• Client expectations are always important – but sometimes, things can be overpromised.
• This is the situation Poppy Court and her paid media team at StrategiQ were facing, with things being promised to clients that they couldn’t deliver on – or sometimes were just not possible.
• Hear from Poppy on how the agency’s strategy overhaul over the last 12 months has improved their relationship with clients and their expectations of the agency, and the record growth it has helped them achieve too.

Client expectations are important – but for Poppy Court, this was something that was falling flat at StrategiQ.

“We had a few instances where things on the paid media side of projects were being promised to new prospects that we couldn’t deliver, or just simply weren’t possible,” she says. 

“A client would have this half-baked idea of what they could achieve from paid media, and it left us in a tricky situation in terms of client expectations. We realised we needed to set new client expectations for what we can deliver for their budget.”

The agency worked tirelessly on a brand-new sales strategy, with the aim of achieving better clarity with clients and an uptick in growth.

As part of that overhaul, the paid team are now involved from the very beginning of a project – including the initial pitch process.

“The sales team will set the vision of the agency, and give clients an overview as to how we can help, but now they rely on us as specialists to talk directly to the client about what we can offer them.”

“What we’re finding is clients prefer that relationship with a specialist in the initial sales stage. They like to build rapport and understand who is working on their account – and actually, if a client is quite technical and wants that insight, they know they can get it.”

In the last 12 months, this has had a great effect:

• The team are better aligned on projects. “The team are now all aligned on a client’s vision. We know exactly from the off what we’re looking to achieve, and we can hit the ground running because we’ve got that awareness.”
• They have stronger relationships with their clients. “We’ve had instances where we’ve won pitches because we’ve been able to bring the specialist team in from the start, and the client is looking to build a relationship with the people they’re working with on a daily basis.”
• They’re now working with bigger clients – and budgets too. “The calibre of clients we’re speaking to, and the opportunities we have to pitch, have massively grown. Some of the budgets we’re now working with have always been on the wish list.”

Poppy will be sharing how this new sales strategy has helped the agency go from strength to strength over the last 12 months, and achieve record growth as a result.