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Author’s Note on the Title: My 7th grade English teacher drilled the point home to “never use a preposition to end a sentence with.” And here I am blasting out a title like that, with reckless abandon. Apologies Mr. Dugan.
Now that we got that out of the way…
TL;DR
- One of our founding philosophies at Five & Done was to listen to the negative things our clients would say about other vendors, and not do those things
- Most of the complaints we’ve heard were about the experience of working with that vendor, not the work they delivered
- We’ve identified consistent complaints we’ve heard about other vendors, and strategically built our team and processes to avoid those problem areas
How it Began
Like many companies, Five & Done was founded with a healthy mix of hubris and naiveté and that nagging thought that pops into your head after a particular meeting, or maybe late at night when you’re filling your partner in on your day:
I think we can do this better ourselves.
The “this” came from years of working with clients in different settings but hearing the same feedback (or gossip?) about their “other vendors”. Maybe it’s human nature, but much of what we heard wasn’t positive, and very rarely were the complaints focused on the work they provided; it’s focused on how they provide it.
So the hypothesis that kicked off this Five & Done experiment was: If our clients are unhappy working with their other vendors, can we succeed by avoiding their pitfalls?
To be clear, we consider great work to be a prerequisite for starting a design and technology studio. If you’re aiming for mediocrity, just go home now. That part isn’t revolutionary. But it’s easy to ignore the experience your customers are getting when they work with you. We believed that focusing on that would, somewhat surprisingly, be a secret ingredient in the Five & Done special sauce.
How are agencies and studios failing to serve their customers (or, what should you avoid if you want to do right by your customers)
So much of what you hear about other vendors might be project specific, personnel specific, or taken out of context, but themes do emerge.
- Team Size / Bloat: The feeling that the team is either bigger than it needs to be, or it has gotten too big to move efficiently and your client isn’t getting value.
- Forced ideas / Concepts / Strategies: The feeling that the vendor is not listening and trying to force their ideas.
- Lack of Proactive Problem Solving: The feeling that the vendor is not in tune with the challenges and not acting in the client’s best interest.
- Difficult to Work With or Reach: The feeling that they can’t get what they need from the vendor, especially in a pinch.
- Missed Deliverables: The feeling that a vendor will not deliver and the anxiety that it induces.
I started each of these with “the feeling” because the issue with each is not the tangible deliverable that may be associated with the work; it’s the way a vendor makes their client feel within the working relationship.
"People will forget what you said. People will forget what you did. But people will never forget how you made them feel"
Maya Angelou
I’m like 97% certain that Maya Angelou wasn’t referring to client management when she penned these words, but they couldn’t be more true here.
How we provide design and technology services with a customer service approach
On top of creative chops or technological know-how, our backbone is customer service. We are a service business and we have customers, so customer service is as important to our success as it is to any other type of business, if not more.
That mindset has influenced our operation in a variety of ways:
- Hiring decisions: Sure, we’ll ask about professional experience in interviews, but we also ask about other jobs they’ve had to see if they’ve worked in any customer service type roles (waiter, host, call center, sales, hospitality). A past job as a Starbucks barista is more applicable than you’d think.
- Growth and mentorship plans: Each employee review comes with a growth plan and they often involve courses, books, and exercises that are closely or tangentially related to customer service (e.g. communications, public speaking, account management, even sales) regardless of role.
- Project processes: When we start on a new project, we evaluate what our client needs from this effort, who the stakeholders are and what are their roles on the project, how they work together, and how other partners are involved. Then we tailor our process to meet those needs. That might include scheduling certain types of meetings or check-ins, choosing how we format our deliverables, identifying the breakdown of roles and responsibilities, and defining the best communication style.
- Client deliverables and how we put them together: When we review deliverables internally, we definitely challenge the work itself, but also consider the best way to put it together to ensure our stakeholders feel heard and get what they need. Sometimes that means exploring concepts that we know our clients feel strongly about, even if we see issues with them, so we can provide a balanced perspective and offer choice.
- Communication style: Doesn’t it all come down to communication? How you say often matters more than what you say. You’d be surprised how often everyone here asks a coworker to review an email, deck, or even Slack/Teams message to make sure it takes the right tone (productive, helpful, clear, and with perspective).
- Being Human: We are people, our clients are people, and we want to form human connections so we can do great work together. That doesn’t mean we’re all going to be best friends, but it does mean we don’t pretend to be uniform cogs in a design and development machine. When you work with our team, you get to know each of them, and in most cases (hopefully), you get along and like working with them – and want to continue to work with them.
But does it work?
Our hypothesis from over a decade ago has proven to be right. We’ve enjoyed consistent work from large and small clients alike. And while we’re proud of the work we’ve done over those years, we’re just as proud of the longstanding relationships we’ve forged.
As of writing this, we’ve actively worked with each of our clients for an average of 34.5 months – nearly three years! And our first client is still a client today. That’s our evidence.
I’m sure you’re reading this wondering how good it can be to work with a friendly, dependable, respectful, and capable team. Reach out if you need help solving your customer experience and technology challenges and we’ll show you how we do it.
More in this Series
- Do Great Work and Be Great to Work With
- Quality Assurance is the Cheapest Form of Account Management
- Gas Caps & Product Design
- Critical Thinking is Great, but What Does it Actually Mean?
- Why We Don’t Have Account Managers
- Project Managers Aren’t Paper Pushers: Provide Value and Perspective
- What We Can All Learn From a Good Real Estate Tour
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