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Agencies: Hate Project Work? Act More Like an AOR.

Most agencies hate project work because it’s less predictable and harder to manage and staff. What’s more, agencies believe project work negatively impacts the agency-client dynamic, with agencies treated more like vendors than partners, and their contributions focused on tactics rather than strategy. The relationship can feel transactional and shorter-term.

Will COVID-19 Destroy Your Agency Culture or Reinvent It?

Culture is the only sustainable competitive advantage that agencies have. After all, most agencies produce the same types of work the same way—and often with the same people (we all know it is a small industry). That is why an account, strategy, or creative person can move from one agency to another and immediately contribute. Culture is one of the most important differentiators—it makes one agency succeed and another fail.

Zurprise and Zelight: Surprising and Delighting Clients in a Zoom World

In the old days (about 12 weeks ago), agencies focused on surprising and delighting clients. They understood (the good ones, at least) that delivering work on time and on budget was the price of entry. Client retention and growth required a higher level of thinking, service, creativity, and connection.

Agencies Are Great at Creating Narratives. Now They Must Write Their Own. Carefully.

Agencies sometimes create aspirational ads and press releases as a tool to help clients envision a successful, alternate future. Now we can imagine headlines like, “M&M’s redefines retail in Times Square,” or “CVS takes a stand on health by eliminating cigarette sales.” But before these were realities, they were possibilities—and research suggests that seeing a possibility makes it easier to achieve.

To Have A Big Impact, Agencies Must Sweat the Small Stuff

Self-help experts have long instructed people not to sweat the small stuff. The basic philosophy is that by not focusing on life’s little annoyances, we can reduce stress and improve our lives. This might be true for individuals but not for agencies. For agencies to succeed, they must do the opposite: they must sweat the small stuff. Every client interaction—every phone call, email, invite, estimate, and meeting— must be as error-free and on point as possible. Why? Because the small stuff has a big impact on clients’ perceptions of the agency.

Let's Make Agency Meetings Great Again!

In the last few years, there has been a movement to reduce the number of agency meetings. Many internal meetings are considered a waste of time, energy, and money. The trend has also extended to client meetings, aided by the ability to meet online rather than in person.

I agree with the need to eliminate bad meetings—whether they are live or online, internal, or with the client. However, I think agencies are missing an opportunity—that is, to encourage great meetings.

Client Feedback: When No Response Is a Response

There is a saying that “no news is good news.” When it comes to client feedback, this is not true.

Many agencies send surveys regularly to get client input. Done right, these surveys can generate critical insights about the agency’s work and relationships. Done wrong, it is easy for the agency to misinterpret the data and focus its efforts in the wrong places.

Clients Are from Mars. Agencies Are from Venus

I am often asked to act as an intermediary between clients and agencies. It is the advertising equivalent of the old Ladies Home Journal column, “Can This Marriage be Saved?” I am usually called upon when the relationship is near its breaking point in a last-ditch effort to salvage it. Much like “Can This Marriage,” I start by speaking to the agency and the client separately to try to understand each one’s point of view and then bring them together to find common ground and a way forward.

What Your Email Style Communicates About Your Agency

I work with agencies to help them keep and grow business. My work requires a deep understanding of an agency's culture. I rely on all sorts of data to get to know an agency, including employee and client interviews, satisfaction studies, HR and financial data, and believe it or not, emails. Granted, email practices and patterns can be a bit more subjective, but I find them highly indicative of how an agency works.

Goldilocks and the Secret to Breakthrough Advertising

In psychology, the inverted U theory is used to explain achieving optimal performance. The theory states that there is a relationship between performance and pressure, and the ideal performance occurs when there is just the right amount of pressure—too much or too little can reduce performance. A similar theory is used in economics and sports. The axes are different, but the “just right” Goldilocks’ principle is the same. To create breakthrough work, agencies should consider the inverted U.

"Yes, and" or How to Say No and Make it Sound Like a Yes

An irate client called me from the floor of a convention. He hated the convention panel we had produced and said, “it looks like an impossible-to-read eye chart full of small type.” I promised to investigate and get back to him. I told him we would try to redo the panel, and also identify what went wrong so we would not do it again.

Psst! There Are No Client Secrets

Unhappily married couples often try to hide their marital issues from their children. They believe that if they spend lots of time together, or don’t argue in front of the kids, they will never know the marriage is troubled. If you talk to their children, most will say the secret was out. Some heard their parents fighting behind closed doors. Others noticed their parents only spoke to and through the kids and not each other.

Client Satisfaction Surveys: 5 Ways to Blow Them. And How to Ace Them

Client satisfaction surveys have become SOP for many businesses. Every call to my bank or stop at my Starbucks is followed up by an automated survey. (By the way - if a visit to Starbucks is the “best part of my day,” I consider it a pretty bad day).

Dear Client: I Am Not Your Partner

I have been in advertising for a long time. Somewhere along the way, clients and agencies started referring to each other as partners. I don’t remember the month or year, but I feel like the use of the phrase increased as the business became more transactional. I assume this was supposed to make the agency feel better about our changing relationship with clients—the equivalent of renaming second mortgages home equity loans to reduce the stigma of borrowing.

What the Bachelor Can Teach Us About Client-Agency Relationships

I admit it. I watch a lot of Reality TV. I cry at Say Yes to the Dress and restage half my house after each episode of The Property Brothers. However, I draw the line at The Bachelor. I am clearly in the minority, as the show has run for 23 top-rated seasons.

Client Feedback: When No Response Is a Response

There is a saying that “no news is good news.” When it comes to client feedback, this is not true.

One of the frequent mistakes that agencies make is not being more attentive to the clients who don’t respond to surveys. Agencies assume these clients are too busy to answer the survey, are survey-averse, traveling, or that they have already told the agency everything it needs to know. In some cases, this may be true. In other cases, the lack of response may signal a low level of engagement with the agency. These clients are not interested in giving feedback because it’s likely they are not invested in the relationship. Sometimes, they have already decided to move on and don’t want to waste their time discussing the details. It is the client version of ghosting.

This behavior may seem unfair, but it is not uncommon. Consider if you have ever gone to a restaurant and had a bad experience. You wait for your table, the staff is rude, the service is poor, and the food is cold. When the waiter asks, “How is everything?” You respond, “Fine.” You say this, not because it is fine, but because you don’t care and have decided you are never going to this restaurant again. Sometimes a client’s non-response is a “fine.” It is a way not to engage, and it is bad news. Statistically, clients who do not respond to surveys are less likely to work with the agency in the future.

Agencies cannot force clients to respond to surveys, but there are things an agency can do:

1) Talk to your clients about the importance of feedback and your willingness to receive it, good or bad. Encourage them to complete the survey and, if they do, acknowledge, and act on their feedback. The only thing worse than not asking for feedback, is asking for feedback, and then not doing anything with it.

2) Review response rates by company, office, and brand. Sometimes agencies celebrate a positive overall score, only to find that the results do not include responses from many clients in a large office or aren’t from every account. Without complete feedback, the results may be worth acknowledging but not representative of the overall business. Agencies must conduct a white space analysis to determine gaps in the review and pay attention to areas with little or no feedback when reviewing results.

3) Review past feedback, if available, and see if it was more robust. A declining response rate might signal survey fatigue (clients are receiving surveys from many agencies, as well as their gym, dog walker, and doctor.) Diminishing returns often reveal the need for continued communication of the importance of the survey and assurance of the agency’s response. Declining client feedback is another warning sign of a declining relationship.

4) Engage non-responders in meaningful discussions about performance. It is critical to solicit feedback from these clients. It is also essential to ask questions that solicit more than the “fine” response. For instance, you could ask, how does our agency compare to others you work with currently? Do they envision working with your agency in the future? Would they be willing to recommend your agency to others? Specific questions like these are likely to generate a more meaningful discussion, again, provided the agency has established that they are open and receptive to the answers.

If agencies take these steps, they are likely to get more feedback, accurately interpret it, and respond to the feedback they receive. Then they will avoid another saying: “out of sight, out of mind.”

Stacey Singer is a client retention and growth specialist. She can be reached at stacey@staceysinger.com.

Stacey SingerDecember 26, 2019