The one change that helped LinkUp better serve their clients

After freelancing for a few years, Andriy Sambir realized that his long list of clients was becoming too much for one person. His unique approach to client service had set him apart from the competition, and he was now ready to start his own agency.

From there, Sambir gathered a team and founded LinkUp Studio. Based in the "silicon valley of Ukraine," as Sambir puts it, LinkUp crafts digital products and projects for almost every industry. But, they're not like other development agencies — they have their own way of getting things done.

LinkUp doesn't just want to create well-designed websites and apps for their clients — they want to focus on both the project owner and the end user.

"What's more important?" said Sambir. "Just make the client happy or actually serve the customer? We believe you should be able to do both."

LinkUp forges a relationship with every client and aims to both meet their ask and go above and beyond to serve their clients’ customers.

But, with an extra layer of detail comes more complications.

As the LinkUp team began to do more work, take on additional clients, and grow their business, they noticed that they were having a hard time keeping up with all the moving variables. And, before long, Samir knew he needed to find a solution.

It was becoming extremely frustrating for LinkUp to track and build reports for all of their ongoing projects. He found himself spending much of his extra time sifting through spreadsheets and documents to figure out how their projects were going.

What’s more, he was building his reports by hand, which only took up more of his time.

At the end of each day, Sambir was asking his team to list out all the projects they’d worked on. The problem was that after they’d worked on several different things, it became harder and harder to actually remember who'd done what.

LinkUp's team members were becoming frustrated as they tried to relay all their progress each day. Frequently, there would be things that didn't show up on a report because they couldn't remember them.

The team needed a better way of tracking what they accomplished and the projects they moved forward.

After trying a few other methods and tools, Sambir and the team still hadn't found their solution. That was until an employee at LinkUp asked if they'd ever heard of Hubstaff.

From the second they started their trial, Sambir knew that Hubstaff was exactly what they needed to get their work done efficiently. They immediately noticed that Hubstaff changed how everyone was working for the better.

Sambir no longer has to write up any reports by hand. Hubstaff automatically gathers all company information — hours tracked towards projects and budgets, for example — and builds custom reports.

This not only saved Sambir hours each day but actually helped him manage his team better. These reports can be scheduled, and filters can be saved, so it’s easy to reference the right data at any time.

Hubstaff makes it easy for any team to track their hours worked. With our lightweight desktop, mobile, and web apps, everyone at LinkUp is now able to track their time toward specific projects.

This means they no longer have to try and remember what they worked on that day — Hubstaff takes care of that.

"We actually give some of our clients access to our time tracking hours," said Sambir. This gives LinkUp the ability to physically show a client that they're working away on their projects. It even helps them ensure clients that they're meeting or staying under budget and gives them peace of mind.

Gone are the days of building out reports by hand and racking your brain to try and remember what got done that day. Hubstaff simplified LinkUp’s work so that they can now spend more time actually working with their clients.

After using Hubstaff for a while, Sambir noticed that his team had become much more efficient with their time. He decided that, thanks to Hubstaff, he could now cut down the whole team’s workday from eight hours to six-and-a-half, while still being able to meet all of his clients’ demands. The team now gets to spend more time at home with their families and less time in the office doing paperwork.

When they go into pitches for more work, they even use Hubstaff as a selling point to ensure that their clients are getting what they're paying for.

Once LinkUp was set up with Hubstaff, they heard about the Agile project management product called Hubstaff Tasks. Sambir was getting a bit fed up with their current project management tool, and since they'd loved Hubstaff thus far, they figured they'd give Hubstaff Tasks a try.

It only took 10 minutes to transfer all of their data over to Tasks, and within moments, they were fully synced up. Now, Sambir's teams can track their time towards any project in Hubstaff Tasks, and they can easily give clients updates on any project's status.

"From now on, we're entirely in Hubstaff's hands," says Sambir. "Not only are we saving time and money each day, but our team actually has more free time each day."