Playbook, marketing agency
A client is chasing a deliverable that has not landed
Every retainer produces a queue: drafts, creative, a report, a page build, each moving through internal review and then a client approval which is frequently where the thing has actually been sitting for a week. The assistant can see none of it. What it can do is describe how the queue works, which turns a chase into an understanding of where work gets stuck and why.
Why this is not the general answer
The handling pattern for order status holds across every trade. What follows is the part that does not.
- The commonest true answer is that the deliverable is waiting on the client's own feedback or approval, which is awkward to say and is exactly why publishing the workflow matters more than any status update.
- The statement of work fixes what is due in a period, so a chase is often about something that was never in the month at all and needs a change request rather than a nudge.
- Work that would take the month past its hours allowance stops until somebody signs, and from outside that looks identical to work that is simply late.
- Approval cycles have their own arithmetic: two rounds of amends with a week either side move a launch by a fortnight, and clients rarely count their own turnaround as part of the timeline.
How it arrives
- where are this months blog posts
- the creative was due last week
- is the report waiting on us or on you
- how many rounds of amends do we get
- we approved the copy on friday when does it go live
- why has the landing page not started yet
What has to be indexed for this to work
| The production workflow, stage by stage | Brief, draft, internal review, client review, amends, sign off, publish, with who owns each stage. It answers where is it without seeing anything, and hardly any agency has written it down. |
|---|---|
| The statement of work for the period | What is due this month, in what quantity, by when. A chase for something outside it is a scope conversation, and the only way to have that calmly is to have the list in front of both parties. |
| Turnaround times, including the client's own | How long each stage takes on your side and how long you assume for theirs. Publishing the assumption is what makes a fortnight of silence visible to the person who caused it. |
| How a change request affects the queue | That work beyond the allowance waits for a signature, who raises it, and how much time that adds. Without it, a paused deliverable and a late deliverable look the same from outside. |
The reply
I cannot look into the production queue, so I cannot tell you where a particular piece has reached. What I can tell you is how the queue runs: our workflow page sets out the stages and who owns each one, and client review is where things sit longest [1]. What is due in a given month is in your statement of work, and anything beyond that waits for a change request before it starts [2]. Leave your name, an email and which deliverable you mean and your account lead will give you the actual position.
It admits the limit first, because a client chasing something wants to know quickly whether this is worth their time. Naming client review as the usual bottleneck is true and does the diplomatic work without accusing anybody in particular. And it separates late from not started, which is the distinction that ends most of these conversations.
Where it stops
The trigger. The client names a specific deliverable or a date, or asks whether something has been sent, approved or published.
That is a question about your account and I cannot see it. Leave your name, an email and which piece of work you mean, and your account lead will come back with where it has actually got to.
It stops answering before it guesses, says who will pick it up, and asks for the one thing that makes a reply possible. Nothing about it reads as a dead end.
Never say this here
Out of bounds
- Never state where a deliverable has reached, because nothing here can see a production queue.
- Never give a delivery date for a specific piece of work.
- Never say something is waiting on the client unless the material says so in general, and never about a named person.
- Never agree that something is late, since that concedes a deadline the assistant cannot check.
Questions
- Could it show status if we connected our project tool?
- No. It reads documents you give it and connects to nothing, so a status question always ends with a person. Publishing the workflow is what reduces the number of those questions, and it does that whether or not anybody asks.
- Is it wise to publish that client review is the bottleneck?
- Written as a workflow rather than as a grievance, yes. A list of stages with a turnaround assumption against each one is neutral and does the arguing for you, because the client can count the days themselves.
- Clients chase things that were never in scope. Does this help?
- Only if the statement of work is indexed and the change request process is written down. The assistant can then say what a month contains and what happens to anything else, which turns an irritated chase into a normal commercial conversation.
Keep reading
- Everything for a marketing agencyService definitions and engagement terms convert. A price quoted for work nobody has scoped is the trap on an agency site.
- Handling order status in generalThe most asked question in retail support and the one a document-based assistant cannot answer. What it can do instead, and where handover sits.
- 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.
- 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.
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.