What’s Working in Account Service
I believe there comes a time in the agency “growth curve” where a more centralized system of workflow ceases to be completely effective. Currently, I am consulting with an agency where there are 500 projects open in the agency. That’s a lot of work; certainly too much work for one traffic person—even one with an assistant and great software.
In these cases, in makes sense to do what the big agencies do: create self-contained teams consisting of a full account service staff (account supervisor, account manager and account coordinator); a creative staff including an art director and writer; and a project manager. Each team should take responsibility for a book of business (remember, payroll for any team should be around 50% of AGI, and AGI = total agency billings minus direct outside vendor costs). The team’s book of business may include one client or several clients, but generally the revenue for a team would approach $1,000,000. The team, of course, does its own traffic, estimating, outside vendor negotiations, etc.
This model of agency business also provides more individual attention to the client, helping to build stronger client-agency bonds. Since each team is focused on specific accounts, they will naturally also focus on all the jobs for that account…and prevent smaller jobs from slipping.
You may want to consider instituting this business model, instead of trying to build the perfect total agency traffic and workflow system.
