Meeting the Client

  • Make sure new client is added to Project Spreadsheet, Portal and create a Basecamp project (sales person usually does all 3 but check before first call).
  • Sales person coordinates Discovery Call with PM. Sometimes sales person attends first meeting to clarify previous discussions and make introductions. If client is willing to do a working session, call could be an hour and a half to 2 hours long.
  • Use portal to generate brand request form for client to fill out - have it prepped before first meeting to put in Basecamp during training.
  • Invite client to Basecamp and try to get them to walk through Client ToDo's tasks with you on first call so they can ask questions as they go. 
  • If Silver - assign BC task for dev to build chosen theme.
  • If Gold - coordinate the first design call for the following week and ask client to choose favorite theme as a starting point.
  • If Platinum - coordinate the first design call for the following week and ask client if they have any sites they're using as inspiration.

Adding Brands

  • Client chooses their preferred brands
  • PM reviews brands to see which have inventory and how old the inventory is
  • If inventory is relatively new, send Request for Access email to vendor's main contact
  • If inventory is rather old or if inventory is not available, alert retailer and ask for help to contact someone who can help and ask them to CC inventory@thinkspacehq.com
  • If brand is approved, added policy to site and change relationship status to Data Live


Project Management/Redesign Questions:

  • What topics do you delegate to other team members (who)?
    • Talking about extra costs (POS, custom design work, features we don't have yet that clients wants ASAP) - Salesperson
    • Setting up Google Analytics - Ben
    • Redirects - Ben
    • Final Quality Checks before site goes live - Dom or Mark
    • POS Integration - Dave
  • What do you gather for the designers?
    • For Silver, ask the retailer for theme, colors, fonts and store logo.
    • For Gold, ask the retailer for a theme they like as a base and any other sites or elements they want to include, colors, fonts and store logo.
    • For Platinum, ask the retailer for any design prefs they have, colors, fonts, store logo and any other branding/marketing.
  • What checklist do you follow to get through each of the project statuses? (for those that are "not you" a note would be good)
    • 1 Discovery - Salesperson
    • 2 Design - PM when client enters design with Ty
    • 2a Design Sent - Ty when he sends the mockup to the client
    • 2b Design Revision - Ty when he gets revisions from client
    • 2c Approved - Ty when Dom approves mockup to be built
    • 3 Site Build - Not positive but I think Ty when task has been created for site to be built
    • 3a Ready for Dev - Not positive but I think Mark when site is ready for Roman to stand up
    • 3b Quality Check Needed - Roman if site stand up doesn't go smoothly
    • 4 Ready for Content - Roman when site is built and ready for the PM to add content
    • 5 Content Loaded - PM when content is on the site but hasn't been delivered to the client
    • 6 Delivered - PM when dev site has been delivered to client
    • 7 Data & Training - PM when client is focused on POS or custom inventory
    • 8 Finalize Content - PM when client is working to complete their content on the dev site
    • 9 Final Quality Check - PM when client is going through launch list and quality checks
    • 10 Approved for Launch - PM when client approves dev site to go live
    • 10a Live Send Final Invoice - PM or Roman once site is live
  • What resources do you use and for what?
    • Project sheet (New Clients and Existing Clients tabs) - tracking active projects
    • Portal - adding/subtracting brands, checking inventory dates, adding/accessing FTPs, updating relationships statuses, editing brand logos/banners
    • Slack - asking questions and chatting
    • Basecamp - gathering info for new projects and primary source of communication with client outside of meetings
    • Gmail - emailing
    • Google Calendar - scheduling meetings
    • Freshdesk - answering/helping with tickets, checking inventory approvals
  • What are your criteria for a site being ready that you haven't seen written down?
    • Besides the Launch List which is in Basecamp - No filler text, all links click to an active page, inventory pricing has been checked by retailer, confirmation that client emails will not be interrupted when A Record is changed. The silly way I alway describe it to the clients is "it's never really 'finished' because websites are always changing so we can launch the site whenever you're happy to share it with your customers."
  • Do you have a list of topics/pain points for particular (or general) retailers?
    • Project Tiers - Silver means ZERO home page layout customizations. 
    • Custom Inventory - spreadsheets are ONE TIME uploads and then all inventory will be managed in the admin by the retailer.
    • POS - we can help set up the initial mapping file but the retailer is responsible for all future updates and additions. Thinkspace is not responsible and having a marketing person do it who does not work in store is not appropriate. 
    • Project Tiers - Silver means ZERO home page layout customizations. 
    • Basecamp - It's important to keep communication in Basecamp for paper trail and to include other teammates who may be late to the show instead of forwarding or replying-all on long, confusing threads.
    • Image Editing - we usually do a few quick edits here and there but PMs and Support are not graphic artists so clients need to have graphics presized, hire someone to do artwork for them, or use a free image editing program on their own.

Rolex:

  • What's your process?
  • What are the handoff points? (and from/to who)
    • Ty, Larry and Dom seem to be handling everything else. Jess was doing the quality reviews with the occasional help of Ben and she was supposed to be their direct point of contact. Not sure if that has been reassigned since her departure.

General:

  • What services do you use for what day-to-day?  (sites -- Thinkspace's and other; applications)
  • What parts of the portal do you use and for what?
    • Relationships, Policies, Brands, Sites, FTP, sometimes Catalog if something is clearly wrong (ie, earrings labeled as bracelet) that can easily be changed without waiting on inventory team. 


Support Articles:

  • What are your criteria for a good support article?
    • Boiled-down, basic step-by-step approach with lots of screenshots and no paragraph-style writing. They do end up being longer articles but many of our retailers are not great at inferring missing info and they won't often read a block of text. The more screenshots and videos, the better.