Managing the relationship you have with your creative or web agency is both similar and different to managing other relationships. It’s similar because both parties need to be prepared and committed to performing their roles well and efficiently. It’s different because your agency should be more partner than supplier. Their ability to best meet your needs requires your engagement. Here are 5 things to help maximize your agency relationship.

1. Have A Thorough Understanding of Your Project Vision

The best agencies are the ones who create solutions that solve your organization’s problems. The most artistic designs or most technical websites don’t always get the best results. Having a specific understanding of what you need your agency relationship to achieve will help your agency partner best supply it. This will ensure that you pay for an execution of your vision, not theirs.

2. Establish Solid Communication Boundaries

Like a romantic relationship, one of the keys to a strong agency relationship is healthy communication:

• You need to feel comfortable that your concerns are being heard, and that your agency partner is committed to addressing them.
• Good agencies will adapt to your organization’s individual communication style, but you never want to push their boundaries.
• A discovery session at the beginning of the project is a perfect time to outline these boundaries.

3. Act as You Want the Agency to Act

This can be seen as the ‘golden rule’ of an agency relationship. Understanding what you want from an agency partnership can often be settled by looking in the mirror. How does your organization behave with its most valued customers? Whatever comes to mind when you think of this, act on it in your agency relationship. By doing so, you will be able to expect the same from your agency partner.

4. Nail Down The Project Scope Right Away

One of the most damaging and corrosive aspects of any agency project is ‘scope creep.’

• Scope creep is when the exact deliverables haven’t been totally fleshed out at the beginning of a project, so neither party knows exactly what the other is expecting.
• This can result in a drastic over or under provision of work, which is a prime breeding ground for conflict.
• If you are unsure of the marketing materials you need, have your agency partner make specific recommendations.

Being proactive to prevent scope creep will ensure that the product of your agency relationship exactly meets your expectations.

5. Trust Your Agency Relationship

A good reminder for your agency relationship is that they are experts in their field. You have hired them to do a job, so let them do it. Once you have provided your vision and project scope, try not to meddle with the creative process. Your agency partner understands which parts of the process you should and shouldn’t see, so leave these decisions up to them.

The KIMBO Design team are experts in managing an agency relationship, because we understand the value of a good client, and a happy client. Working with these kinds of client is the most enjoyable and rewarding for us, so we do everything in our power to build these relationships.