What does Account Service do? The answer to this question is one I have been cultivating and evolving since I began my career.

It’s no secret that account service teams and creative teams can butt heads within ad agency walls. But in truth, a good account person can be a creative team’s best friend. Account Service is where a project starts. You could have the best creative team in the world at your disposal, but if your account work is sloppy, odds are the project will be, too. With a good account lead, agency teams are prepared to be strategic and create great work.

What follows are a few best practices that I’ve observed in great account service teams. Take them for what they are worth; go forth and service!

Learn Your Client’s Business. Educate yourself on your client’s industry and understand where their product fits within the competitive set. Learn what their products are and why people want (or don’t want) them. Understand both marketplace challenges and pressures that your client faces internally on a day-to-day basis. This will help you to think of solutions before your client has even posed the problem, as well help create a relationship of trust.

Stop and Think. When you first get a request from the client, take a minute to digest the assignment. Do you have all of the information you need to write a creative brief? Are there any questions you know your team will ask? Does it make sense for your client’s business and your campaign strategy goals? When you are relaying feedback to your team, make sure you understand what needs to happen and why. Thoughtful, clear and concise communication will help your team create the best work.

Know the Fundamentals. While it may not be your formal training or professional background, work hard to educate yourself on the fundamentals of digital marketing. What interactive vehicles are out there, and which one would be the best platform for a given assignment? What different programming options might your team consider when embarking on a site build? What does information architecture really mean, and why is important? And what analytics tool will you use to measure success? A good understanding of the interactive landscape will help you to skillfully execute a project, manage client expectations and avoid setting your team up for disaster.

Follow the Rules. Process isn’t fun, but in the digital world it is what enables us to be efficient, strategic and ultimately produce the best ideas. Make sure your team always has clear communication from you in the form of briefs, change orders and other documents they need to do their jobs. Set an example for other team members by not cutting corners. Educate your clients about your agency processes to both set timing expectations and encourage them to give you better information from the start.

Break the Rules. Just because you aren’t a media planner, or know any live-stream video vendors, or don’t have the budget for a professional photographer doesn’t mean you can’t make it possible for your team execute a big idea. Collaboration with partner agencies and vendors is hugely important, and, more often than not, you will depend on their expertise to pull certain aspects of a project together. But don’t let the unknown stop you from picking up the phone to call a director, or a media vendor or even the owner of a pie shop to keep a project moving forward.

After all, that’s exactly what the best account service teams and producers do: Bring it all together and make the amazing happen.

When it comes to finding the right person for the job, sometimes it’s not the content of your questions —  it’s how you ask them. Many organizations have discovered that targeted interviewing strategies can help better evaluate job candidates.

Behavioral interviewing is a technique used to gather key information during an interview process. The specific type of questions being asked can assist employers in making predictions about a potential employee's future success. In behavior-based interviews, interviewers ask for detailed examples of when the candidate has demonstrated a particular behavior or skill. The questions should focus on actual past behaviors, instead of hypothetical responses.

Hypothetical Question:
How do you handle pressure?

Behavioral Question:
Describe a time when you were in a high-pressure situation. What happened? What was the outcome?

For this technique to be measurable, each behavioral question should focus on a:
•    Situation or task
•    Action
•    Result or outcome

The questions should be very direct in order to elicit detailed responses aimed at determining if the candidate possesses the desired characteristics. When creating ideal questions, you should first identify job-related experiences, behaviors, knowledge, skills and abilities that are most desirable in a particular position. Often, a company will align the questions with the organization’s core competencies.

Utilizing behavioral questions during an interview process will ensure every hiring decision is made after evaluating:
•    Job-related dimensions such as roles, knowledge, experience and performance behaviors
•    Similar questions made to each candidate and a consistent collection of information
•    Motivational fit

Defined interview processes help organizations overcome many common hiring errors including:
•    Overlooking areas that are critical to job success
•    Failure to see job motivations and organizational fit
•    Asking illegal, non-job related questions
•    Prejudicial evaluation based on biases and stereotypes
•    Misinterpreting applicant information
•    Making snap decisions

Performance management is the process of creating a work environment or setting in which people are enabled to perform to the best of their abilities. It is an indispensable device in an organization’s toolbox. With focused and disciplined communication driving performance management, the process feeds the momentum of an organization. Through individual goal achievement, a company’s growth and success objectives are achieved in parallel with employee goals.

Human Resources should definitely play a role in managing an organization’s performance management process, but the tone of the practice should be set from the top. Successful performance management ensures employees are familiar with the operating and strategic targets of an organization throughout the year.

Establishing  a performance management system that’s mutually beneficial to employees and the organization doesn’t have to be a stressful ordeal. It just takes commitment from everyone involved. The following foundation will help create an effective performance management process:

•    Generate a means for customary 1x1 discussions between employees and their supervisors. A 1x1 should cover status updates, coaching and feedback regarding not only the employee’s performance but the organization’s objectives. Build that strategic partnership!

•    Match individual employee work efforts with the organization’s mission and objectives. Ensure the employee understands their role within the organization, and how the responsibilities of the role link to the organizational and departmental goals.

•    Set clear expectations about results that must be achieved and methods or approaches needed to achieve them. Establish a clear path for success.

•    Utilize specific measures to help the employee focus their efforts. Having objectives and standards will help provide a solid rationale for eliminating inefficiencies.

•    Explain career development opportunities. Provide details regarding how the employee’s current position supports present growth potential, and detail additional opportunities he/she should explore.

With the proper procedures in place, the annual “formal” appraisal should simply be an opportunity to summarize the conversations you and your employee have had throughout the review cycle. An employee’s performance should be viewed as an ongoing process driven by regularly focused and disciplined communication throughout the year!

What are consumers looking for in an in-store interactive experience? Should it be different from shopping online?  How can we make it easier for sales associates to know how to sell our clients’ products?  

Recently, we addressed those questions — and others — when LG asked us to leverage the online assets we built for their Steam Laundry microsite and turn them into a robust, in-store kiosk experience.

For LG, taking the Steam Laundry experience from the computer screen to the sales floor was a natural way to differentiate its brand from the competition and provide more value to customers. Other marketers and retailers like Olay and Kmart have seen positive results when they placed online applications in stores. It makes sense: More consumers are shopping online and like to be in control of their shopping experience. Kiosks put the customer in control.

Our kiosk had many diverse audiences to serve. For consumers, it needed to be easily accessible and educate them on the features and benefits of LG front-load washers and dryers. Many customers start their product search online, so we needed to complement the online experience while enhancing LG’s brand message.

From the initial information architecture stage of the project, we knew we had to find a way to put users in control of their experience based on where they are in their decision path. This entailed creating user flow paths and content for a wide range of customers — some ready to make a purchase today to others who might not actively be looking but could be interested in upgrading their current laundry appliances.

To reach customers just beginning their search, we created a 5-question quiz that would filter the consumer’s responses and provide recommendations on models that are right for their individual household needs (think silent salesperson).   

For those closer to making a purchase — those who want an easy way to compare models and find product specifications — we created a tool to help consumers narrow product results by selecting filters that were of interest to them. With just a few screen touches, customers could compare products and find exactly what they were looking for. I know when I enter a big-box store, I just want to quickly find what I’m looking for and get out of there as soon as possible. The tool we developed does just that by letting the customer control the action.

To increase brand awareness and educate customers about LG’s laundry innovations, we created an information path where customers could watch videos, use tools to learn about exclusive LG technologies and learn about the advantages of LG Steam Laundry. LG is a relatively new brand in the States, and many people are unaware of the stylish range of home appliances they manufacture. The content we developed will help position LG as a top-of-mind manufacturer of laundry appliances.

For customers, there’s nothing more frustrating than an ill-informed sales staff, so we wanted to equip sales associates with the information they need to be passionate advocates of LG products. To do so, we created tailored retailer sections that highlight the benefits of shopping at a particular store, as well as an area for sales associates that includes a full video library of product highlights and a filter tool to help associates help consumers find the right model and then quickly identify the model and/or SKU number.

Even though we’ve finished the kiosk build, a project like this is never completely done. We’ve built in tracking to help us better understand how the kiosk is being used, and we plan to do some usability studies to help us optimize the experience in the future.

You’re going to see more kiosks and interactive point-of-purchase displays as marketers look for new venues (you can’t go to an airport without seeing Best Buy vending machines). As technology roots itself deeper into retail experiences and changes the way people shop, marketers and agencies alike need to adopt new strategies to adapt online content to enhance the in-store brand experiences.