Opinion Piece
Client service is about walking the client corridors
A new advertising campaign from airline Flybe reminded me of an important agency client servicing principle which becomes even more important at a time of industry fears about fee cuts. Flybe's new campaign line is: “Visit Your Client. If you don’t, your competitor will. That’s the bottom line”. It’s a reminder that however regular your phone or email contact is with your clients, there is no substitute for going to see the client, to walk the corridors. Be seen. Of course it has an impact on the hours utilisation forecast. Savvy agency management though would take a view on that, because there is no better way to build business than through the relationships you form in spending time with the client. Before, as the Flybe line reminds us, your client tells you: "we've decided to move agency because we don't seem to be as important to you any more". What that usually means is that another agency has showed the client more interest and commitment in their their business through establishing a rapport than only face to face meetings can establish.
The myths remain – a time for PR and evaluation industries to act
PR Week US recently published its Marketing Management Survey. It’s a fascinating insight into the values clients put on the different marketing disciplines. What is interesting is that although PR is not the discipline most at risk when it comes to possible budget cuts (advertising is), clients (65.9% of the sample) would nevertheless consider chopping PR spend because of they could not measure PR efforts or quantify PR ROI.
Let’s nail the myth! PR can be measured. What we have to honestly conclude is that the PR and the evaluation industry between them have so far not managed to educate the majority client and agency marketplace.
If ever there was a rallying cry for PR CEO’s, the evaluation industry and the industry trade bodies, this is it. You have clients who believe in PR, but who based on the US sample would cut budgets nevertheless if push came to shove. What it needs is an industry wide push to explain and demonstrate to consultancy management teams – and clients - that PR can be measured. What it will need, however, is a receptiveness amongst management teams that there is a need to educate the client that a separate measurement budget should be allocated. This, for me has always been the stumbling block to mass acceptance of the power and value of evaluation, because all too often the only way to bring in an evaluation specialist means that it comes out of the agency’s own fee. Happily there are many client corporate communications teams who are seeing the benefit of having PR tracked and have their PR programmes measured routinely and regularly, as AMEC’s International Business Monitor study showed.
But what it really needs is a big push: for PR Week in the UK to join with the PRCA and the international Association for Measurement and Evaluation of Communication (AMEC) to devise a modern-day version of its PR Proof Campaign of a few years ago.
Or better still, a global campaign led by PR Week running in all its international editions, to make sure that in the next Annual Survey, PR is no longer at risk from a perceived lack of measurement transparency.
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