The results of Central Desktop’s recent survey, “The State of Agency/Client Collaboration,” can be summed up with a simple statement: Better collaboration…or else! According to the survey, which was first reported by Adotas’ Brian LaRue, a lack of efficient collaboration is now impacting agencies’ ability to win or retain clients. 40 percent of companies declined to work with an agency because they felt the agency didn’t have the right tools for managing work and communication, and 41 percent of agencies said a client had required them to have a collaboration system in place in order to retain or win business.
According to the survey, clients are getting much more vocal about their biggest day-to-day headaches. Specifically, they are particularly concerned with:
● Agency turnaround times
● File‐sharing and management
● Quality of deliverables
● Implementation of client feedback
● Keeping track of project status
Not surprisingly, on the agency-side of the fence, biggest pain points include:
● Too‐heavy workload and time management challenges
● Dealing with clients
● Working with internal team members
● Administrative tasks
● Keeping track of project status
What is really interesting is how the right tool quickly and easily eliminates these pain points not just between Agency and Client, but also internally within each organization. The right tool “clears the runways,” so to speak, both internally and externally before more effective collaboration can take hold.
In addition, the resulting benefits of stronger communication are the same regardless of what side of the relationship you’re on. When asked what the top benefits were since implementing collaboration tools, the top two benefits experienced by clients and agencies were exactly the same – “improved project management processes” and “faster project completion.” All things considered, there is little doubt that better communication and collaboration tools are going to be even more crucial to the success of agencies in the future.
For more information about ProofHQ’s ability to support agencies, click here.
January 14th, 2013 10:11 am
[...] In addition, a recent survey produced by Central Desktop reveals that agencies are under pressure to collaborate better with clients, and that their inability to do so is impacting their ability to win or retain clients. In the survey, 40% of companies declined to work with an agency because they felt the agency didn’t have the right tools for managing work and communication, and 41% of agencies said a client had required them to have a collaboration system in place in order to retain or win business. (Click here to read our earlier blog post on the Central Desktop survey). [...]