Long-term customer relationships

What does long-term collaboration mean?

As a rule, we speak of long-term cooperation in a business context if the period of cooperation extends over several months to several years. This refers to cooperation models with customers in which projects are developed over a period of several months of continuous cooperation.

Even though we at dmcgroup are open to any (even short-term) form of support for our clients, long-term cooperation is the preferred form of collaboration, as this creates a kind of familiarity and involvement between the agency and its clients that we consider to be a guarantee for high-quality work results.

Advantages of long-term cooperation between agency and client

It is difficult for a company to commit to working with a digital agency in the long term. It is also challenging for an agency to accompany clients over very long periods of time. Nevertheless, this form of cooperation offers decisive advantages:

• Trust and continuity for greater efficiency
• Agency develops deep understanding of brand and company
• Long-term planning and strategy as a partner
• Cost savings through well-established processes
• Continuous optimization of workflows
• Building up detailed domain knowledge in the agency for optimal support
• Better problem solving through a deep understanding of the customer’s business
• Planning security on both sides
• Optimal support for long-term user experience & product development
• Better team communication & collaboration through loyalty
• Meaningful activity for the people involved through long-term goals

Each of these advantages illustrates that long-term collaboration between digital agency and client can be beneficial not only for short-term success, but also for sustainable development and value creation.

But how do you get there? How can you find the right digital agency for a long-term partnership?

Find an agency for long-term collaboration

Finding a reliable partner for long-term cooperation requires a clear picture of your own requirements, priorities and possibilities. The following steps can help you find a digital agency that suits your company in the long term:

• Clearly define framework conditions such as goals & budget in advance
• Research to identify potential agencies
• Check references – implemented projects show the agency’s focus and strengths
• Check required industry knowledge – in which domains does the agency have experience?
• Define communication & collaboration requirements and compare them with the agency
• Check flexibility & scalability – is the agency large or flexible enough to grow with the company?
• Check technological competence – are there absolute requirements in technical terms?
• Getting to know each other personally – this is the only way to check whether the “chemistry” between the people involved is right

It cannot be emphasized enough how important it is to get to know each other personally and exchange ideas directly in order to familiarize teams with each other and check compatibility for long-term collaboration.

A good opportunity for a test run between the digital agency and the client can also be cooperation as part of a pilot project.

dmcgroup as a reliable partner for long-term cooperation

The company’s history speaks for itself. After all, dmcgroup has been in business for more than 30 years. A long period of time for a fast-moving profession.

In fact, our digital agency has been supporting some of its biggest clients for much of this time.

The cooperation between dmcgroup and Allianz has already spanned more than 20 years – and included exciting projects such as the revision of the Corporate Designs across the entire corporate group and the development of a brand design platform for all touchpoints including guidelines and ready-to-use templates, as well as the design for the global visual identity of Allianz as a top partner at the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

dmcgroup has also been working continuously with Erste Bank / Erste Digital for more than 9 years. During this time, dmcgroup teams worked with various project teams at the bank on projects as diverse and varied as the relaunch of the self-service interface for ATMs, the introduction of a new interface for customer advisors and the implementation of a complex digital advisory product for home loans.

Just recently, the dmcgroup and Erste Digital teams celebrated a workshop as a team event to reflect together on years of good cooperation. In addition to various team exercises, we also used a timeline of the time full of projects behind us. An impressive sign of a vibrant partnership.

Recipes for success for long-term collaboration between digital agency and client

From our experience as a digital agency with many long-term client relationships, we can provide some success factors for sustainable collaboration:

• Open and regular communication
• Fixed voting dates
• Joint planning and prioritization at both content and organizational level
• Regular retrospectives to optimize collaboration
• Clear, transparent billing
• Welcome change instead of rigidly following a fixed plan
• Continuity in the teams ensures stability in projects
• As an agency, always go the “extra mile” to inspire clients with excellence, even after many years of collaboration

Every collaboration offers its own challenges and opportunities. It is therefore clear that this is only a superordinate selection of recipes for success for long-term, successful collaboration.

As different as the teams and project challenges are – what the long-term collaboration models at dmcgroup have in common is the commitment of all those involved and the strategy of ensuring sustainable success for clients and the agency through continuous measures for transparency and trust in the collaboration.