Cooperation with e-commerce agency – how to delegate tasks well?

Fruitful business cooperation is about good, mutual communication. This means that it is important not only to understand your partner, but also to be able to communicate your requirements clearly. Good delegation of tasks is the basis of an eCommerce Manager’s work. That is why we have created the following article especially for you. We have collected five tips to improve your communication with an e-commerce agency so that you can find out how to delegate tasks well.

Delegating tasks to e-commerce agency– why is it so important?

Why should you know how to delegate tasks well? Let’s be honest – thanks to this knowledge our cooperation with an e-commerce agency can enter a completely new level. Properly described requirements systematize the next steps in the work on the store, allow to plan them better in time and give each task a real priority.

It’s not hard to guess that bad task delegation brings with it many problems. Failure to understand the project assumptions by the agency can have serious consequences, such as:

• exceeding the budget,
• crossing the deadlines for project delivery,
• the implementation of the project against the guidelines,
• the need to commission further amendments, which will delay the deadline for the project even further.

You should remember that delegating tasks is not that easy. It’s a process that you simply have to learn. That is why we have prepared a short guide on the basis of experience with our agency’s clients.

In five steps we will show you how to delegate a task so that it is understood by an e-commerce agency and performed according to the specification.

How to delegate tasks well so that they are performed on time?

First step: write down the task carefully

The basis for a good task delegation is a skilful transfer of its content. For many eCommerce Managers this can be the most difficult part of the whole process. That is why it is worth using proven tools. Tools that systematize this step.

Here we mean using the SMART method. It works perfectly well for setting goals, it will also be perfect for writing down the content of tasks. According to its wording, all tasks should be:

• Specific (Concise), that is, easy to understand, written in simple language, leaving no room for loose interpretation,
• Measurable, i.e., enabling the degree of their implementation to be determined in numbers,
• Achievable (Achievable), i.e. real to achieve by an e-commerce agency,
• Relevant, i.e. having a certain value for you, which translates into store development,
• Time-bound, i.e. having a specific deadline by which they should be done.

Second step: set the priority

Priorities – we could write endlessly about mistakes related to their settlement. For the purposes of today’s article, however, we focus on the basic, most common mistake we encounter. It is the misuse of the highest priorities for tasks that are not as important as you might think.

It is known that if something is “critical”, it will most likely be done first. But that doesn’t mean that you should prioritize everything you outsource to your agency. Such an action can effectively block the queue of work and make sure that key errors are only corrected after a certain amount of time when the agency deals with other “urgent” issues.

When it comes to setting priorities, we have a suggestion. It is as follows:

• leave the “critical” priorities only for errors that have a negative impact on store operations and maintaining sales continuity,
• “high” priorities are all things that do not affect the continuity of sales, but must be improved first (e.g. bad data display, disintegrating product card layout),
• the “normal” priorities will be assigned to standard tasks according to your store development strategy,
• “low” priorities are things that do not matter at the moment, but can be done when all tasks with higher priority are closed.

Third step: provide the agency with all necessary materials and access data

Do you require an e-commerce agency to perform its tasks according to the specifications and at the expected time? This is very good, but remember that often it is also up to you whether they can deal with a given topic.

If you have committed yourself to providing the agency with any data or accesses, please provide them as soon as possible.

It doesn’t matter if it is content to put on the site, graphics, logins to tools you want to use within the store, additional scripts. Their lack – especially when they are key to the task – causes unplanned stops, which can extend the time of the task.

Fourth step: make sure that you have been fully understood

Even the best-written task (in your opinion) may be misunderstood by the agency. Therefore, it is a good idea to make sure that the information you send is 100% clear.

The quickest way to verify this is to call the agency representative. If you have regular statuses, then you also have a chance to make sure that your guidelines are understandable and the specialists can get down to work.

Fifth step: stay in touch

Does e-commerce agency knows exactly what to do? Great, but that doesn’t mean you can rest on your laurels. While working on a commissioned task it may happen that there are some complications. Your task is to solve them as soon as possible. Therefore, stay in touch with the agency. Write back quickly to e-mails, answer phone calls, respond to messages on communicators.

Lack of contact from your side, if there are any complications, may cause delays or incorrect performance of tasks entrusted to the agency. This in turn will expose you to unnecessary costs and stress.

The above also applies to testing planned store updates in a test environment. If a patch is already available there, treat its testing as one of the highest priorities.

How to delegate tasks well – cooperation with an e-commerce agency

Cooperation with an e-commerce agency does not have to be difficult. Build good communication from the very beginning, clearly define your requirements and react quickly to contact from its representatives. Good delegation of tasks can only help in this.

We hope that the knowledge we have put into the above paragraphs will be used in practice, building even stronger relations with your technology partner.