Having spent half my career as a client and the other half
servicing clients, I've learnt the do's and don'ts of how to build
relationships and I've also made a few mistakes along the way. What I have
found is that like any relationship, honesty, collaboration, transparency and
most importantly trust, are the key ingredients for a successful long-term
partnership.
My pet hate when I was a client was receiving a quote for a
job and not understanding what half the costs were. Why did I need X days of
account management? What do planners do? What's the difference between an
artworker, designer and creative? A lack of transparency, poor communication
and limited insight, often resulted in a loss of trust on both sides – I lacked
control over costs and my agencies felt they were unable to deploy the
necessary resources to meet my needs.
As an account handler, my primary role is to understand the
commercial and day-to-day challenges which my clients face. Communication and
collaboration is essential to this process as it enables both parties to
predict and mitigate any potential problems, closes information gaps and
continually focusses the agency on the client’s business challenges. By working
together it is possible to develop collaborative working relationships which
result in both parties feeling that they are receiving value for money.
Unfortunately, new agency / client relationships often begin
with a discussion about budget rather than how we can create value for both
organisations in the long term. The rise of procurement has brought this into
sharper focus with price often taking precedent over value. The result has been
an erosion of agency margins and the commoditisation of some services. More
importantly, by focusing on price, clients often place unnecessary limitations
of their agencies ability to add value to their business in the long term.
With the above in mind, I believe that stating your desired
ROI and being clear what time and resource you are willing to commit to a
project, communicating how costs are formulated and why, and having an honest
conversation about preferred ways of working, are critical to building a
successful client / agency relationship. By establishing the ground rules early,
and not being afraid to have difficult conversations, we can minimise issues
(perceived or real) and manage future expectations.
Ultimately clients and agencies need to move beyond the
'them and us' approach to doing business. We need to think long-term, seek to
add value to the process wherever possible, collaborate, communicate and take
shared ownership, and above all, work to maintain trust at all times. Without
trust neither client nor agency can realise the full potential of their
relationship and create the value that is vital for long term business growth.
