Improving Agency and In-House Relationships

The article and tips below summarise a discussion that took place in late June 2010 between in-house PROs and PR agency representatives. The discussion was framed around improving the working relationships between agencies and in-house teams.

Overall the discussion highlighted that poor communication is at the root of many of the issues in client-agency relationships. Although issues can start as early as at the pitch stage, the group felt that there were a number of simple ideas that clients and agencies can implement to ensure relationships are positive and deliver value for both parties.

So what did we learn?

  • Clients want the people on the pitch to be the core account team - The group agreed, relationships between individuals are key to the success of the overall relationship They get frustrated when agencies put key individuals into a pitch who are not going to be involved in the day to day activity.

    • The panel said:  Clients should ask for only the delivery team to be involved in the pitch. Tell the agency to be clear about how much time you can expect from each individual in the room on a weekly basis. If one person is crucial to the pitch then make this clear to the agency.

  • Agencies not proactive enough - in-house teams mentioned experiences where they had been disappointed by the lack of initiative and proactive behaviour from an agency. They also mentioned that some agencies will settle for a level of engagement they think they can get away with. There can be a number of reasons behind this.

    • Agencies said: On occasion an agency will approach a client with an idea that the client will then develop in-house or find someone else to implement. Once burned, agencies can become nervous with other clients too, so provide the agency with reassurance that there is budget available and that ideas they suggest, they will be asked to implement.

    • Agencies said: often the client isn't able to progress current projects for internal reasons and the agency is conscious that clients are busy and under pressure. They don't therefore want to become a part of the problem by pestering them.
    • The panel said: the client needs to shout when the agency isn't being proactive enough and the agency should keep on suggesting ideas until the client asks them to back off.

    • The panel also said: Clients should make it clear what pot of money is available for implementing agency work if they have a good idea, but at the same time if an agency is not committing enough time, the client should question them why not. If a project operates in peaks and troughs, then the agency may reduce hours one month and over-service the next month, for example.

  • Be proud of what you deliver - agencies should tell the client when they think they have delivered particularly good results.

    • Clients said: false modesty doesn't serve anyone. Highlight the good work that you have done. It gives the client confidence in the agency and helps them to be confident when highlighting achievements internally.

    • Surprise of the day: one agency said that a client had been so impressed by the results early on in the relationship, they gave the agency a bonus even though there was no suggestion of one in the contract. The impact on the account team was huge and while no more surprise bonuses were forthcoming, the team further upped their game. Performance incentivisation can work well, but needs to be well thought out to avoid subjectivity becoming an issue or the bill from an incredibly successful campaign becoming enormous.

  • Understand the structure, remit and context of the in-house team - every in-house team is different. This changes the role they expect the agency to play and how the agency should interact. Not only should the agency look at the size of the in-house team, whether it's role is UK or international, what the culture is etc… they also need to consider the team's role within the organisation as a whole ie is PR/comms the lead marketing discipline? does the in-house team have a sales oriented culture, or manufacturing, or customer service? etc

    • Clients said - Agencies sometimes don't understand the internal hurdles that have to be overcome and decision makers who have to be brought onside before decisions can be taken and projects progressed. Talk with the client to better understand potential bottlenecks and to try to get more certainty over timescales. If the timeline on the core project has gaps suggest other ideas and projects that you may be able to progress in the meantime, BUT be clear about the cost implications.

  • The relationship needs to be across the team, not just at a senior level - while the individual signing off the invoice is normally relatively senior, the day to day liaison with the agency is often done at a more junior level.

    • The client said - the best indication of how the agency is performing comes from the team working day to day on the relationship. If junior members of the team aren't impressed, the chances are the client won't be generally.

  • Clients don't want the brief challenged 

    • The client said: Where an agency has written a brief they are looking for you to deliver value through the solution, not question what you are asking them to achieve.

  • Is it a job for an agency? Clients occasionally find that managing the agency relationship takes longer than the amount of time it would have taken to do the project in-house.

    • The panel agreed: Your agency will need a degree of knowledge about the project and your business to be able to get on with projects. The client needs to invest time early in the relationship to integrate the agency into your organisation. It will save time in the long run and deliver better results.

  •  Tell me what you're doing - while the in-house communicator managing the relationship doesn't want this to be a time intensive process, they do want to feel that they are on top of the relationship and know what is going on.

    • The clients said - cc us on emails to other people within our organisation so we know who you (the agency) are speaking with. If it becomes too much, we can always ask you to provide weekly reports, but to start with this will give us confidence in you and make sure we don't get surprised by our colleagues within the organisation.

  • Email or phone?

    • This appears to be a very individual thing. While some people found phone worked best as it maintained the personal relationship, others found it interrupted their workflow and so preferred email. NB - Even if emails don't get replied to, that doesn't mean that they aren't appreciated.

  • Health checks - everyone agreed that regular communication was essential to maintaining a good relationship. The panel suggested:

    • Both parties should be honest about how much they want to hear from the other. Agencies should communicate more rather than less - the client will tell you to tone it down if you are communicating too much. As part of this process, the agency should tell the client if the amount of time communicating activity eats into time that is needed for carrying out the project.

    • Put in place a communications schedule. For example, have a table of actions that you can whiz through on the phone every week/fortnight in ten minutes. This ensures projects are progressing well and gives you a record of what has been done to date.

    • Schedule a face to face every couple of months.

    • Schedule a 360 session every six months - complete something formal so you have documentation of how the relationship is progressing. Both sides should detail what they believe to be going well and areas they believe need improving in the relationship.

  • Final tips

    • Clients say: Challenge the client to raise any issues, don't wait for them to come out with them. 

    • Agencies say: Be honest… we need to know when clients feel we're not delivering... then we can sort it out.

    • Incentivisation - can work well but also has risks including subjectivity.

    • Positive feedback makes a huge difference to the team
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