Creative Agency Secrets

Years ago when I was working for Don Peppers we anticipated the rise of customer-driven businesses who oriented their service offering around direct customer feedback.  It seems that day has arrived for banking.  Check out Umpqua bank in USA.  The ‘bank’ looks more like a bookshop crossed with a coffee shop or a top hotel.

When we say "Welcome to the World’s Greatest Bank," it’s more than an
expression, more than a slogan. It’s our commitment to our customers
and communities, and it’s our commitment to ourselves. It’s the reason
for everything we do.

Whether you’re visiting one of our stores, or visiting us
online, we want to provide you with an environment and a feeling that
you couldn’t match anywhere else. It’s a place where you can find all
the services of a larger bank, while enjoying all the comforts of your
neighborhood store.

some customers will pay more for personal service in a place and manner that is convenient. Others will use internet banking and never speak to a branch.  Today’s business is challenged by technology and ‘old fashioned’ values to provide the means for customers to transact business in whatever manner and time and place of their choosing.

Not really possible for some of us - but definitely acceptable for leading edge companies to try and deliver. 

For example, Mail order  PLUS a retail store. 
I suggested this to a large music retailer in the UK - why not put internet terminals into your shops so customers can buy ‘online’ and have it shipped direct to their homes?  You can choose whether to maintain a price parity of not between these methods of delivery.
Curiously they didn’t want to do this….. and in an industry that has so many price margin challenges, that seems interesting.

Dan is the Head of Business Development for FHD, a design agency and part of AMV/Omnicom.

He’s done a fabulous job taking the company slowly online as part of a suite of things he has implemented for his business development role.

1.  Salesforce.  Good move.  First thing he did when he joined.
2.  C level reporting line.  Great planning by FHD.  He reports to Adrian and Robert - MD and Creative Director.  As it should be.  Biz Dev is so important that you can’t afford to let it go below this level of radar.
3.  "e-presence".  His word.  Driving a new brand (launched the rebrand 11.06) with a brief to make it known as a design business with personality, improve FT listing of top 20 places to work and a fun place.  He has launched an internal blog (censored!!!) and a public ‘forum’, explicitly not a blog!.  They are using LInked in, Facebook and pay per click….newsletters still to come.

Good practice.  Copy what he’s done and you will be fine for starters if you are in Biz Dev for an agency.

We had some ideas for collaboration…. more to come on that.

And I got onto my soapbox about publishing creative work that clients don’t buy.  Whether it’s a pitch you lost or a design that isn’t chosen.  Why not use it to show off your creativity?

Every agency describes itself as creatively led or an ideas agency.  So show off what you have got.  Use creative commons licensing to get credit for the source.  Let others see how good you are en route to the end design not just "da darrr - here it is the new logo for xyz co". 

We nearly agreed…. on some points.

Here we are …. thanks Joanna and Alex for passing by with the camera!

Dan’s own blog What’s the Beef just for the private ‘angle’!

PS nice link-up with Alex Pearmain who commented on my rowing blog and found me online…. thought he’d introduce me to Dan, his boss, and found Dan already knew my work! Neat.  That’s how it’s supposed to work.

I have just bought a new motorbike and went to my insurance broker to get a new quote for insurance.
Easy peasy.  They found a good price and ‘tied’ it into my existing bike, which I am not selling, to give me a good price for two bikes.
So far so good.

Then I get the insurance certificates in the post.

A day later I get a letter asking me to provide
1.  Proof of No Claims Bonus
2. Photocopy of my driving license
3.  Photocopy of Compulsory Basic Training Certificate

DARN.  Basic error.  Very basic.

A company with whom I have dealt for 5 years and who has had this information from me before appears to have no means of accessing it.
What does it look like?  They are treating me like a new customer who they’ve never dealt with before not an existing customer who has just bought a second product from them (and this should be a sign of increasing profitability from my account and rising lifetime value).

I wrote them this little email to the sales@ address.

You write asking for proof of no claims, copy of my driving license and my CBT certificate

You have been my insurance broker since I got my bike.  You have arranged every year’s cover for me; you have had all this information from our previous dealings.

Please look in your files and if you don’t have them, I will come and visit you as a consultant (this is what I do for a living) and advise you on how to re-order your processes in order for customers to be better served.  An organisation should ‘remember’ when it has had this sort of information from a customer before and should be able to call up copy data in circumstances like this one thus saving the customer time and money.  And also, incidentally, creating a process that ties the customer into your services and making it harder to switch to another provider because your service is better and takes less of the customer’s time than a competitor who has to acquire these documents afresh.

Tell me you have this information.

If you don’t.  I will provide them.  And I would like to meet your Sales Director.

We will see what transpires.

NOTE TO SELF   

Advise all clients to check internal procedures for dealing with lapsed clients and how information is stored in accounts, marketing, database, customer services. 

Could this happen to us?