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The Contemporary Agency Life: Engaging with Clients at Eye Level
An optimal relationship between client and agency as contractor is based on mutual trust – the fundamental trust that the client will be able to pay the invoice and that the contractor will carry out the work reliably. But what has changed in the collaboration over the last 20 years and what should be paid special attention to?
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The client provided their briefing, named a target date for the presentation, and after a debriefing, work began. This once laid the foundation. It was often about classic campaign development – and fixed prices. The agency was the "slave" of the customer.
Today Agency and Client Work Closely Together
Assignments have become more complex. It's about multidimensional projects and campaigns, about user experience, about customer loyalty – and it became clear that developing solutions often turns out much better with close collaboration. Because the client has knowledge about their product, their service, and their target group that no agency can easily replace.
As an agency, you ideally develop towards the client within larger projects and do not remain on standby. The more complex the projects, the greater the mutual dependency. The more important become the creatives, who cannot be quickly replaced without losing a lot of knowledge and empathy.
As an agency, you ideally develop towards the client within larger projects and do not remain on standby. The more complex the projects, the greater the mutual dependency. The more important become the creatives, who cannot be quickly replaced without losing a lot of knowledge and empathy.
The creatives are particularly challenged, because ideas are questioned more frequently through closer collaboration. They need to be more than just suitable for an award. Through collaboration with the client, there is the opportunity to learn a lot and to "dive" into or empathize with their world. A skill that needs to be constantly trained as an agency professional.
For the client themselves, it is an intense and valuable experience, to be involved in the solution development. They can thus co-steer the result and know at every point where the project stands, how much is still to be done, and where the budget is.
Shared responsibility means real partnership. The goal of every managing director/project manager is to implement projects on time and within budget. However, it is not uncommon for the initially conceived path or concept to change during the project because situations become visible that could never have been anticipated before. The client then shares responsibility. This means relief for the agency. Transparency helps both sides understand each other and work together in partnership, so you can seek dialogue in time before something goes wrong or the budget becomes too tight.
How MOCO Supports Client Trust
Transparency between contractor and client fosters trust. MOCO contributes the shareable project report to this. The client always has a current insight into incurred efforts and budget progress. The report is reduced to the essentials for the client.
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The client can answer these questions themselves
English image not yet available...The client can answer these questions themselves
- How many hours have been worked and are left (Report field "Hours")?
- Was the planned monthly hour volume achieved (Report field "Activity")?
- How much has already been invoiced (Report field "Invoiced")?
- Where does the budget stand (Report field "Performed")?
- How are the works distributed ("Hours by Services")? If services were budgeted, the remaining hours are also displayed here.
No separate monthly report needed anymore
As an agency, you save yourself the monthly reporting in the form of an hour extract with the shared project report.
As an agency, you save yourself the monthly reporting in the form of an hour extract with the shared project report.
Conclusion "A successful project is rarely alone"
If the advance trust is still present after the project, nothing stands in the way of a partnership relationship and many subsequent projects. As in any good partnership (private and business), you should ideally not have to hide anything. The transparency provided by the MOCO project report thus becomes a win-win situation. 😀
Image source: Pixabay
Image source: Pixabay
