OPINION: To get more from your agency, become its favourite client

I’m about to let the client community in on a closely guarded agency secret. 

Not all clients are equal.

It’s true. Ask anyone who has ever worked in an agency, and they’ll tell you. And it has nothing to do with the size of your billings. In fact, the highest-revenue clients are occasionally the least favourite.

It has everything to do with behaviour. Favourite clients display a sense of fairness, teamwork and appreciation for what the agency does for them.

And guess what? They get the agency's ‘A Team’ working on their business. The agency displays a ‘can do’ attitude toward their business out of a sense of personal loyalty. And turnover on their business is low. 

At Navigare, we know from the hundreds of reviews we conduct annually that there is a statistical correlation between high-performing clients and high-performing agencies. And those clients that score highest on behavioural and operational measures engender the greatest engagement from their agencies.

Case in point: In one of our reviews, a particular client scored at the bottom of the scale on key behavioural measures. And guess what? The agencies scored equally low on their contribution measures. As one of the agency people told us, “We give them what they want. What’s the use in doing anything other than that? They are simply going to rewrite it anyway.”

The senior client viewed this as joint failure, and made it a personal mission to reverse the scores. And within 12 months, the client was registering best practice scores on these same measures. 

And their evaluations of contribution measures from all agencies improved as well. 

Agency people, being natural-born optimists, saw light at the end of the tunnel. And they rewarded that client’s newfound behaviour with a better product. People even started putting their hands up in the agencies to work on that client’s business.

So, how do you become your agency’s favourite client, and enjoy these advantages?

This will naturally vary by agency, but here are five places to start.

1. Remunerate Fairly

This is intentionally at the top of the list. This, above all, will send a signal to your agency about your sense of fairness. 

When we get called in to mediate an intervention, capacity is almost always an issue. But as clients, you actually dictate capacity, through the resources you’ve agreed to purchase from the agency. 

Put rigour into deciding the resources required. Review the resource plan often. And when inequities are found, address them openly, and equitably, with your agency. Having your agency work long nights and weekends regularly is neither sustainable, nor advisable.

2. Reduce re-work

If re-work is high, the first place to look is inside your own organisation. How tight are your briefs? Are the key decision-makers involved from the beginning? Do you even know what your re-work rate is?

You should know, and track it. Because agencies can’t afford to put their best and most expensive people on clients with high re-work rates.

3. Be part of the team

Favourite clients don’t sit in judgement of the agency, they work in collaboration with them. They don’t look to apportion blame, and are the first to share the successes. They create that sense of partnership that reassures the agency that its efforts are valued.

4. Say thank you

It is amazing how few clients actually take the time to say thank you. It costs nothing, yet means so much. When was the last time you called the most junior person on your agency team and thanked them for all the late nights?

5. Measure your progress

You can’t manage what you don’t measure. And with agency fees being such a significant line item in a client’s marketing budget, it’s surprising how few actually measure the return on that spend. And too often only the agency’s contributions are measured, without affording the agency the opportunity to provide feedback on you. Truly enlightened clients, however, not only seek out that input, but put it into action as part of a continuous improvement plan.

The next time you decide you ‘want more’, don’t call procurement. Call your agency CEO. He or she will be more than happy to map out the path to ‘favourite client’ status with you.