Managing 40 Active Client Projects with a Lean Remote Team

Punchlist streamlines feedback for Hello Amigo, helping them efficiently manage 22 clients and 40 projects for nonprofits nationwide.

The Backstory

Hello Amigo — a small agency doing big work for nonprofits and brands across the US — uses Punchlist to manage 22 clients and 40 active projects. They do all this with a lean and mean crew of eight staff.

The Hello Amigo team creates digital and print work for clients like Southwest Animal Care, The Junior League of El Paso, Harvard University, Texans to the Rescue, Trans Border Leasing, Boston Children’s Hospital, Franklin Star, and more.

Hello Amigo’s remote team is distributed from Texas to Alaska, and they needed a system for gathering feedback efficiently without being in the same room. Especially with nonprofit clients who have seven people reviewing the work — board, staff, committees — interpreting feedback and figuring out what each person is referring to can get messy.

What’s more, their clients were stuck in “the old way” of doing things. Some of them even went so far as to print out, highlight and physically mail their website feedback.

Hello Amigo needed a better way.

We sat down with Project Manager, Analisa Silverstein, and Content Marketing Specialist, Angie Kimmel to learn more about how they juggle so many projects with such a lean team, and how Punchlist helped them hit all their milestones in record time.

The Problem

Outdated, Slow Methods of Gathering Feedback

Angie: For content, we didn’t really have a set process. I would say it ended up being “the path of least resistance” for our clients — whether that was emailing feedback, or compiling it in a Word document, and then sending it back. They had delays and it took a lot longer to get feedback. We would get some radio silence from them before we got actionable feedback that we could actually implement in our projects.

Analisa: We do have one client who would sometimes print out the website, take a highlighter and a red pen to it, and then physically mailed the feedback to us. We have all sorts of horror stories.

Especially when you think about how many pages a website can have, that’s a lot of pages to either email or scan or physically mail. Then on top of that, we’d have to say, ‘What did they write here?’ You’d have to interpret their hieroglyphics.

Angie: I can also think of another project that wasn’t going well, because they didn’t understand why we were recommending different changes. For example, they didn’t understand why we would recommend not duplicating content on multiple pages.

Punchlist allows us to add an explanation, ‘we recommend removing this because…’ and then they can see exactly what we’re referring to. Without Punchlist we had to ask, ‘What exactly are you talking about and why?’

The Solution

Fast, Specific Feedback All In One System

When was the “aha” moment when you started using Punchlist?

Angie: I think the second we saw how it worked, we just adopted it right away.

There was something that I discussed in an annual performance review — what tasks do I need more resources around? And I had mentioned that being able to gather feedback more efficiently would be helpful. I just hadn’t had time to look for a system that would do that. Punchlist kind of fell in our lap.

And I thought, ‘This is exactly what I’ve been looking for.’

What do you like most about being able to use Punchlist?

Angie: I like being able to see exactly what the client is referring to and seeing. I can see the feedback on the specific page and item that they’re providing it on. I also like the actionable feedback, the ‘Pages with Active Feedback’ button. I can see what has something that needs attending to. And skip over the things that I don’t need to look at. So I think that’s really helpful.

I also like that I can respond to their questions in Punchlist. I don’t have to email them separately. It’s all in one system.

Analisa: And I like that I get an email notification when they’re responding. I know that they’re actually looking at it, and if I don’t get that email, it tells me to bug them, to get them to look at it and respond.

Also it’s so easy to upload the image and then it just pops up. It’s just so much easier to do it in Punchlist because they can comment directly on the art files.

“That project was probably one of our first projects where it hit every single timeline milestone and it’s already launched. That’s probably our most efficient project to date. I don’t think we would be able to hit the deadline if we didn’t have Punchlist.”

Punchlist Pros
  • Pinpointed Comments
  • Actionable Feedback
  • Nothing Gets Missed
  • Speeds Up Workflow

“We’re not trying to process through 80 different email chains of when they forwarded it to someone else and then responded and then forwarded it to us and replied… Instead, it’s all in one place.”

Punchlist Pros
  • All In One System
  • Visibility & Transparency
  • No More Confusion
  • Closing Out Projects Faster

How easy or hard was it to get started with Punchlist?

Angie: The learning curve was pretty easy and intuitive. Really just upload some things and start clicking around. I don’t feel like I’m going to break anything or mess up a file.

Analisa: Same, I think Angie started using it first and then she showed me. Within a day I picked it up and started using it on all my projects. And then it’s easy for us to now train our clients on how to use it. It takes us about two minutes to show them.

Angie: When we present our projects, we explain Punchlist throughout. As we’re showing our project, we also walk them through, ‘This is Punchlist. This is what we’re doing with it. And here’s how you use it.’ And typically they don’t have any questions. They can pick it up from the get-go.

Just press the pink button and then you type in your feedback.

“ Our projects are completed faster. The phases moved quickly and we’re able to go onto the next step with less prodding and hounding for information.”

Punchlist Pros
  • Faster Feedback Loop
  • Less Back and Forth

How has Punchlist benefitted your team’s workflow and client relationships compared to before?

Angie: It’s the time saving aspect of things. I can think of projects before we had Punchlist where they’d stall out, and I know Ana is a wonderful account manager and she would politely follow up, ‘Where are we at with this? Can I get your feedback?’

Thinking as a client, I can see how Punchlist is a lot easier. It’s all in one system, it’s all in the same place. I don’t have to go back and forth and switch around. I just make my comments and then let them know I’m finished.

Our projects are completed faster. The phases moved quickly and we’re able to go onto the next step with less prodding and hounding for information.

Analisa: Yeah. Currently we’re working on a website that has a very hard deadline that needs to launch on a specific day. We had to go with a more lean timeline and it’s just way easier with Punchlist to get the feedback in sooner. So that has been very helpful.

Angie: I don’t think we would be able to hit the deadline if we didn’t have Punchlist. There’s three different organizations involved. If we couldn’t get them all on the same page with the same link commenting on things, I don’t think we’d be able to move forward as quickly as we’ve been able to.

“ We’re finishing projects sooner, then we can bring on new clients, new projects.

We’re just able to deliver in a more timely manner.

Let’s say with a design project, we’re able to bill for it sooner or get it out sooner than before, and that makes a client happier.