PRCA PR Leaders' Panel calls time on over-servicing

London, 09 April 2008 - According to the results of the latest survey of the PRCA PR Leaders' Panel, lower profit margins are the most damaging effect of over-servicing (55% of respondents), with staff morale in as the second most damaging (36%). The good news from the survey was that only 3% felt of respondents felt nothing makes a difference to over-servicing levels.  34% of respondents said that well trained staff made the biggest difference to over-servicing levels with 30% saying a clear brief made the biggest difference, 21% claiming it was good project managers and 12% highlighting effective use of evaluation tools.

Francis Ingham, PRCA director general said "Too often, over-servicing is accepted as an inevitable evil by consultancies. It isn't -we can, and should, tackle it. We need to stop under-selling the work we do, and start turning down the clients who refuse to pay a professional fee for a professional service. As a profession, we need to develop the confidence to say ‘no' to doing PR on the cheap."

What the panel said:

Kate Hartley, Carrot Communications Ltd - "The biggest mistake agencies make is thinking that clients care about how our business model works. If we give stuff away for free, that makes our clients better negotiators than us. Who wouldn't want free consultancy if you could get it?"

Patrick Smith, Sonus PR - "Well defined goals and regular communication with the client can help reduce over-servicing. Equally important is a clear and well-structured programme of extras, so that clients understand that they need to pay more if it is outside of the original scope"

Sara Tye, redhead PR - "It's hard to explain the complete business effect of over-servicing but I believe that the downward spiral it can send any business into can be catastrophic and getting out of it can take twice as long and cost three times as much i.e. Financial performance, New business slippage, impact on other clients, staff morale and churn . Only brilliant direction from senior managers/consultants can it sort out and leaving it to the lower management levels of the business will ensure the poor performance of any business."

Helen Holland, Chameleon PR Ltd - "Over-servicing leads to one thing - false expectations by clients who continue to demand more for less and the end result is low staff morale because of over work."

Mark Mellor, Firefly Communications Ltd - "Over-servicing has been endemic in the PR industry for decades, it's just that we now know exactly what the numbers are. How to solve it for the benefit of both client and agency is the million dollar question."
Angela Podmore, Kinetic Communications - "Anyone can work for free."

Sue Harris, Westbury Communications Ltd - "Once staff at all levels understand the commercial importance of time management, they are in a better position to negotiate with clients and manage their expectations through clarity of programme planning and reporting."

Caroline Kinsey, Cirkle - "At Cirkle we talk about  "unplanned write-off " rather than over servicing. Controlling this aspect to the business is critical to long term business success . As an industry we need to work together to help change client behaviours to ensure that we are paid fairly for our time and that what is agreed in a retained brief is thereafter not abused"

Althea Taylor-Salmon, Golley Slater Public Relations - "In my experience, PRs need to take responsibility for educating not only their staff, but their clients on service levels."

Julian Goldsmith, Marketforce Communications - "Over-servicing is painful at the best of times but agony as one contemplates an economic downturn."


The results:

The PRCA PR Leaders' Panel is made up of 118 members who responded as follows:

Question 1 - What makes the biggest difference to your over-servicing levels?

  • A clear brief - 30%
  • Good project managers - 21%
  • Nothing makes a difference - 3%
  • Use of evaluation tools - 12%
  • Well trained staff - 34%

Question 2 - What is the most damaging effect of over-servicing?

  • Increased staff turnover - 6%
  • Low staff morale - 36%
  • Profit margins - 55%
  • Quality of work - 3%

- ENDS -

Notes to editors:

About the PRCA PR Leaders' Panel
The PRCA PR Leaders' Panel is made up of managing directors of members of the PRCA (Public Relations Consultants Association), the UK trade association that represents the PR industry in the UK.

 

For more information please contact:
Richard Ellis, PRCA communications manager
T: 020 7233 6026
E: richard.ellis@prca.org.uk

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