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:
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?
Establish a process for assessing client satisfaction beyond day-day client relations
Remember its not just about the scores its about what you need to do at all levels to transform the scores to be brilliant
Use the insight to capture trends back into the agency for the SMT to implement and for teams to implement.
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.