By business type
What a marketing agency should let an assistant answer about the work
Agency enquiries are qualification problems rather than support problems. Most of the people typing are trying to work out whether you do the thing they need, whether you work with businesses their size, and roughly what it costs, and they will leave rather than fill in a form to find out. An assistant is very good at the first two. The third is where agencies get themselves into trouble.
What people actually type
Not the questions on your FAQ page. These are the phrasings that arrive in a chat window, lowercase and unpunctuated, and the material has to answer them in those words rather than in yours.
- how much does a website cost
- do you work on retainer or per project
- what does a discovery call involve
- do you work with companies our size
- how long does seo take to show results
- what is included in your social management
- do you do paid media as well as content
- is ad spend included in the fee
- what is your minimum engagement
- can we see work you have done in our sector
- who owns the assets when we stop working together
- how much notice do we need to give to end a retainer
What to feed it
In rough order of how much work each one takes off the front desk. Every one of these is a document you almost certainly already have.
| Service definitions written as deliverables, not adjectives | What a brand engagement, a website build, a content retainer or a paid media programme actually produces: the artefacts, the cadence, the reporting. This is the material that converts on an agency site, because every agency claims the same qualities and almost none of them say what arrives. |
|---|---|
| Engagement models and what distinguishes them | Project, retainer and consulting arrangements side by side, with the minimum term, the notice period, how scope changes are handled and how out of scope work is quoted. Prospects are usually choosing between shapes of engagement before they are choosing between agencies. |
| Indicative starting points, framed as starting points | Not a price list. A typical entry point per service, what moves it upward, and an honest statement that the number follows a scope. Refusing to indicate anything at all costs you enquiries from people who would have been the right size, and quoting a firm figure costs you the ones who were not. |
| What a discovery call covers | How long it runs, who attends from your side, what you will ask, what they should bring, and what they receive afterwards. The biggest single reason a good prospect does not book is that they cannot tell whether it is a consultation or a sales pitch. |
| Who you work with, and who you do not | Sectors, company size, geography, and any categories you decline. Agencies waste an enormous amount of time on calls that were never going to convert, and a clear statement of fit ends those before they are booked. |
| Commercial terms clients ask about late and should ask about early | Asset and intellectual property ownership at the end of an engagement, who holds the ad accounts and analytics properties, what happens to work in progress on termination, and whether ad spend is billed through you or paid direct. These decide renewals, and they are almost never on an agency website. |
What has to reach a person
Quoting a price for work nobody has scoped
This is the specific failure mode on an agency site. Every project is bespoke by definition, the same brief costs three different amounts depending on what already exists, and a number said early becomes the ceiling for the rest of the negotiation regardless of what the scope turns out to be.
The assistant should give the indicative starting point exactly as you published it, say plainly that the figure follows a scope, and offer the discovery call. That is a stronger commercial position than either silence or a guess.
Anything about a client, named or identifiable
What you did for somebody, what results they saw, what they pay. Much of an agency's work sits under confidentiality terms and some of it under exclusivity terms with a client's competitors, and an assistant that helpfully describes an unpublished engagement has breached an agreement rather than made a good impression.
Only index case studies you have written permission to publish, in the wording that was approved. Anything else should route to a person who knows what may be discussed.
Predicting results
How much traffic, how many leads, what return, how long until it works. Outcomes depend on the market, the competition, the budget and the client's own ability to act on what you give them, and a projection from a widget will be treated as a commitment and quoted back in a review meeting.
Anything about a live account
Campaign performance, why spend changed, when a deliverable is due, why a report is late. The assistant has no access to accounts or project tooling, and should hand these to the account team rather than reassure.
The wording when it cannot help
This is the message the assistant returns when nothing in the material covers the question. It is written by you rather than generated, which matters here more than anywhere: it is the sentence a stranger reads at the worst moment.
I cannot price a piece of work without a scope, or share detail about a client engagement. I can explain what each service includes, how our project and retainer terms work, what a discovery call covers and the kinds of business we work with. Leave your name, email and a line about what you are trying to do, and someone will come back to you.
It names what it cannot do, gives the route that can, and offers to take a message. A refusal that only apologises leaves the person exactly where they started.
Rules and duties that shape the answer
Advertising standards apply to the agency's own claims
Agencies are held to the same rules they advise clients on, and in most markets claims made in advertising have to be capable of substantiation. A performance claim repeated by an assistant without the qualification that sat next to it on the page is exactly the thing that becomes a complaint.
Index the approved wording rather than the internal version, and let the assistant quote rather than summarise.
Client confidentiality usually survives the engagement
Non disclosure obligations in agency contracts commonly outlast the work, and often cover the existence of the relationship as well as its detail. Before indexing a client name, check that you are permitted to use it, because an assistant repeats whatever it is given without knowing what was under contract.
Data handling is part of what a prospect is buying
Agencies routinely process customer data on behalf of clients, and data protection regimes in most jurisdictions require that arrangement to be documented with defined roles and responsibilities. Larger prospects ask about this early, and an assistant that can answer from your published position makes you look like an agency that has thought about it.
Never, whatever the documents say
Out of bounds
- A price or a timeline for work that has not been scoped.
- What results a prospect can expect, in traffic, leads or return.
- Anything about a client engagement that is not already published with permission.
- What another client pays, or what discount might be available.
- Anything about the performance or status of a live account.
Playbooks for this trade
One page per recurring question, written for a marketing agency rather than in general. Each carries the phrasings, the material that answers them, a reply worth copying, and the line where it has to stop.
- The quote question every agency site gets, and the number nobody should sayBespoke work has no price until somebody scopes it. How the assistant gives a published starting point without naming a number for the brief.
- How an agency charges, before anyone talks about what it costsEngagement shapes, minimum terms and what sits inside the monthly fee. The commercial structure prospects compare before they compare agencies.
- Data and security questions from the prospect's procurement teamAgencies process customer data for clients. What the assistant can answer from a published position, and where a person has to commit the firm.
- What happens when a client wants to stop working with the agencyNotice periods, work in progress and who keeps the ad accounts. The questions clients ask late and should have been able to read early.
- The handover an agency actually wants to happenHere the handover is the product. A brief arriving in the chat is the signal, and a discovery call is what the assistant is trying to produce.
- A client has the invoice open and is asking about one linePass through spend, the hours allowance and the out of scope line. What a client is really disputing when they query an agency invoice.
- What happens between signing and the first campaign going liveAccess to the client's own accounts, the brand assets, the measurement check, and why month one produces less than month two.
- Delete my data, sent to a company the sender has never heard ofThe stranger writing to an agency is usually in a client's list rather than the agency's, and the assistant cannot even say whose.
- Sorting an agency complaint before anybody answers itA late report is a service complaint. A campaign that overspent a client budget is not, and the assistant has to handle the second differently.
- Two pots of money, and the client wants one of them backThe fee bought hours that are already spent. The budget left for a platform. Only one of the two is a conversation about a refund.
- Can we get a call booked, typed by four different peopleA prospect, a client chasing an account lead, a supplier and a student all type the same request. Only one of them is a discovery call.
- Our own site, and the sites we build for other peopleOne visitor cannot use the agency's own site. Another is buying accessible work. The honest page answers them in different paragraphs.
- What our hours mean when something is running all nightThe office closes at six. The spend does not. What to publish about cover, reporting days, and who is watching a live account overnight.
- Which payment failed, and how fast does it matterA retainer invoice that bounces is a finance matter. A card declining on an advertising account stops live delivery within hours.
- Who has access to what, when the accounts belong to the clientThe seats in question are on the client's own advertising and analytics accounts. Withdrawing them is the client's right, and often an accident.
- Something is broken and spend is still going outThis is a handover rather than an answer. A broken site or a missing tag during a live campaign costs money by the minute.
- A client is chasing a deliverable that has not landedThe article, the creative, the report. Usually the answer is that it is sitting with the client, which is the hardest thing to say.
- The insurance question that arrives with a contract behind itCorporate procurement wants a limit and a certificate. What the assistant may confirm, and why it must never state a number.
Questions
- We deliberately do not publish prices. Does that break this?
- No, but it limits it. Without any indication, a large share of your enquiries are people discovering they cannot afford you, which costs your team the calls. A published entry point per service, framed honestly as a starting point that a scope moves, filters those out before they book without committing you to a number.
- What actually converts on an agency site?
- Service definitions written as deliverables, and clarity about what a discovery call is. Prospects are trying to establish whether you do their thing and whether the next step is safe to take. Those two documents answer that, and they are the ones worth indexing first.
- Can it use our case studies?
- Only the published ones, in the published wording. It answers from what you index and cites what it used, so anything you would not want quoted verbatim in front of the client concerned should stay out of the material.
- Enterprise prospects send us security and data questionnaires. Can it help?
- It can answer from whatever you have published about how you handle client data and who you share it with, which covers the early questions. A formal questionnaire needs a person who can commit the agency, so that should become a handover with the document landing in a real inbox.
Keep reading
- For a law firmFee structures, consultation terms and onboarding checks are answerable. Anything applied to a caller's own facts is legal advice.
- For a accounting firmDeadlines drive the volume. What an accountancy practice can automate, and why no answer may touch a caller's own numbers.
- For a insurance brokerProduct information is safe ground. A personal recommendation is regulated, and no assistant may confirm whether a loss is covered.
- Every business typeWhat an assistant has to know before it can answer for a trade.
Try it on your own material
Upload a document or point it at your site, paste one line of HTML, then ask it something only your business could answer.