Our new Client Services Director, Bethany Sharma, is honest, always on the ball and full of creativity (fun fact: she’s an amazing painter) and has earned every shred of her recent promotion to Hallam’s leadership team.
Since beginning her journey at Hallam in 2018 as an account manager, Beth has gained heaps of experience and is bringing along tonnes of new ideas to the role in the hope of fulfilling future visions she has for Hallam’s client services.
We spoke with Beth this week to get a short glimpse into her career so far, and her thoughts and feelings towards the new role, including a few sneak peeks into what’s on the horizon for Hallam’s client services team.
Hi Beth – first of all, a huge congrats on your new role! Can you share with us your career journey so far?
My career so far has been far from straightforward. I would never have predicted I would have landed in a client services role for a digital agency!
I graduated with a Biomedical Science degree in 2013 and worked in laboratories specialising in medical research. I knew relatively quickly that being a lab technician wasn’t a good fit – I was keen to find a people-centric role.
This led me to join a medical technology business in their sales and marketing team. I developed experience in B2B marketing and sales cycles but I decided I wanted to try something new. The ‘new’ ended up being working at an agency specialising in designing and developing platform products and applications, and from there I fell into the world of digital marketing.
Wow, so quite a variety of roles then! How have you found your time at Hallam so far? Was coming into the digital marketing industry a challenging switch?
I joined Hallam as an account manager in 2018. Whilst I had experience with sales and account management, digital marketing was a brand-new industry for me. Learning the intricacies of products and services within a new industry, especially one so complex, was initially a challenge.
I see my progression at Hallam as being a combination of being in the right place at the right time, having a few key people champion me and regularly saying yes to things – even if they scare me!
My ambitions have always been aligned with management and leadership roles and I was excited at the prospect of shaping and growing a team. During the pandemic, I was given the opportunity to apply for a managerial position due to the leadership team restructure. Since then, the team has grown to one of the largest in the agency with 10 incredibly talented account and project management professionals, providing excellent service to our 60 clients.
It’s great to see you’ve been given the chance to progress and achieve your ambitions at Hallam – can you explain what your new role involves?
I will be responsible for overseeing Hallam’s relationship with its clients and ensuring we are building a culture of exceptional client experience. My core objectives are to maintain a high level of client satisfaction, retention and sustainable growth of the revenue of the client base. Ultimately, I’m the person who unhappy clients call if we’ve missed the mark, so the aim is always to reduce the chances of that happening!
The part of my role that I take incredibly seriously is the leadership and stewardship of the client services function, across the account management and project delivery teams. I want everyone in the team, and the wider agency, to progress personally and professionally and to love their work – that’s what gets me out of bed in the morning!
I’m excited to ask about any new goals you are setting for the company. What can we look forward to seeing?
The agency-to-client relationship landscape is rapidly changing. There’s a rise in in-housing and multi-agency rosters, spiralling internal budgetary pressures for clients and increasing complexity of the digital landscape. Because of this, agencies need to adapt and put their clients’ needs at the heart of their strategy versus building an agency only with the agency’s ambitions in mind. I believe the role of the client services function is to inspire and lead the charge on this.
My goal for Hallam is that we continue to build our reputation within the agency landscape for exceptional client experience. If someone asks, ‘who is the best agency to build a long-lasting, fruitful partnership with?’ I want them to say ‘Hallam’.
I’m incredibly passionate about the opportunity to lead the client services function and to help shape the experience our clients have when partnering with Hallam. I’m excited to see where the next few years take us.
So, delivering exceptional client-experience is the main focus – we’re excited to see how the client services function continues to develop! What are your core ambitions for Hallam moving forward?
My core ambitions for Hallam are that we continue to create exceptional value for our clients, have a positive impact on the planet and its people, put client experience at the heart of what we do, build a business that enriches the lives of the people who work for Hallam and to have some fun on the way!
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