10 deadly sins in agency/client relationships

By Edward DiMingo

Corporate America invests billions of dollars each year in a volatile, fragile relationship—the relationship between a company and its marketing communications agency.

The viability of that enormous investment, no matter what the size of the involved parties, depends essentially on two individuals: the agency's account executive and the client's day-to-day manager of the communications function.

The agency/client relationship is the subject of entirely too much mystique. At the bottom line, it's a hard-headed, results-oriented marriage intended to produce specific, measurable results. Yet little of the marketing literature focuses scrutiny on this thin, human line between success and failure.

For starters, the two key players have several things in common:

• Both act as consultant, manager, planner, do-er and sometimes traffic cop.
• Both are fully responsible, as the single point of interface, for the resources and needs of two separate organizations.
• Both are expected to effectively manage these resources and needs in a productive way for each organization.
• Both must produce measurable and economically useful results.

Despite youth and inexperience—very often the case on both sides—the most senior concerns of each organization are translated, communicated and managed through this fragile channel. If an agency/client relationship is to work at all, both must find a way to avoid the "sins" of the business that are described below.

1. THE SIN OF BROKEN PROMISES
Broken promises have serious repercussions for both organizations. The agency and the client are responsible for keeping promises. The simple rules: don't make promises that can't be kept; don't make commitments on behalf of others who will be called upon to fulfill them; and assume full responsibility for the impact of broken promises.

The agency has just as much right to expect fulfillment as does the client. This is not a matter of affixing blame: it's all about getting a job done. And broken promises, rippling up the agency or client chain-of-command, will cause embarrassment and a loss of credibility. This is hardly an environment for productivity.

2. THE SIN OF OVERSELLING
Agencies and clients can commit this sin, in different guises. Agencies need to attend to client satisfaction, so pointing out successes is an important way to keep client relationships viable. Too many agencies, however, insist upon selling the agency forever—"our people, our places, our resources, our awards." The rule for agencies: you've got the client already. Keep the account by servicing—understanding and solving its problems—not by selling.

Clients are vulnerable to this transgression as well, particularly in planning specific tactics. For example, many clients think that the ideal corporate capabilities brochure should have a photo of corporate headquarters, the CEO and the corporate computer facility, or that every minor news release should include management quotes. In many cases, that's dead wrong.

3. THE SIN OF AIMLESSNESS
Agencies and clients can be very skilled at showing action: layouts, drafts, reports, clippings and memos. Yet those measures of simple production don't always take into account what really matters: reaching the stated goals of the communications program.

Everyone involved needs to stay focused on clear objectives. Whether the goals relate to the desired results of the communications program or the anticipated output of a simple meeting, know where you're going and get there pointedly, step-by-step. A special caveat: never sacrifice quality for a deadline. Nothing else will so quickly poison a working relationship, even committing the Sin of Broken Promises.

4. THE SIN OF SLOTH
Mistakes, inaccuracies, lateness to meetings, missed deadlines, incorrect invoices, reports and manuscripts with misspellings or typographical errors, poor record-keeping, weak or simplistic planning—all cast doubt on everything an agency does for a client. The seeds of discontent are easily sown through bad proofreading and slopping thinking.

The message for the agency is clear: check, double-check and triple-check everything that goes to a client, the media or the client's customers.

The client, too, can sin by sloth. Unreadable edits on a manuscript, unclear instructions, vague voice- and e-mail messages, and failure to return phone calls can cripple an agency's ability to serve. If a client sets a deadline for an agency, he shouldn't expect or demand to have it met if he doesn't hold up his end of the production schedule.

5. THE SIN OF NEGLIGENCE
Insufficient manpower backup to cover those times when an agency contact person is involved in another client's project can be a major client-service pitfall. Each client wants to think he's the only one—and, in fact, he should. The agency should make sure that, from the client's perspective, there's always someone around to fill in when necessary.

On the corporate side, negligence has a very clear impact on the bottom line: each billable hour the agency wastes tracking the client down, working overtime to get the client to approve a project, or interpreting illegible handwriting will appear on an invoice. The client must decide if he wants the agency spending his company's money producing results—or vamping.

6. THE SIN OF ARROGANCE
No one is right all the time. Yet the agency/client drama too often is filled with actors playing the "right" role. Agencies know their business, and clients know theirs. Each has a unique expertise when it comes to translating one business through the eyes of the other.

Agencies are compensated to say "no" when a clearly demonstrable case can be made that the client's request will not produce the desired result. However, once the agency has had the chance to present its case fairly, it should back off and listen to the client, who, after all, is paying the bill.

7. THE SIN OF VANITY
Despite the common rhetoric that the agency and client are on the same "team," there's a more fundamental issue at stake. The client's representative and the agency's representative are each responsible to a different corporate master. The client/agency relationship remains one of employer to employee. Even long-term relationships cannot afford the damage that vanity or cockiness will cause.

The client is obliged only to provide the essentials necessary to do a job (e.g., information, product sample), and nothing more, so the agency's representative should expect nothing more. The client's representative can subtly, but in a very real way, damage the agency's ability to work well by acting as if he knows as much about designing an ad or shooting a commercial as the agency. Agencies have a broad range and depth of knowledge in several highly-specialized disciplines, not only because they've been schooled in them but also because they work in them every day.

And no agency will continue to search for innovation, dig behind the obvious or break its collective back to meet an unusual demand if client vanity never allows a simple compliment or thank-you for a job well done.

8. THE SIN OF COMPLACENCY
Agencies are the primary culprits of complacency, of assuming that because "things went well last week, everything we do this week will be just fine." Wrong. The client could just as easily say: "Things went well last week—now, what are you doing for me today that's better than what you did last week?"

An agency should never relax. It should treat the client as a prospect, because, in reality, the client is a prospect for every future assignment. The agency should service each account with the same enthusiasm, innovativeness and professionalism it delivered on the first day of its first assignment.

9. THE SIN OF IGNORANCE
This transgression could also be called the sin of uncertainty, of not knowing where you stand. The client and the agency should both encourage, welcome and, in fact, demand regular opportunities to ask questions, review progress, resolve sticking points and voice concerns. Ignorance of unresolved issues is not bliss.

10. THE SIN OF DISOBEDIENCE
This tenth commandment is sage advice for agency account executives. They should talk—and, more importantly, listen—to their senior managers. The higher-ups have been in the trenches and experienced everything the account execs may be going through, and probably more. They know the ins-and-outs of agency/client relationships, and they can avert full-scale disasters, putting out brush fires before they become five-alarm conflagrations.

"Clients are always right—even when they're wrong" is an old saying everyone in the business knows. While it may be a practical solution to resolving disputes, a relationship that has devolved to this kind of finger-pointing is seriously awry. Any executive with experience working on both sides of the dilemma knows that agencies and clients are equally vulnerable to error and mismanagement. Both can commit the sins.

As a result, agencies and corporations need to focus attention on this very-often-ignored, all-too-human interface point, recognizing it as a management function as critical—and potentially as costly or rewarding—as any other.

This article first appeared in Business Marketing magazine.