Avoiding agency and client apathy in 2019 by harnessing people power to drive loyalty and growth.

It’s been an exciting year for LMC PR as my journey to inspire excellence in client relations extended into new sectors, new parts of the UK and to countries far and wide. From PR, to public affairs and to association management, from London to Leeds, Brussels, France, Germany and the US – all of these industries and parts of the world have one thing in common. Their desire to improve their client relationships, secure loyalty and identify growth opportunities for their business and their clients. 

There are so many common challenges that exist even across diverse businesses. 

• How to deal with challenging clients and their idiosyncrasies

• What do agencies do with the real and genuine challenge of over-service

• Fostering a consultative and partnership relationship where new ideas, innovation, creativity and thought leadership flourish

• Ensuring that clients are paying for the activity that surpasses their expectations

And with a year so dominated by the talk of disruptive agency models and focus on the puritan agenda of content first, channel agnostic creative discovery, consultancies across the land are asking how can they position themselves for the future without ignoring the glaringly obvious pursuit of the ‘ink’ and the always on desire for connections to influencers both social, cultural, political and business. 

It starts by understanding your strengths and weaknesses as an agency. Listening and learning from client feedback and turning this insight into action. And using client satisfaction as a true business development tool. Both the leadership team and every team member has a role in achieving the ambitions of the agency, but what must come first is a client centric approach to business development making it a win win for all parties involved. 

Whilst the battle rages on to discover what kind of consultancy you will become: whether you call yourself a PR, a content expert, a creative or digital guru one thing will remain a constant.  And that is that agencies are in the people business: we employ people, our clients are people and our contacts we connect them with are people. So having outstanding client relations is the bedrock for which everything evolves from. 

So as we all approach 2019, it’s not the issues that set us apart it's how you approach client service that will dictate how you will evolve. Don’t let it be a tick the box exercise, use client satisfaction as a real and genuine business development tool to ensure agency and client apathy is kept firmly at bay.  That way, you will help future proof your business for a successful and prosperous 2019 and beyond. 

Wishing all my agency partners a very Merry Christmas and a prosperous 2019.

On the first day of Christmas my client said to me…..

With the end of year fast approaching, agencies across the land are trying to secure their 2018 plans for clients. Whether they are waiting for the brief, in the process of creating plans or not quite sure what is happening, there is a real opportunity for agency leaders to reflect on the year that has been and identify potential opportunities and threats for securing commercial success in 2018.

This starts by understanding client satisfaction levels within the agency. How is the agency perceived, what does it do well, what could be better and how could the agency add more sparkle to the clients they represent?

Good client satisfaction auditing is not just a tick the box exercise, it’s a real and credible way of driving commercial success. And there is no better hook than the start of a new year to truly address this.

In a recent workshop I did for the PRCA on ‘adding value in client relationships’ I introduced the concept of the ‘value matrix’ which helps teams map their accounts to each value set, so they can understand whether they are adding value to their clients. 

All of this starts by asking right questions:

• Are you achieving the basic needs that your clients expect?

• How good is your relationship with your client?

• What do you do as any agency that takes that client to places it can’t take itself?

If as an agency you know you are delivering against the basic needs and requirements for the client, how do you drive the extra magic and sparkle that surprises and delights your clients?

Just this month, the Holmes Global Communications Report revealed that

‘Almost half of PR professionals and more than 60% of marketing executives believe that their two disciplines will become more closely aligned in the next 5 years’.

Which means there is a tonne of new expectations clients have from their agencies. When agencies can interpret these trends and showcase to their clients ‘innovation’, ‘the way forward’, ‘what’s next’, it can set good and great agencies apart.

Now is the time to ask these questions and deliver improvements not only at a team level but across the wider agency.

Lara Molins Caplin, is practicing PR consultant but also works with PR agencies across the UK to grow their client satisfaction levels and commercial success.

Agency and clients of the Future….. The disruption has started but who else will follow?

There has been a lot of debate in the industry about how the industry is evolving, how we are on the cusp of proper integration and how we can capitalise on the opportunities of owned, earned and paid for media regardless of which discipline you come from. 

The big players are already evolving. Sir Martin Sorrell has restructured WPP’s model to enable clarity in the market through a simplified offering http://www.thedrum.com/news/2018/03/01/wpp-ramp-up-consolidation-sir-martin-sorrell-says-2017-not-pretty-agency-giant.  And P&G’s chief marketing officer, Marc Pritchard, with a global spend of $11 billion has announced the creation of bespoke agency model cherry picked from all the big comms conglomerates to service some of its brands like Dove in North America. Which is unheard of. 

But disruption doesn’t have to be the preserve of the whales in our industry. The minnows and dolphins are in brilliant positions to adapt to clients needs as they are adept at listening and flexible enough to adapt to future opportunities. 

I am currently judging the “integrated and digital campaign of the year’ for the PRCA Dare awards and it was wonderful to see some smaller agencies innovating and competing with some of the bigger more well known agencies when it comes to integration and digital opportunities. 

But yet still with all of this going on in the background, agencies are under more pressure to deliver, with decreasing budgets and having to juggle a hundred and one different clients. 

With an industry obsessed about its clients’ reputations, agencies are often time poor to reflect on their own reputation and how they need to evolve to continue to add value to their clients business. The key to unlocking this is by using data and insights to unlock client satisfaction levels, but also to understand client’s hopes and dreams for the future. 

Trends and technology change all of the time, but I would argue that if agencies focus on how they can add value to their clients then all of these opportunities will be unlocked and will enable agencies to stay ahead of the curve and be on top of clients evolving needs. 

Good client satisfaction programmes capture this insight and enables the process to become a real business development tool to keep clients loyal and to help the agency and its teams innovate to capitalise on growth for the future. 

Here are my top 5 tips to running client satisfaction programmes:

1. Ask the tough questions. How are we doing, what isn’t working, can we be better, what would literally get your clients jumping out of their seat with joy?

2. Establish a process for assessing client satisfaction beyond day-day client relations

3. Remember its not just about the scores its about what you need to do at all levels to transform the scores to be brilliant

4. Use the insight to capture trends back into the agency for the SMT to implement and for teams to implement. 

5. No matter what level you are in the agency, you have an important role to play to unlock the magic agencies can offer their clients now and in the future

Lara Molins Caplin is founder of LMC PR, a consultancy that works with agencies to drive commercial success through client satisfaction auditing and training.