Team Client Specific Standards

These standards set clear expectations for how we work as a client team. Storyteller's reputation is built on responsiveness, clarity, and professionalism. Clients judge us as much on how we communicate and follow through as on the product itself.

These guidelines are designed to ensure consistency across the team, remove ambiguity, and help us deliver the best possible experience to every client. Apply them with common sense, always with the principle that clients should feel listened to, supported, and never left waiting or uncertain.

Communication with Clients

Especially important because customer service is our USP, and most clients are in different timezones.

Guiding Principles

• Every client message must be responded to on the same day. Even if the full answer is not available, post a holding message such as "We'll take a look and come back to you."
• Clients should never be left wondering what is happening. Be proactive, clear, and ensure they know the next step.
• Clients should never feel they need to chase. If you are getting chased it is a sign you need to reprioritise.
• We are the bar for client experience. No vendor should outperform us on response time, communication quality, or professionalism.

How to Do This

• Always have Slack and email open (ideally Slack always visible) with notifications on for both.
  • Turn on notifications for all client Slack channels you are responsible for.
  • Ensure Slack and Outlook are on your phone so you can respond quickly if away from your desk.
• Before your end of day:
  • Check all your client Slack channels, Slack activity, and emails.
  • Make sure every open client message has been answered or passed to support/another AM.
• In the morning:
  • Check all Slack and email communications for your clients before the integrations call.
  • Review Airtable for all open tasks that week.
• Aim to respond to all client and integrator messages within 2 hours during working hours. If you cannot provide a full answer, post a holding message with when they should expect the next update. In every reply, consider including:
  • What has been done or is being done
  • What is needed from the client (if anything)
  • When the client will next hear from us
• Use plain, simple language. Avoid jargon unless you explain it.
• Always state times in the client's timezone or explicitly clarify which timezone you are using.
• Offer to get on a call with a client if something is complex, high priority, unclear, or likely to involve significant back-and-forth. Suggest a short slot at their convenience.

Examples

Good: "Thanks for raising this. We're checking with Engineering and will update you by first thing tomorrow your time."

Bad: Leaving the message until the next day without acknowledgement.

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Escalations and Priority

Guiding Principles

• Not all client requests are equal. Prioritisation avoids confusion and wasted energy.
• Escalations should be transparent and predictable.

How to Do This

• Use these priorities:
  • P0: Live outage or critical impact
  • P1: Time-sensitive, or platform bug
  • P2: Standard request
  • P3: Nice to have
• For P0 and P1:
  • Prioritise these requests over what you are currently working on.
  • Follow the issue reporting guide in this section to investigate and report the issue.
  • Ensure the client is kept regularly updated on status and fixes. Respond within a specific timeframe, even if there are no updates.
  • Update cadence:
    • P0: every 30-60 minutes
    • P1: at least every 4 hours

Examples

Good: "We've identified the cause of the outage and Engineering is applying a fix. Next update in 45 minutes."

Bad: Client chasing us for updates and no response because you are now OOO.

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Internal Communication

Especially important as we are a remote-first organisation.

Guiding Principles

• Do not communicate client-related information in DMs. It should happen in open channels for visibility.
• Be proactive with updates. Do not wait until a task is complete if someone else or a client is waiting on it.
• Communicate progress and timescales clearly so others can plan around you.
• Always provide clarity and reduce second-guessing.
• No surprises. If you know a deadline is slipping, flag it immediately.
• Further principles are covered in the Communication page.

How to Do This

• If you are working on a client deadline, post updates internally:
  • "@person halfway through QA, aiming to finish by 3pm."
• Use team handles first (for example @webleads, @teamnba, @teamcreative) when starting communication. Once an individual responds, you can tag just them.
• If you hand over a client thread to someone else (for example going OOO), ensure the handover is visible in an internal channel. Always state the new owner, status, and next update time.

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Airtable and Jira

Guiding Principles

• Airtable is the source of truth for all client actions.
• Jira is the source of truth for engineering tasks.
• Actions must always contain complete information so anyone can understand and pick them up.

How to Do This

• Every action in Airtable must have:
  • Due date
  • Assignee
  • Notes with a summary (not just a Slack link)
  • Area
• No action should have a past due date by the time of the daily integrations call:
  • Update the due date if it has shifted.
  • Chase the assignee or client if you have not received a dependency, and shift the date again if required.
• Keep comments up to date with the latest progress. Do not overwrite or remove history.
• Create your own views showing either or both:
  • Actions related to clients you manage
  • Actions assigned to you
• Requests raised in #product or bugs flagged in #bugs:
  • Create a corresponding Airtable action.
  • Tick "JIRA required."
  • Assign to Dave and Sarah.
  • Link the action back in the Slack thread.
• No need to create an action for a task that will take 20 minutes or less.

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Meeting Notes

Guiding Principles

• All meetings, internal or external, should have someone nominated for note taking.
• Notes should be posted to Slack as soon as possible after the call while memory is fresh.
• Further general principles are covered in the Calls and Meetings page.

How to Do This

• If you are the note taker, have Granola running and record where appropriate.
• Run notes through the agreed prompt.
• Post notes in the internal Slack channel as soon as possible, always within 24 hours.
• Ensure any actions are created, updated, and linked in the notes, with relevant people tagged.
• If it is a client call, ensure the integrator is clearly detailed.