Top 5 Tips for (Successfully) Working with IBO
Maybe you’ve been thinking about working with Inbound Back Office in the future. Maybe you’re a new client (or even a longtime client) hoping to further enhance your relationship with IBO. Either way, you might wonder if there are any helpful hints we can offer so you feel totally confident you’re totally maximizing the team at IBO.
Good news… we’re here to help! Here are our top tips for ensuring that your IBO experience is as seamless as possible.
Helpful Hint #1: Navigating the Handoff
You’ve gone through the sales process and completed your onboarding with Nikki (that’s me, your friendly neighborhood Client Success Manager)... now what?
First, keep an eye out for the introductory email. This email gives you the contact information for the team members you’ll work with initially. As soon as you get that email, you’re welcome to reach out to those team members to discuss your specific projects, add them to your project management platforms, or start making assignments.
If you send an email to a team member and don’t hear back from them within 24 hours (which is unusual), please let me know! It’s possible your email was erroneously caught by an overactive junk filter.
As you work with our team, you might decide that you could use help with another aspect of marketing. Maybe you started with our HubSpot Production team, but now you realized you could use a hand with your social media. Just reach out to me— I’ll be glad to connect you with the appropriate team member!
Wondering about the different service areas we offer? Check it out! Looking for a service that we don’t offer? Let me know. If there’s enough demand, we’re always glad to expand our services.
Helpful Hint #2: Communicate Early and Often
This is something you’ll hear during your onboarding call with our Client Success Manager (me again) and it’s so important to our process that it bears repeating. If you have a specific desired outcome for your project, it’s vital that you communicate that to the team members with whom you’re working.
Say, for instance, you’re working with our content team. You’ve got a specific tone you want the deliverable to achieve — make sure you share a sample of another piece that effectively conveys that tone with the team! Do you have specific pain points you want your blog post to address? Again, share them with the team!
Perhaps you’re not happy with the first round of work done by a team member. We highly recommend reaching out to that team member immediately— the sooner you get things back on track, the better! It’s possible it was a simple misunderstanding! Or maybe a different team member would be better suited to the work. Regardless, the sooner we determine there’s a problem, the sooner we can solve it.
(I know I tell new clients several times throughout the onboarding call that I’m happy to answer questions or address problems, but I want to reiterate that here: I’m always here to help! It’s the whole point of me, to be honest. Whether you prefer to communicate via email or you want to set up a quick Zoom call, I’m pretty easy to reach.)
Helpful Hint #3: Take a Minute to Understand Our Billing Process
We strive to keep things simple here at IBO, and our billing is no exception. Basically, if you’re interacting with a team member (with the exception of the Client Success Manager), you’re on the clock.
Our team tracks time for any communication— this includes phone calls, Zoom meetings, email exchanges, and Slack messaging— and the time spent completing the deliverables.
We bill hourly for the services rendered— and that’s it. We only bill for the hours you use. There’s no retainer, no surprise service fees, and no required number of hours each month. If you just need help with a quick project, great! If you’re short-handed and need one of our team members to fill in a gap within your agency, we can help!
We charge the payment method on file on the first of the month for the hours worked in the previous month. We encourage clients to check the hours our team has spent on their projects throughout the month in our billing dashboard to which you’ll be granted access just after your onboarding call.
If you see something that doesn’t line up with your expectations in the dashboard, don’t hesitate to reach out to our client success manager (hi, again!) or the team member with whom you’ve been working. We do our best to be transparent about our billing, and we’re always glad to answer questions.
Helpful Hint #4: Add Our Team to Your Tools
We really pride ourselves in the way we integrate ourselves into your existing processes. If your team uses Slack, add our team members! If you have a project management tool that you use to track your projects, add them there, too!
Regardless of the tools you use to organize yourself, your team, and your projects, it’s highly likely that our team has some familiarity with them. Don’t hesitate to add us! Especially if it will make your life easier as you assign projects to our team members.
You can even give our team members an internal email address at your domain if you plan to have them interact with any of your clients. We’re well-versed in the practice of white labeling our work, and we’re glad to become part of your team.
Helpful Hint #5: Provide Feedback Early and Often
Yeah, this kind of goes along with the idea of communication, but we feel pretty strongly about the power of feedback, good or bad.
Bottom line? We can’t get better if we don’t know what we’re doing wrong! We’d much prefer that you tell us where we went wrong than just decide to ghost us. Often, the issue can be easily resolved with a quick conversation about expectations or even a change of personnel, if necessary. (The majority of the service areas we offer have a deep bench from which we can draw. If one team member just isn’t working for you, it’s likely that we can find another one who will!)
Of course, feedback doesn’t have to be negative— we love to hear what we’re doing right, too!
At IBO, it’s our goal to make your life easier and your agency more productive than ever. We want you to love us and consider us an invaluable part of your team!
If you’re not already working with us and you’re ready to change that, you can schedule a discovery call here.