Full job description

Client Services Lead

Location: Manor Royal, Crawley (hybrid, 3 days in office)

Job Type: Full-time

Schedule: 8-hour shift

Experience: 2 years minimum in a similar role (required)

Salary: £35-£40k (depending on experience)

Location: Manor Royal, Crawley (hybrid, 3 days in office)

License/Certification: UK Driving License (required)

Work Authorisation: United Kingdom (required)

Job Summary

We are looking for an experienced, strategic and commercially minded Client Services Lead to join Creative Pod at an important stage in our growth.

This is a newly created leadership role, reporting directly to the Managing Director, with responsibility for leading our Client Services function and helping shape the next phase of our agency.

The role brings together three core areas: client leadership, strategic marketing and people management.

You will directly manage a team of two Client Partners and two Senior Marketing Executives, providing clear leadership across both client relationships and strategic marketing. You will be responsible for ensuring our clients receive an exceptional experience, whilst maintaining a consistently high standard of strategic thinking, commercial awareness and delivery across the portfolio.

We are looking for someone with strong integrated marketing knowledge who can confidently challenge and develop the strategic thinking of our Senior Marketing Executives, support the development of marketing plans and campaigns, and step into senior client conversations when required.

Our marketing clients work with us on long-term retained relationships, meaning strong expectation management, commercial awareness and the confidence to challenge clients constructively are essential. You will need to be a strong communicator; protecting scope and budgets, and balancing exceptional client service with what is right for Creative Pod commercially.

You'll also play a central role in developing how the Client Services function operates, improving processes, managing capacity, overseeing external delivery partners and getting more out of our project management tool across the department.

We are looking for an experienced agency leader who can take genuine ownership of the function, develop a high-performing team and help us deliver an increasingly strategic, proactive and commercially focused service to our clients.

Skills & Experience

We are looking for someone who can demonstrate:

• Significant experience within a marketing agency.
• Strong integrated marketing knowledge across areas including social media, paid media, email marketing, content and digital campaigns.
• Experience developing, reviewing and challenging marketing strategies, marketing plans and integrated campaigns.
• Proven experience directly managing and developing multiple team members, ideally across different disciplines or functions.
• Strong leadership and coaching skills, with the confidence to encourage, support and develop senior team members.
• Significant experience managing long-term retained client relationships.
• Experience managing senior stakeholders and navigating the ups and downs of the client relationships.
• The confidence to constructively take clients out of their comfort zone and manage difficult conversations where required.
• Strong commercial awareness, including experience managing scope, budgets, profitability, retention and account growth.
• The ability to balance excellent client service with the commercial needs of the agency.
• Experience managing multiple client accounts and competing priorities within a fast-paced agency environment.
• Strong operational and project management skills.
• Experience managing external suppliers, freelancers or outsourced delivery partners would be advantageous.
• Experience with Wrike or a similar project management platform would be welcomed.
• Excellent communication, presentation, negotiation and decision-making skills.

ResponsibilitiesLeadership & People Management

• Directly manage, coach and develop two Client Partners and two Senior Marketing Executives.
• Set clear objectives, expectations and success measures across the team.
• Conduct regular one-to-ones, performance reviews and development planning.
• Develop the Client Partners' relationship management, commercial and client leadership capabilities.
• Support and develop the Senior Marketing Executives' strategic marketing thinking.
• Provide guidance and support when team members encounter challenging client or delivery situations.
• Build upon a culture of accountability, collaboration, proactive thinking and high standards.
• Manage team capacity, priorities and workload.
• Assist with recruitment, onboarding and future development of the Client Services function.

Strategic Marketing Leadership

• Maintain senior oversight of the strategic direction of our retained marketing accounts.
• Assess and offer insight on marketing strategies, plans, campaign concepts and recommendations developed by Senior Marketing Executives.
• Ensure strategic recommendations genuinely respond to client objectives rather than simply fulfilling requested activity.
• Support the development of creative campaign ideas and proactive marketing opportunities.
• Join discovery, planning and strategy meetings where senior strategic input adds value.
• Ensure Creative Pod continues to bring ideas and recommendations proactively to our clients.
• Help Senior Marketing Executives turn performance data and insights into meaningful strategic recommendations.
• Maintain a strong understanding of developments and best practice across the marketing landscape.

Client Leadership

• Take overall responsibility for the quality and consistency of the client experience across the department.
• Support Client Partners in developing strong, trusted and commercially healthy client relationships.
• Act as the senior escalation point for client concerns and challenging situations.
• Step into difficult client conversations where senior support or challenge is required.
• Ensure appropriate boundaries are maintained around client scope, budgets, timelines and expectations.
• Monitor client satisfaction and identify potential risks before they become escalations.
• Support significant client reviews, renewals and strategic conversations.
• Ensure Client Partners are confident in constructively challenging clients rather than simply accommodating every request.
• Drive client retention and long-term account development.

Commercial Management

• Maintain oversight of the commercial health of the client portfolio.
• Drive client retention and renewal performance.
• Monitor account scope and profitability.
• Ensure additional work is identified, scoped and charged appropriately.
• Support Client Partners in identifying and converting appropriate account growth opportunities.
• Challenge scope creep and ensure the team understands the commercial impact of client requests.
• Work with the Managing Director to improve the profitability and scalability of the Client Services function.

Operational Excellence

• Oversee workflow across Client Partners, Senior Marketing Executives and external delivery partners.
• Embed Wrike as the central project management platform for Client Services.
• Maintain visibility of deadlines, capacity, workloads and delivery risks.
• Ensure work is appropriately planned and resourced.
• Establish clear workflows from initial client brief through to delivery, QA and client approval.
• Ensure Senior Marketing Executive and Client Partner QA processes are consistently followed.
• Monitor the quality and performance of outsourced delivery partners.
• Identify opportunities to improve efficiency, consistency and scalability across the department.
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