Agency Onboarding
Part of Managing an agency relationship
Handling a change of account manager
Use a focused handover to protect live deliverables, approvals, decisions and contacts when an agency account manager changes.
When your agency changes account manager, ask for a handover of live work. Confirm the incoming person’s responsibilities, arrange an introduction and review open commitments together. The immediate aim is to keep deliverables and decisions moving during the transition.
Confirm the new contact and authority
Ask for the new manager’s name, start date and responsibilities, plus an urgent contact during the changeover. Check who continues to lead specialist work and who can commit the agency to a date or proposed change. If your agreement names particular personnel or provides a replacement process, follow it. Whether the substitution needs client approval depends on that agreement.
Use a short introduction to cover the business objective, current plan, client decision route and unresolved choices. Give the incoming manager a chance to ask what is unclear.
Hand over live work
Request a shared list of:
- Deliverables in progress, their latest versions, owners and due dates.
- Client approvals still needed and the dates they affect.
- Decisions already made and where to find their records.
- Known risks, blocked tasks and promised recovery actions.
- Upcoming meetings and contacts for specialist questions.
Compare the list with your own records. Assign an owner to any open item before the outgoing manager leaves, if possible. If that person is unavailable, ask the agency lead and delivery team to reconstruct the position and identify anything still uncertain.
Check the first deliverables
For the next few pieces of work, confirm that the new manager can find the brief and approved versions and knows when to seek a client decision. Keep the existing feedback and approval route. A temporary extra check-in may help; agree when to review whether it is still needed.
Raise gaps specifically. Name a missing asset or unresolved commitment and the date it affects. If an earlier decision cannot be established, obtain a fresh decision from the authorised person and record it.
Store current plans, contacts and decisions where the people responsible for the engagement can find them. That reduces reliance on any one person’s memory during this handover and the next.
