Great creative might win the pitch, but it’s account handling that keeps, or kills, the relationship. After 30 years in the industry, former Fentimans Marketing Director, Jayne Andrews, shares her unglamorous basics that separate chaotic agencies from those clients trust with bigger briefs.

As I hit my 30th year in the marketing industry, I need to be careful not to reflect too much on ‘the good old days’. But of late, and especially with the advent of AI, I’ve been reflecting on my agency experience, and some of the differentiators between what makes a good agency great.

Whilst I have mentioned AI, this isn’t an article about creative, this is about the humans that clients work with day to day. The customer facing, at the coal face, Client Services/Account Handling team.

Whilst the client often joins an agency ‘for the creative,’ it has always been clear that it is normally the Account Services team that can kill the relationship, as they are the people the client works with every day. Even small niggles can get inflated when teams are under pressure with budget, time and making impact.

Business is built on relationships, and if you don’t have a good one and trust in your account manager to stay on top of things and get things done, then the relationship breaks down very quickly.

I’ve been on the client-side for more than a decade but worked agency side for around 15 years before that. I remember the training I had back in the day was hardcore. And whilst I wouldn’t go back to a time when Creative Directors could slam a door at your face, after pinning your ‘sh&t’ brief on the wall to be shamed to all, some of the useful bits learned in those early days, I can see often missing from account service teams today.

Appreciate teams and businesses today are tight on resources, and probably less time for some of the rigour to be taught, as everyone flies by the seat of their pants to get work done.

But for me, making sure some of the organisational basics are in place, can not only improve the client relationship and trust, but it can also help the account team feel less panicked and they know they are ‘on top of’ the day. Reducing the chasing, emails and extra admin that happens when a client feels the work is not in control.

At risk of teaching many to suck eggs. To me, these are the basics for making sure that the client relationship stays solid. And whilst most of this comes down to admin, this to me ensures that the account team heads are then ‘free-er’ to talk strategy and business (cross-sell and upsell!), as everything else is sorted.

1.     The Status Report – however you create these – whether a simple excel, or a fancy project management tool. Both agency and client should have access to a live status of where each project is at, who is responsible for what and when.

2.     The Contact Report – I personally don’t think AI recording the meeting is the same thing (if it is just audio that no one will listen to). Unless the transcript is used to create bullet points for agreed actions. Then it works. Meetings should not be talkfests. They always need agreed next steps, with dates and deadlines.

3.     The Daily Priorities Email – If a project is big and stressful, for me the Daily bullets really help. Avoid the client calling and chasing on everything that is going on, by getting ahead of the game first thing and saying, ‘These are the 3 top priorities of the day’ and ‘Coming later in the week’. This may seem tedious each morning. But really it is just a cut and paste each day, showing what has moved to the top.

4.     The Finance Tracker – However you look at it, sometimes we are talking about budgets that can buy a small house (or even a big one at some companies). Make sure everyone knows where the budget is at. Overall budget logged (everyone on same page), then each estimate/invoice, subtracting from agreed budget. PO numbers captured etc. This means no surprises.

5.     Clearly broken-down estimates – EVERYTHING that is included, even the little things like a budget for deliveries, or props, or hotels. And yes, this is an estimate, so not everything is known at the start. But then ‘re-estimate’ and provide ‘final estimate’ as actuals come in. This is so much less annoying than at end of the project being told that X amount is being added at the end, as it was forgotten at the start of the project. Also, for creative, if the agreed ‘rounds of amends’ is included at the start, then this helps the agency enforce the client consolidating feedback (or it will cost them!).

And whilst this may seem like admin hell for the agency. Believe me, this will save time in the end. And unlike when I started in marketing, now these documents are ‘shared,’ the client can equally add in updates – so everyone is responsible.

This is the toolbox. If I don’t see this from the agency, then I start to wonder ‘do they really know what is going on?’ and ‘are they really looking after my money.’ And when the opportunity to turn small projects into bigger projects briefs comes around, I will be more likely to put work their way. When I have had to make this decision in the past, sometimes the ‘more creative’ agency has lost out due to my team saying ‘We simply do not have time to work with this agency. They are too chaotic.’ Creative wins the relationship. But account handling can lose it.

Along with the tip I had twenty years ago ‘you don’t need to wear a suit, but you should always dress 10% smarter than your client at meetings.’ – showing you care and are across the details never gets old.