Do you (really) listen to your agency when they present, provide strategic counsel or make other recommendations on your business?

All the time? Some of the time? It depends? No? Or, you gotta be kidding…?  The more we talk to clients, the more we realize the position we hold and the services we offer are like those of a “corporate psychiatrist” – we spend a lot of time listening before we can really help diagnose a marketer’s real issues – and even then the job is to help the client see the issue for themselves.

So, when it comes to the question of do you listen to your agency – marketers often confide that they don’t – at least not all the time.

Surprising?  Or is that ringing a little too true for comfort? 

Well, if it’s ringing true for you, take comfort that you’re not alone.  A surprising number of marketers have confided in me that they don’t listen to their agencies all the time. And it’s not just senior level marketers who are tuning out – it’s manager level marketers who are also multi-tasking their way through agency presentations.

There may be any number of reasons for not wanting to listen, but in my experience these can be distilled into the following categories:

Trust

Trust – or lack thereof, is the number one reason for not listening to agencies. And this is worrying.  If you’ve retained an agency to help drive your business, you should be trusting you’ve made the right decision and listen to what your agency has to say.  Unfortunately we hear time and again that marketers don’t “trust” their agencies so they’re frequently tuned out.  And there can be any number of reasons for this. Read on…

Lack of experience

One of the reasons that causes clients not to listen may be a lack of perceived experience by resources assigned to the business.  But the other issue around experience is one that’s directly related to business acumen: Does the person I’m talking to have seasoned business experience to be really counsel us on how to help build our business?

You know your business better

Similar to lack of experience, marketers quickly tune out an agency’s point of view if they believe there’s a real gulf between their own knowledge and an agency’s understanding.  And true enough – most agency resources will never understand your business as well as you do.  But are marketers overlooking objectivity and outside perspectives when they take that view?

Creativity

One issue that appears to have marketers really tuning out is when the creative agenda overtakes the business issue that’s being addressed.  Nobody questions the power of creative when it comes to communicating a message, but when the conversation moves to minutia marketers tune out with frustration. 

Business objectives get lost

At the end of the day, it’s business.  And marketers want agency activities to be aligned to specific business objectives.  When activity or conversations move away (or appear to move away) from the business – the less attentive marketers become.

Budget

This is perhaps less about not listening at all and more about a shorter listening span.  Whenever costs go up and budgets get jeopardized, the listening window gets shorter because marketers want to get to a solution – not rationalize budget overruns. 

Lack of proof points / ROI

In today’s ROI driven world it’s not surprising that marketers are looking for proof points to support agency rationale. If those proof points are weak or ROI calculations aren’t abundantly clear, marketers are going to be less inclined to listen (and / or trust) what the agency has to say. 

Other priorities

And sometimes it’s just a question of priorities. With marketers under so much pressure and so few resources, even good ideas can fall by the way-side and not get a full hearing because other issues are – well – just more important.

Any of those sound familiar? The trick – perhaps for both marketers and their agencies – rests in timing and defining a framework for the types of conversations required.

And it needn’t be complicated. Marketers and agencies should consider setting just a few simple parameters to manage conversations and increase marketer engagement for a healthier, more productive relationship.  Consider some or all of these approaches:

Pick a time for issues

If you or your agency has an issue that needs to be discussed – take time out to talk about it. Sounds overly simplistic perhaps, but dedicating time to discuss whatever it is will almost certainly make for a better outcome than if you try and talk about it on the fly.

Create a process for new ideas

If you want new ideas – you need to be receptive to hearing them while not being distracted by something else.  A weekly, monthly, quarterly – whatever it is – session dedicated to just new ideas will almost certainly yield positive results. 

Set a standard for ROI

If you’ve not developed or shared preferred metrics for measuring ROI, setting a standard by which you want work measured will almost certainly improve the relationship between you and your agency.  The agency will know and be able to work towards what you expect.  And you’ll be more attuned and attentive to what’s being said because it’ll have meaningful metrics attached.

Know when to rebook

If you’re swamped, distracted, overwhelmed, too busy, sick – or perhaps just grumpy – rebook the call, lunch or meeting – to a time when you’re not any of the above. Everyone will get more out of it. (No kidding).

So if you’ve found yourself not listening – some of the time – or perhaps even all the time – take time to think about why and put a framework in place to make your agency conversations more valuable.

Image by asierromero on Freepik.

Calling an agency review is like breaking up. It’s rarely easy, and it’s usually a last resort. So what typically drives clients to this drastic, last step?

In our experience, agency reviews are generally called for only a comparatively small number of reasons and, for the most part, many reviews could potentially be avoided if the underlying reasons were properly diagnosed and addressed in the early stages of their first symptoms. While that may sound a bit like a surgeon’s health warning, the analogy isn’t far off.

Aside from corporate governance, realignment or conflict, here are our observations on the top ten client / relationship killers – and how to avoid them:

Revolving door

In cases where the agency has a ‘revolving door’ of staff on the account, both the client and the agency should work together to understand why because it doesn’t necessarily follow that it’s the agency to blame. Marketers should ask the agency why resources are constantly changing and be prepared to address feedback that may point to their own organization contributing to the high rate of staff turnover.

Lack of Trust

This is the toughest issue to resolve because it goes to the very foundation of the client / agency relationship. Resolving a lack of trust between a client and an agency can generally only be resolved if it’s addressed as soon as the issue surfaces. The longer the issue is left unresolved, the more likely it is the relationship will be unsalvageable. Irrespective of which side the lack of trust originates, the marketer or the agency must confront the issue with their counterpart and resolve it or resign themselves to the fact they have a terminally ill relationship and an agency review will – sooner or later – be inevitable.

Cost

Ah yes… although cost comes up frequently as a cause for agency dissatisfaction, marketers should actively seek an accurate and independent assessment of what their scope of work should cost in the current market before contemplating an agency change. Costs may be a sore point, but it’s rarely the sole culprit in agency dissatisfaction.

Lack of creativity (or so they think)

If your agency isn’t delivering the creative you want, the key is to understand the real reasons why. While some agencies have stronger creative resources and all marketer creative challenges aren’t created equal, it’s important to understand what role your own organization plays in this perceived lack of creativity. Underlying causes may be in the briefing provided, the lack of insights identified in the planning process or perhaps in the evaluation of concepts when they’re presented.

Performance

Performance is another area where marketers need to understand the real reasons their agency isn’t performing. Identifying underlying client-side business challenges, misalignment of objectives or perhaps media issues unrelated to strategic or creative output could then avert the need for an unnecessary agency search. Determining the true reason behind the performance issue and resolving it can create a far more powerful agency relationship than an agency review ever could.

Material change in scope

When a marketer has a material change of scope, the question is then whether the incumbent is capable of managing to those revised requirements. If the scope is so radically different from before, the marketer must also ask how their internal teams are going to manage that change and perhaps whether an additional specialist agency would be more helpful than a switching out the incumbent.

Seniority – or lack thereof

The root cause of a lack of senior resources on a piece of business is typically that the agency isn’t being remunerated sufficiently to be able to afford to staff with greater seniority. In these cases, marketers should review their scopes of work with their incumbents to define an agreed staffing plan against an agreed (perhaps revised) budget or remuneration plan.

Change

If you’re a marketer looking for a ‘change’, ask yourselves specifically what it is in the relationship that you’d like changed. In most cases, agencies are going to be receptive to requests for change and accommodate them if their clients can be specific about what needs to be addressed – and why. An ongoing, honest dialogue will help create a stronger, long-term relationship and put the ‘grass is greener’ idea into perspective.

Weak Execution

While poor execution can be frustrating, there are many factors at play that should be isolated: Speed, cost, accuracy, quality assurance, lack of process (by agency or marketer or both), or too many confusing change requests can all cause a perception of ‘poor execution’. By being specific about what’s not working, your agency can then be challenged to address the specific concern within a defined time period.

Politics

Politics in any situation can be tough, but if they’re not addressed within an incumbent agency environment, the chances are they’ll spill over into the next agency relationship and resurface. If you can’t address the politics of a situation at an executive level, it may be that you have an underlying organizational design issue that needs to be addressed before you can begin to focus on searching for a new agency.

But…

These aren’t the only factors that kill agency relationships and cause clients to call agency reviews, but they are all irritants that can sour otherwise healthy relationships. And more often than not, it’s rarely one single issue in isolation that causes a marketer to pull the trigger on an agency review process, which is why regular agency evaluations are helpful as early warning signs of potential trouble.

So if you’re contemplating an agency review but haven’t identified the root cause – take time to do some introspection on your own organization and how your teams might be able to work differently to resolve some of the pain points. And if you’re stuck, our agency health-check system can help pinpoint specific issues on both sides within a couple of weeks.

How’s your agency relationship faring? A strained agency relationship can be like a ticking time bomb – so if you need to diffuse the tension, let us know – we’re here to help.