We have been carrying out Client Advocacy (securing objective feedback from agencies’ key clients) for nearly five years, across different sectors and industries.
All of the client advocacy we do is different and unique, reflecting both the different agencies we work for, and their different clients.
That said, over time we have seen the following emerge as the five top client prerequisites for creating and maintaining strong client-agency relations:
1) Great, passionate people – they don’t necessarily have to be senior, but do make sure that all the people we see from your agency are enthusiastic and engaging, and interested in our business, our customers and our success.
2) Focused expertise – don’t try to solve all our problems (or pretend that you understand of them) – help us with specifics where you are strong and different from our other agencies.
3) Don’t disappear and then reappear when you need more work, or you can find the time – even if there is nothing that we need you for (at the moment), continue to talk to us and tell us interesting things – we appreciate it (even if sometimes we don’t have time to tell you).
4) Get the basics spot on – yes they are hygienics (and don’t show-off, if they go OK because we expect them to) but make sure we are spending our money on the value-add, not the stuff that is meant to be straightforward.
5) Balance the technical and commercial – yes we work with you because you are technically great in your chosen field, but make sure you don’t lose sight of why we are working with you – to achieve a commercial goal. If what you are doing from us is not tied back to our commercial agenda then we will all look silly.
If you want more information about how we help agencies grow their business using evidence-based client feedback, please contact us at [email protected] or call us on 07711344074
In our follow-up piece, we will talk through the top five things that agencies can do to make sure they meet these client requirements…