A good e-commerce agency is a real treasure. It not only takes care of the proper functioning of your store, but also supports you with experience in implementing new features. A bad agency does not do that. It also fails to do several other things. We described the seven biggest ones in the article below.
The 7 deadly sins of e-commerce agencies, after which they lose customers
The main goal of working with an e-commerce agency is to achieve your goals and only your goals. Unfortunately, not everyone keeps this in mind. Therefore, it is very important to have a professional, experienced team taking care of your e-commerce business.
Let’s face it, there are no perfect agencies. Even the best ones sometimes stumble. However, if in your opinion there are too many mistakes, maybe it is worth looking for a business support that presents a higher level of professionalism? When should you start thinking about changing the agency? Below we present 7 situations – 7 deadly sins of e-commerce agencies. If any of them occurs too often in your opinion, this is the moment.
1. The agency makes no effort to keep in touch with you
You wait days, if not weeks, for an answer to your emails. The project manager taking care of the store doesn’t answer your calls. It’s a sign that something wrong is going on.
Proper contact is the basis of a successful cooperation. We described how a contact during cooperation should look like in the article “E-commerce agency – how to talk to achieve goals together?”.
In the article “What information does a good e-commerce agency provide?” we specified the information that the agency itself should provide you. If it doesn’t, it’s better for your business to find someone who won’t avoid contact. And will keep you updated on the progress of the work.
2. Agency keeps on exceeding deadlines and SLA’s agreements
Deadline is a sacred thing. It is a natural law of business, with which we do not intend to argue. It may happen that as a result of unforeseen situations the deadline for task completion has to be postponed. However, if the agency informs about it in advance, it is acceptable.
It is worse when the deadlines are regularly exceeded. Even worse is when the agency commits two sins at once and does not inform about delays in any way. Such actions make you feel powerless. You are not able to plan development actions, because you do not know when they will be implemented in the store.
The worst situation is when the agency does not keep the agreements contained in the SLA. The response time to errors (especially the critical ones, preventing sales) is a key issue in maintaining the continuity of sales. If it is too long, you incur losses. Therefore, such an action on the part of the technology partner entitles you to seek help somewhere, where they will take better care of you.
3. The Agency does not test the prepared updates
Quality Assurance departments are a standard in every good e-commerce agency. Qualified testers checking every update uploaded to your store are worth their weight in gold. Especially since overlooked bugs can cause a lot of problems and contribute directly to the decline of your business.
That’s why one of the sins of e-commerce agencies which disqualifies further cooperation is the lack of tests or tests done in a superficial way by people without any experience in this matter.
While on staging* such action can still pass (after all, it is there to detect errors in updates), transferring serious defects to the store means that QA department does not fulfill its duties properly.
*not sure what staging is? Take a look at our E-commerce Manager Glossary. You will also find there many other terms that will make the conversation with an e-commerce agency much easier for you.
4. Agency makes changes to projects without consulting you
The final assumptions included in a project are often worked out during hours of meetings with the agency. That’s why you want to make sure that when it is completed, you get exactly what you discussed in the smallest detail.
The problem begins when the finished product deviates from what was on the order. E-commerce agency in the course of work came to the conclusion that the solution proposed by you does not work and decided to make its own corrections (without consultation).
Such a situation should not happen. If the agency has its own idea about the function you ordered, it should take it into consideration at the stage of establishing project details. If it turns out that during the work they will find a different concept, they should also discuss any changes with you first.
5. There is a high turnover of employees in the team assigned to your store
Anyone who has hired new employees knows how long it takes to introduce them to their daily duties. It’s the same with the team of developers, testers and Project Manager assigned to your store. If the structure of an agency’s project team changes frequently, not only can there be downtime in working on tasks, but also valuable time is lost in which a new member has to learn the existing solutions.
High turnover in the team can mean, among other things, internal problems in the agency. And this does not have a positive impact on the stability of cooperation.
6. The agency has no idea how to further develop your store
The role of an e-commerce agency is not just to provide technical support for your store. It is also to advise you on more features to increase sales.
However, there are agencies for which the only thing that matters is keeping the order. They do not take the initiative, do not propose new solutions or technologies. They limit themselves only to doing what you ask them to do. No matter what effects it will have and whether it will actually increase sales.
Cooperation with an e-commerce agency should also influence your store development strategy. Therefore, it is much better to choose someone who has a lot of knowledge in the field of e-commerce and is able to assist you in making key business decisions.
7. The quality of the agency’s services has definitely decreased compared to the beginning of your cooperation
It’s beautiful at first, but over time you start to notice a decline in service quality. What does that mean? The reasons vary, but one of the most common reasons cited by our clients is that their former agency was unable to meet the growing needs of their business.
While this may be a reflection of the agency’s high quality work (after all, your store is growing faster than it assumed), at the end of the day, the inability to maintain quality becomes a disqualifying factor for further cooperation.
Especially when it comes to Magento support, where the response time specified in the SLA must be strictly observed to ensure continuity of sales in the store.
How to choose an e-commerce agency for a long-term relationship?
Terminating a contract with your current agency and establishing a cooperation with the next one is often the only way to improve the stability of your store’s operations and its further development. However, you may have a question: how to choose an agency which you will not have to change again for the next one? In this matter we would like you to read an article on our blog: “The best e-commerce agency – what criteria should it meet?“.
You will find there a lot of useful information on elements you should pay attention to before starting cooperation.
Do you have an idea for developing your store, but don’t know if it will work in practice? Get a free consultation, during which we will advise you specific, proven solutions.
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