to “How can we maximize impact on the client’s KPIs?”—with the right expectations and the right team—will drive growth within your accounts. Want to dive deeper into outcomes vs. outputs? Read on here: https://bit.ly/4fbMVxr

How should you calculate the "actuals" on your contractor and FTE costs? Here's one perspective for you in the video below. We like to ensure we're taking into consideration the true burdened cost of any resource - which means thinking about the time and cost of managing that resource. Everyone you hire will have some management cost associated with them, so it's important to understand that as you think about their hourly rate. That can go into the decisions you make as your agency grows. Full time resource or contractor? Higher cost/more senior contractor or lower-cost one? It all depends. The right mix of resources for your agency at the stage of growth you're in is unique to you! But here's a framework to start thinking about who your next hire could be. Don't want to watch the video 🔗 to the transcript in the comments.

Heyyyyy. I'll be at #CMWorld here in San Diego on Wednesday if anyone will be in town. I'm excited to get to attend, it was a last minute thing!