How To Get The Best Out Of An eCommerce Agency

Working with an eCommerce agency has many benefits. You’ll multiply the number of experts working on a project, which means the level of expertise will be much more varied and you’ll be able to cover all bases. However, working with a new bunch of people you might not have met before can prove difficult, especially if you don’t know how to make the agency-client relationship work.

Regardless of whether you’re in the process of choosing an eCommerce agency to work with, or if you’ve already established a relationship and want to know how to get the best of them, follow our tips below.

Ask For References

If you’re in the process of choosing an eCommerce agency to work with, don’t forget to ask for references – a good agency will have them and be more than willing to share. This will give you an immediate insight into the type of agency you could be working with and whether they’ll be a right fit for you and your business.

Get Off To A Good Start

Those first few back-and-forths are key to establishing a good client-agency relationship. At this stage, it’s good to get to know your agency as you might be working with them for a long time. Do you get on? Do you have the same working habits? Same business philosophy? While you don’t have to be one and the same, it’s vital that you understand each other.

Be Honest & Open

Just like any relationship, honesty is key. 9/10, a problem between an agency and a client arises due to some form of miscommunication. The key to getting this right is to be clear from the start what your current goals are and how they fit into the larger business objectives, then feel free to ask your agency what they can do to help you reach them. Ask questions and be sure to communicate exactly what it is you’re looking for.

This also comes under discussing the scope of a project and what your expectations are from them. Set up a discovery phase so you can understand what the deliverables are and the results you expect to see – the detail is important. There’s no point getting frustrated by your agency not meeting a goal or a deadline if you hadn’t told them about it in the first place.

It’s imperative that you are honest about each stage of the working process – if you’re not keen on a design for your website or you’re unsure what the benefits of integration are, speak up! The more an agency knows about your thoughts and feelings, the more they can adapt or change up the strategy to suit your business needs.

Know Their Strong Points

There must be a reason you have chosen to work with this particular ecommerce agency. Whether it’s their web support packages or the high-level integrations they build, something about them attracted you in the first place. If you’re unsure about something like a piece of data or reports they have sent over, make sure you ask questions. If you want to get the most out of your agency, finding out exactly what they’re capable of can benefit your business in ways you might not have even thought possible.

Ask for opinions

An eCommerce agency has probably worked on multiple projects exactly like yours, which means they’ve seen mistakes being made and they know exactly what works and what doesn’t. You’re paying them for their experience and their knowledge so be sure to get as much information from your agency as possible.

This goes hand-in-hand with you and your agency working together to achieve your goals, as without this level of discussion and asking your agency what is and isn’t possible, there’s no way you’ll reach where you want to go.

The most important thing to keep in mind is that your agency wants you to succeed. We’re proud of the success stories we create with our clients and a huge part of that is through building a good working relationship. If you’re looking for an ecommerce agency to work with you on a project, get in touch by clicking here for more information.