Agency-client relationships, especially long-term, evolve, and are layered with ever-changing information. The client’s industry landscape changes. Their teammates may come or go. New goals and growth agendas will be established. 

Your Client Services team is abreast of all of this, of course. But it’s important the larger agency team is, as well. Any agency stakeholder–at any time–should be able to quickly understand the status and standing of an account, and not just from a financial standpoint. Regularly updated and easily accessible documentation is key for tracking the health of each agency account.

At Proofpoint, this comes in the form of the Client Overview and Background Deck. A cornerstone Client Service document, this file is a repository of qualitative and quantitative information about each Client.

What’s Important to Track:

The nuts and bolts of an account pulse check.

• Account Basics: 
  • Website
  • Physical location(s)
  • Client code / internal tracking ID(s)
    
    
• Company Overview: 
  • Annual revenue
  • Clients / end users
  • Products / services
  • Competitor Overview
  • Company Highlights
    
    
• Industry Landscape:
  • Background information gathered from research or client intake
  • Overall trends
    
    
• Key Players (for each individual client contact): 
  • Name
  • Title
  • Email / Phone
  • LinkedIn Profile
  • Roles / Responsibilities Description
  • AND…Notes: the ongoing anecdotal information gathered from working with this person over time
    
    
• Current Engagement Details (list all open SOWs): 
  • Scope
  • Budget
  • Goals
  • Account lead
  • Teammates 
    
    
• Account Health: 
  • Cadences
  • Growth opportunities
  • Challenges
  • Overall rating of account standing
    
    
• Other Vendor Partners (list all that apply): 
  • Company
  • Key contacts (name, title, email / phone)
  • Vendor / Client relationship and corresponding Roles / Responsibilities

Who Does the Document Serve?

In short, everyone!

Agency Executive Team: When it’s time for those who aren’t in the day-to-day weeds to check-in, this document is a quick and easy update. The Account Health section is particularly useful for Client Services and Executive Team forecasting and capacity planning.  

Newbies: As an “account 101 rundown”, this document is the perfect place to start for any agency teammate during the onboarding process. The anecdotal notes and nuances provided for each Key Player will also give the newcomer a leg up on navigating client relations.

Teammate Additions: Let’s say the client has grown, and now so has the internal team working on the business. Here’s the foundational document for your internal team kickoff meeting!

Finance/HR: In conjunction with the Executive Team, these roles refer to Engagement Details and Account Health as needed.

Let’s get to the Point :

This tool is one of the easiest ways to manage your Client Relationships internally! Update as often as needed, but don’t let a quarter go by without a brief run-through for accuracy and ensuring up-to-date information is documented.

We hope you found this to be useful and informative! We’d love to hear from you regarding any feedback, or whether you implemented something similar. Share with us in the comments!