Unlocking the secrets of client satisfaction

Keep your promises, be nice, friendly and honest. It’s not always about delivering great news, sometimes it’s about how you deliver not so great news.

Communication is everything too. We have clients on opposite sides of the world so we make sure we time our communications so that we are available to clients during their working hours. This has made us more efficient with our processes and means we can deliver projects ahead of schedule on occasion and this always goes down very well.

We’re very sincere in the way we nurture client relationships and the little touches really do go a long way. We’re guessing this is why we’ve been crowned by our fantastic clients as the UK’s number one agency for client satisfaction in the Drum Independent Agencies Census for two years straight, and also in the Drum Digital Census 2016. As we say in Yorkshire, we’re chuffed to bits about it.

We’ve always found that being honest and open about what can and can’t be achieved is nothing to be fearful of. We’ll also let a client know if we disagree or think something could be done even better as we like to challenge ideas, but we’re always respectful of clients’ wishes and will opt for what is most suitable for what they want.

In the event of an individual campaign underperforming, what steps can be taken to maintain client satisfaction?

We pride ourselves on being a reactive and proactive agency, so we’re constantly monitoring how a campaign is performing and refining our strategy to ensure we’re always working towards clients’ targets and looking to exceed expectations.

We’re not ones for shirking away from telling our clients about potential obstacles. If it means putting in extra hours and once in a blue moon working over the weekend to get the job done in time for Monday morning then we’ll do it. We’re very proud and passionate about what we create and we’d hate for any client to be disappointed, so we pull out the stops to make sure that doesn’t happen.

We’ve tons of experience in our field, but it’s so important to step back and let the client give its point of view on what it knows as it’s a team effort. We encourage our clients to share ideas and to express how they feel as we’re all in the same boat in wanting to achieve great things.

How does INK’s process differ from other agencies, leading to such high levels of customer satisfaction?

Our whole team rolls up their sleeves and gets stuck in with a project right from the start as the opinions of our strategists, developers and design and marketing teams are what can take an idea from great to bloomin’ awesome.

We love our clients and from the outset chemistry is super important to us, if it’s not there then the relationship won't work as well as it could. We see ourselves as one team so there's no 'client' and 'supplier': it's a partnership and we find we can draw the best out of everyone’s expertise when it’s a proper collaborative effort.

We don’t churn out work either, we build relationships that last. Everything we create must have a purpose and once we’ve understood our clients' objectives we make sure these remain at the heart of every decision made. We’re not just designing something; it has to work hard to deliver on the business objective.

If a client has a problem that needs fixing, we want them to know we’ll do everything to help them overcome it and that they can all rely on us 100%. We aren’t 'yes' men either and if we think a client isn't making the best decision, we'll definitely sit down with them or jump on a call to let them know there's at least one other alternative. We will always challenge in these kind of situations. We’ve been presented with huge challenges that we’ve delivered on because of our approach.

With ‘personalisation’ a big industry trend for 2017, should agencies personalise their business and delivery models for individual clients?

Yes, absolutely, why wouldn’t you?

One size doesn’t fit all when it comes to how an agency works with a client and so it is really important to work in a way that is beneficial to all. We have such a wonderful mix of client personalities that it’s vital that we let them know how we like to work, but also find out the clients’ preference of communication methods and frequency, for example. It’s all about finding a happy medium and our approach is flexible dependent on a client’s challenges and our solution will be the best one for them – it will be different for everyone.

We have a 24-hour service production which means our delivery has taken on a new level of personalisation. When a project is delivered first thing in the morning to an Aussie client, its team will know we’ve been working while they’ve been sleeping and it creates a really unique experience. Every agency has its own ‘thing’ for creating a personalised client experience so it’s down to the individual company to work out what this is and how it will enhance the relationship.

In Ink’s experience, do satisfied clients translate into a higher volume of ‘word of mouth’ referrals or is that a myth? Are ‘satisfied clients’ more likely to want to keep you to themselves?

Our clients are really brilliant and they have put us in an amazing position where pretty much all the work that comes our way is through word of mouth recommendations and repeat business.

When we opened our studio in Melbourne last year, a huge property developer became a client and soon after we started receiving enquiries from other similar businesses in the same area. It turned out our new client had been singing our praises to his industry peers, which is amazing.

The property development sector tends to have a small community, but there’s a great sense of camaraderie. From what we’ve experienced, each company wants the other to do well so they’re happy to talk and suggest us a digital partner.

The RAR and The Drum help massively too as our clients leave feedback about us for other businesses to check out. Aviva is our longest standing client, we've been working with the team for 13 years out of the 14 we've been in business. La Jolie Ronde has been a fab client for over a decade and we enjoyed 10 years with LA Fitness before it was bought out by Pure Gym. The Ballymore Group and Black Sheep Press have been with us eight and six years respectively and the University of Manchester has been another awesome client for five years. Princess Yachts and the APS Group have been with us for three years each, but we’ve also got heaps of lovely new clients like Shaws of Huddersfield, Rectory Gas Supplies and Sayer Jones.

It means the absolute world to the INK gang to have our amazing clients voting us as the UK’s number one agency for client satisfaction in the Drum Independent Agencies Census in 2016 and 2015. To scoop the award again in the Drum Digital Census 2016 was just incredible and it’s a cool pretty indicator that we are doing something very right. We’re going to continue with our game-plan of seeking out the latest digital advancements, new resources and trends so that we can keep wowing our fab clients with our knowledge and foresight.