Versatile and dynamic – two words that describe the daily work of an agency very well. While this brings a lot of variety, it also means a lot of challenges for an agency’s team. In the day-to-day work of an agency, typical mistakes arise that hinder process flows, team productivity and the completion of the agency’s projects. The resulting increases in time and costs often lead to severe revenue losses.
To prevent this from happening, these challenges must be identified and addressed in a timely manner. In the following article, we explain some of these daily mistakes in agencies and show how they can be solved so that the agency’s day-to-day work runs smoothly again.
Typical work mistakes in agencies
The above-mentioned dynamics of everyday agency life run through all areas of the agency’s day-to-day work. Starting with constant new customer inquiries with interesting new projects to changing hierarchy and team structures to fulfill these projects as well as constant challenges in planning and controlling. But it is exactly these points, which make the work in an agency so interesting, harbor the central error potentials of agency work.
Customer contact
An agency survives from its customers. If an agency is doing well, the number of contacts from potential new customers and inquiries or comments from existing customers will increase. While every agency is happy about many new leads, many agencies outgrow them. Thus, every day agencies lose potential customers due to inadequate customer relationship management.
To prevent this from happening, CRM should never be left behind. From the moment of the first contact, the data and the current negotiation status of the potential customer must be stored centrally so that one does not lose the overview.Planning errors
Once the lead has been closed, the customer has been won and the new project has been initiated, the next step is to plan the project. While one might assume that every agency can execute project planning flawlessly, since it is part of the daily core business of an agency, many agencies also make many serious mistakes here.
Crucial planning errors happen primarily in resource planning, which is critical to the progress of the project. Most agencies rely primarily on manpower. Especially the planning of manpower is not an easy task, because manpower is much more variable and less plannable than machines. Many agencies neglect this factor and calculate the capacities of the workforce incorrectly and too inaccurately, which often leads to deadlines not being met.
Many agencies also make mistakes when setting these deadlines because they lack an accurate overview of the agency’s current available resources. Missed deadlines are a no-go for clients, but still an everyday occurrence in many agencies.Changing team structures and communication errors
As previously mentioned, each project presents a different challenge to an agency, as the required skills of the workforce differ from project to project. Thus, in the individual planning process of each project, different areas and workforces come together that may never have worked together before. This brings with it a diversity of ideas, but also many problems.
For example, a lack of communication can lead to disagreements about areas of responsibility and hierarchy within the team. Everyone is aware of the main goal – the completion of the project – but in many agencies, team members are confronted daily with imprecise work assignments and areas of responsibility. Thus, the benefits of an agency’s dynamic are lost, and new sources of error emerge.Mistakes in controlling
In many agencies, it happens that they are not even aware of where errors occur in their agency. For example, they may be frustrated when another potential client bails out or the new project is behind schedule, but they cannot pinpoint exactly where the agency’s mistake lay.
Therefore, every agency should keep an eye on the developments of a project on a daily basis in order to identify potential errors. However, many agencies lack the basic requirements to fulfill this need, as many still work with separate Excel lists for each aspect of the project. Every day the control suffers from a lack of overviews of the state of the entire agency, the agency loses time and money.Errors in accounting
Errors also occur daily in an agency’s invoicing. Customers turn away delayed offers, reminders go out too late or hours worked are simply forgotten to be accounted for. Also, writing invoices by hand takes up a lot of time.
Many agencies still rely far too much on manual processing, which not only takes time away from them, but can also lead to major conflicts due to small daily errors.
How can these daily mistakes be avoided?
All the above-mentioned mistakes that occur daily in agencies are mainly the result of many agencies not coordinating their task areas enough and relying on manual entry. Thus, a new client is quickly lost in the mass of emails an agency receives on a daily basis. The resource is planned incorrectly because its capacities are only apparent from a manually created Excel list that may no longer even be up to date. The agency loses an order because the manual preparation of the offer took too long.
HQLabs Software will help you to solve these problems. In fact, all-in-one software solutions like the HQ can connect all business areas of the agency. CRM is automated and contact data is stored in one database. Simple overviews of capacity allow for accurate resource planning, while with a unified database, easy access maintenance and direct task assignment, team member communication is improved. Dashboards simplify troubleshooting with easy-to-understand controlling capabilities. Even document management is handled by the software, with quotes, reminders and invoices created automatically.
With an all-in-one software like the HQ, the daily problems in an agency can be solved and costs, efforts, time and money can be saved.