Commence Studio Increases Client Satisfaction With Streamlined Operations

Challenge: No Breadcrumbs Anywhere

Commence Studio had been running for nine years when Matthew McIver took a hard look at their operations and didn’t like what he saw. The agency was delivering good work - clients were happy with the output - but the process of getting there was held together with back-channel DMs, one-on-ones, and scattered notes across a half-dozen tools. “There was a lot of back channeling, DMs, and one-on-ones, which made it so there were no breadcrumbs anywhere,” Matthew explained.

Client data lived simultaneously in their CRM, proposal software, ClickUp, email, and text. The team had no single place to understand the full context of an active project. Scope creep and project delays were recurring - not because the team wasn’t capable, but because expectations were vague, task assignments were unclear, and there was no consistent process from one client engagement to the next.

Matthew sat in a sales role, which made the visibility problem acute. He had no reliable way to know whether his team had bandwidth to take on another client. He was selling with confidence he couldn’t fully back up.

They had ClickUp. But they’d self-implemented it without real structure. As projects came in, tasks were built from scratch each time - no templates, no playbooks, no standardized way to onboard someone new. “We used to be a really scrappy team. We’d roll up our sleeves and get work done for clients. We’d still deliver consistency from client to client, but it was exhausting. Plus, as we brought on new team members, it was very difficult to onboard them without SOPs or playbooks for them to follow.”

Solution: Blueprint, Build, Certify

Matthew found ZenPilot through a referral and spent several weeks going through their content before committing. The scope of what needed to change was clear to him. “ZenPilot was the largest investment I’ve ever made as an agency owner, but once I had clarity and confidence in the ZenPilot systems and implementation team, it was a no-brainer. I knew I needed an army to do this. I couldn’t go do this by myself.”

ZenPilot ran Commence through their full three-stage methodology over three months. The Blueprint phase started with a team survey, performance benchmarking, and a detailed audit of how work actually moved through the agency. From that, ZenPilot produced a technical blueprint and implementation plan tailored specifically to Commence’s delivery model.

Implementation followed. ZenPilot overhauled the ClickUp hierarchy entirely - new spaces, folders, views, custom fields, automations, dashboards, and an agency knowledge base. They provided access to their process library of 200+ templates as a starting point, then coached the Commence team through building over 50 of their own detailed process templates in a few weeks. “The process library was a huge benefit for us because it gave us a starter kit and helped us productize our services and build them out in ClickUp.”

“I’m a big relationships guy. And the coaches that we worked with at ZenPilot were amazing. They did such a good job at establishing a great relationship with us and becoming a trusted advisor during this transformational process. These relationships way outlast any software product you could buy.” — Matthew McIver, CEO & Founder, Commence Studio

Every member of the team completed ZenPilot’s Agency Project Management Certification. ZenPilot held a live team training with the whole agency to reinforce what was taught and answer questions. After launch, ZenPilot assigned an internal ClickUp Champion and gave them specific training on how to hold the team accountable going forward.

Result: 4 Clients Onboarded in One Week

Shortly after launch, the difference was visible to the whole team. Communication was centralized. Everything had a paper trail. The team no longer had to scroll through Slack, email, and text threads to reconstruct what had been said about a project. “We’re significantly less distracted, especially in Slack. We are commenting where the work is being done and everything lives in ClickUp. The team was amazed at the paper trail and context they had on their tasks.”

The result that made it concrete: Commence onboarded 4 clients in a single week and received outstanding feedback about how organized and smooth the process was. Client NPS scores improved. Matthew tied it directly to the operational foundation ZenPilot helped them build. “The value of our investment with ZenPilot is paying off with our customer ratings. We have all of our processes in order which help us deliver amazing results and get great NPS results and feedback, leading to more clients coming through the door.”

The culture shifted alongside the operations. “Having systems in place and building healthy habits allows a healthy culture and on time delivery.” Matthew’s takeaway on ZenPilot wasn’t just about ClickUp - it was about learning how a well-run operation actually works. “We’ve really just learned a lot through the osmosis of working with ZenPilot that we’re trying to replicate.”

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