Enhanced client engagement and streamlined operations through Service Hub implementation.
Grand Rapids, Michigan
Client Overview
Founded in the year 2000, MINDSCAPE is a dedicated digital marketing agency based in Grand Rapids, MI. MINDSCAPE firmly believes that the best way to grow and scale is by creating cohesive, frictionless experiences across marketing, sales, and service teams. With this methodology propelling them forward, MINDSCAPE has been instrumental in driving significant growth for a wide range of brands, both large and small, and is trusted by over a thousand brands across the United States.
Situation Summary
- Digital marketing firm implements Service Hub.
- Creates robust client portal to manage project communications and support needs.
- Improves employee and customer happiness, increases productivity, and saves the company both time and money.
MINDSCAPE transformed client engagement and operations through the Service Hub overhaul.
MINDSCAPE leveraged HubSpot’s Service Hub to create a client portal featuring a Knowledge Base and Help Desk. Clients can access personalized reports, training recordings, and submit tickets to their designated contacts at MINDSCAPE. Jeff Bell, MINDSCAPE’s President, discussed the platform’s architecture, seamless integration with the MINDSCAPE website, secure hosting of private content, and automated client access provisioning on the Agency Unfiltered podcast. The team has experienced improved client engagement, time savings, streamlined communication, and enhanced work visibility since implementing the system. The rollout included onboarding their teams and incentivizing client adoption.
Challenges
- Decreased productivity due to creative staff members spending hours each week responding to client emails.
- Scope Creep due to non-point-of-contact staff members fielding support questions and completing unbilled work.
- Disorganized Documentation due to communication happening across a variety of platforms.
- Client Dissatisfaction due to there being no single place for clients to access reports, request new work, or get support.
- Poor Reporting: The MINDSCAPE team had no insight into how clients felt about their services in regards to general performance, support requests, and response times.
MINDSCAPE wasn’t delivering an ideal experience to customers or employees.
MINDSCAPE was finding it difficult to keep track of client conversations that were taking place on a plethora of communication platforms with a variety of MINDSCAPE employees. On top of delivering a suboptimal experience to customers, the current system was causing a number of internal issues.
“This ticketing system has allowed me, as a project manager, to save time while adding in tasks and task details. Everything the client wants is clearly outlined on the ticket! It has also allowed me to communicate the status with the client without flooding their inbox with multiple threads. It’s a huge win in my book!”
Nicole Yoder, Project Manager, MINDSCAPE
What We Did
Given these challenges, MINDSCAPE decided to invest in HubSpot Service Hub. This project needed to achieve the following requirements to be worth the investment. Below, you’ll find the project requirements and the solutions that met each requirement.
Client Portal Creation
Requirement
Create a single ‘one-stop-shop’ for clients to view reports, submit and manage tickets, reference training/support materials.
Solution
The project began by activating the Customer Portal feature and setting permissions based on an active list determined by a custom contact property. This ensured that only the relevant individuals had access to the portal, thereby enhancing security and personalization. HubSpot handled the security side of things and automatically sent invitations to any client who was granted access.
Looker Studio Utilization
Requirement
Provide secure access to Looker Studio reports.
Solution
Not all of MINDSCAPE’s clients are on HubSpot, so they needed a way to share reports. To that end, they established a Reports category within the Knowledge Base. This approach allowed the team to create knowledge base articles and embed Looker Studio reports within them. To control access to these reports, MINDSCAPE utilized the Private Content feature and controlled access through static lists. This provided clients with a secure and convenient way to access their unique reports.
Client Communication Policy Updates
Requirement
Cut back on the time spent in email inboxes and incentivize portal and ticket usage.
Solution
To encourage the use of the client portal for all communication, MINDSCAPE implemented a tiered communication policy. They requested that clients direct all communication to the Conversation Inbox. To reinforce this, they set up autoresponders on email accounts, informing clients that direct emails would be checked and responded to within a 24-hour timeframe, while tickets submitted through the portal would receive a response within a 2-hour Service Level Agreement (SLA). This not only streamlined communication but also ensured prompt responses to client queries.
Automated Task Creation and Closure
Requirement
Create a seamless integration between the Project Management software and Tickets.
Solution
MINDSCAPE’s Project Managers adopted the Conversations Inbox as their primary communication channel, ensuring full transparency in their interactions with clients. When a ticket is required, the PMs populate a TaskList ID property on the ticket. This triggers a zap to create a corresponding task in the project management software, TeamWork. Upon completion of the task, the ticket is automatically closed, and the client is notified, ensuring a smooth and efficient resolution process.
Experience Alignment
Requirement
Ensure all portal interactions feel like a seamless part of the MINDSCAPE experience.
Solution
Finally, to provide a seamless user experience, MINDSCAPE unified the Ticketing Portal and Knowledge Base by customizing the menu bar on each site and replacing it with their own custom navigation bar. This integration transformed the portal into a single, unified platform, enhancing the user experience for MINDSCAPE’s clients. The solution has really positively impacted the way MINDSCAPE engages with clients, streamlining communications, improving visibility of work in progress, and ultimately leading to significant time savings and efficiency gains.
“MINDSCAPE is an incredible partner who cares deeply about their clients’ experiences. We see them as a partner and extension of our team. They are constantly innovating to make our experience better, including their new client portal. I love being able to see the status of my tickets so I know what is going on, and I can keep our stakeholders in the know. They are quick to jump on urgent needs and communicate beautifully as things move through the support process. I could not be happier with their level of responsiveness and support.”
Melissa Kersjes, Marketing Content Manager, Fusion Education Group
Results
Through the implementation of this customer portal, MINDSCAPE was able to achieve their goals to great effect. They managed to increase productivity and efficiency, decrease scope creep, improve documentation of client communication, improve customer satisfaction, and gain insight into client happiness through feedback surveys.
Impact
The implementation and utilization of Service Hub has allowed MINDSCAPE to more effectively achieve their goal of creating and delivering seamless and simple experiences. They’re more productive, efficient, and most importantly – happy. And it hasn’t just effected the internal team. Clients have rated the new support experience as “easy” 100% of the time.
“As a project manager, using the ticketing system and conversation inbox allows me to have full visibility to a task from a client request, to assigning a task or ticket to a team member and responding directly to the ticket, to completing the request. It definitely helps make my job easier!”
Cristi Kaido, Project Manager, MINDSCAPE
