When Samantha Edwards joined NP Digital as group business director in April 2021, she was the agency’s first Australian hire after managing director Guy Jarvie, and she was handed a deceptively simple brief: build a world-class client service team from scratch.
“Those early days were both exciting and intense,” Edwards recalled in an exclusive chat with B&T. “There was no blueprint. So I focused on setting the tone for what ‘great’ looked like, providing clarity, consistency, and care in every client interaction we had.”
That clarity would go on to define NP Digital’s Australian operations. Within just a few years, the agency achieved a Net Promoter Score of 90, far exceeding industry benchmarks. However, for Edwards, the number was never the ultimate goal; it was the outcome of a system built on transparency, feedback and action.
The Science of Staying in the Green
As NP Digital grew, Edwards recognised that keeping clients happy required visibility. So. she introduced a traffic-light health check system that has since become part of the agency’s DNA.
“Alongside our quarterly client satisfaction survey, we rolled out a traffic light ‘health check’ system, updated weekly by account managers,” she explained. “Green, amber, and red statuses gave the team and leadership real-time visibility into client sentiment and allowed us to intervene before issues escalated. It’s become part of our culture to treat feedback as a gift and act on it quickly.”
The initiative complements the agency’s formal feedback loop, which measures both NPS and open-ended responses from clients every quarter.
“We had more than 80 per cent engagement across our client base, which was well above benchmarks,” said Edwards. “But the most important part was acting on what we heard. Requests for more direct communication, for example, were turned into action plans, training sessions, and revised workflows”.
The combination of data-led accountability and fast response times helped transform what could have been a ‘startup grind’ into a structured, client-first operation. “The biggest challenge in those early years was creating structure without losing momentum,” Edwards said. “My focus was on bringing accountability and clarity into how we operated, so that as we scaled, clients experienced consistency rather than chaos.”
Delivering Locally, Scaling Globally
The approach has delivered tangible business outcomes. What started as a tactical brief with Dermal Therapy Australia evolved into a long-term strategic partnership, and ultimately into a global remit.
“It always starts with delivering locally,” Edwards said. “If we can demonstrate impact here, trust builds naturally for bigger conversations. With Dermal Therapy, consistent performance and strategic input evolved into a long-term partnership. That success led to NP Digital winning the global remit for all LaCorium Health brands.”
Her approach, aligning local execution with global strategy, has helped position NP Digital Australia as a growth engine within the network.
Culture as a Competitive Edge
Behind the systems and metrics lies something more human: culture. “Culture is inseparable from client success,” Edwards said. “When a team feels supported, valued, and balanced, that energy flows into their work and their relationships.”
It is this support that secured Edwards a finalist’s position in the Client Services at the B&T Women In Media Awards, presented by Are Media.
She’s been a vocal advocate for flexibility, inclusion, and pay equity, particularly for working parents. “Encouraging flexible hours for parents and pushing for pay equity are a few examples I’m proud to have had a hand in,” she says. “Those choices foster a culture of care and accountability, and clients feel the difference in the way we show up for them.”
That empathy extends into how she leads day-to-day. “Guy sometimes describes me as ‘the calm in the storm,’ and I think that reflects my approach to creating stability and confidence for the team.”
When client accounts flag as amber or red, Edwards brings together strategy, performance, creative, and technical leads to identify root causes and build turnaround plans. “This has given junior team members exposure to different disciplines and helped them grow by working alongside specialists across the agency.”
Now, with the agency’s local foundation established and its global credentials growing, Edwards is focused on refining and scaling NP Digital’s client service model. “We’ve proven we can deliver strong results and retain clients in a highly competitive market,” she said. “The next stage is about deepening those relationships, winning more global mandates from Australia, and continuing to evolve how we deliver client service”.
That next phase, she said, will stay anchored in the same principles that guided those first scrappy months: trust, structure, and care.
