Olivia Maier
If you work in an agency, you know that a 9–5 workday isn’t entirely accurate. When you’re trying to work around your colleagues’ schedules, project deadlines, and client schedules, it’s not always realistic that stuff will get done within an 8-hour workday. In an industry that’s centered around delivering products that exceed expectations to your client, it can create a high-stress and high-pressure environment.
You may have been drawn to agency work because of how collaborative it is, with so many creative and technical individuals coming together to create something special for your client. If you’re a remote agency, you might even be able to take that one step further and hire the most creative and technically skilled professionals around the world.
However, with so many people working on one project together, it can sometimes feel like you’re going in circles. Think about it, when you’re trying to make sure everyone has the information they need, and have enough time to meet deadlines, and can respond to client calls, and then are able to get the information from those calls to the people who need it… it’s exhausting to even write about it, much less do it daily.
Traditionally, the “prescription” to cure workday stress is organizational tools and tips. The thought is that if you plan out your day, you’ll be able to reduce wasted time, helping you to fit more things into your 8 hour day. But, for agency work, this sometimes can have the opposite effect.
When you are working for and with a client, unexpected calls can’t be scheduled, and with a rigidly planned workday, your workday may start to feel like a backed-up traffic jam.
So if it isn’t organizational tools and tips that can help your agency life, what is it?
Yodel.io is an intelligent internet based phone system that can help you cater to your clients needs, and help your team be as effective as possible with plenty of features to take advantage of.
For agencies, it’s important to stay in touch with your team members. This is because any edits made by one team member will likely impact other team members. It’s also important that everyone has access to the information they need, in a way that makes sense for how your group operates. If your team works remotely, on different schedules, or if you have clients on different schedules, it can be helpful to have everything in one place, written down. That way as team members come and go throughout their workdays, or as clients send updates, it is permanently accessible.
Luckily, there are tools like Slack that provide constant communication, in a centralized way. Slack gives you that access to written information, that can be very helpful to refer back to, and is always available.
You may have started to integrate other parts of your agency work into Slack, with digital design tools available as Slack plugin. Yodel can be another helpful plugin for Slack when it comes to communication. As a virtual phone system, Yodel can make external communication easier especially if you’re already using Slack. The calls will be transcribed, providing the written information that can be helpful for the rest of your team who wasn’t on the call. They can have the transcript available to refer back to, making sure everyone is on the same page.
We just mentioned how the transcription is available for all team members, which already helps with sharing information with your team. But wait, there’s more.
As one, central phone line for the agency, all incoming calls can be routed through Slack. This means if you want, everyone can be notified of the call. But, as we mentioned, sometimes incoming calls are a disruptive part of the day. That’s why Yodel included call screening.
With the live transcription feature, you and the rest of your team can see incoming callers’ answers to questions such as “who are you looking to talk to today?”, or “what is the purpose of your call?”. Instead of a call being bounced around, disrupting people who may be in the middle of crucial tasks, everyone can be aware of who is calling, and who is the best person to answer the call. You can then notify your team that you want to pick up the call or ask for a team member to address it instead. That way, everyone will know who is calling, why they are calling, and who can answer the call. This will limit unnecessary distractions, leaving you more time to get to the calls and jobs that you need to.
For a larger agency, you might be looking at the above example with some serious doubts. Maybe not everyone needs to be notified of every call, and that will just add further complications.
Well, that’s why Yodel is adaptable and customizable to you. Within Slack, you can designate specific channels for specific clients. Yodel can take advantage of that functionality, and notify specific Slack channels of incoming calls. This means that instead of the whole agency being notified, it’s only the people who can truly address the callers’ needs.
This will help a larger agency, giving the small business a feel that many clients love. They will know that whenever they call, they are going straight to people working on their projects, and who can answer exactly what they are looking for.
Yodel can be a great tool for agencies to incorporate into their workload. It can address some of the root causes for stressful days, not meeting deadlines or communication difficulties with clients. If you want to learn more, get started with a free trial today! See for yourself the ways Yodel can help you, your team, and your clients.
