A firm I know recently got a hefty assignment on a brand, without a pitch, because the brand’s existing agency was unresponsive. Multiple emails and voicemail messages from the brand manager to the brand’s agency of record had gone unanswered… initial discussions about the project weren’t followed up on… and the brand manager’s time, and patience, grew thin. In desperation, he turned to the other firm (who’d been working expeditiously on another brand) and practically begged them to take on the project.
I have a lot of empathy, having recently experienced hours of frustration dealing with an inept phone company while trying to change one of my lines. Moral: your agency’s ‘user experience’ can create opportunities—for you, or (if it’s unpleasant) for your competitors. One agency’s inattention can be another agency’s fantasy come true. But unless you’re willing to test your agency’s responsiveness, you won’t know how to improve it. In fact, if you assume your client interface is highly responsive, you may not find out otherwise until the client yanks the brand.
To get a sense of what your firm feels like to work with, you may need to engage in some mild deception, by pretending to be a client, once a month or so, and reaching out to your own agency. Try out what it’s like to be a client.
To be fair to everyone involved, it’s vital to announce in advance, to everyone in your agency, that you’re going to be doing this, and why. Explain that it’s not intended to play ‘gotcha’ with your staff or embarrass anyone, but to ensure that your clients and prospects are getting a truly first-class experience, and find out how best to train and empower your people to provide it. It’s what retailers and franchisers do all the time: use so-called ‘shoppers’ to evaluate the customer experience objectively.
To do the test, pick any phone number at random out of your firm’s directory. Call it and say, “Hi, I work in the procurement department at a client with a major product coming to market, and we’re looking at agencies. I was given this number. To whom do I talk at your agency about this?” Then listen to what happens.
Do you get voicemail or a human being? If voicemail, how quickly is your message returned? (Minutes, hours, or days?) From whom—does the appropriate person call you back?
If you reach a human, do you get put on hold interminably while the employee figures out what to do? Does the human you reach send you down a rabbit-hole of serial voicemails? Or does the employee thank you for your interest, take down crucial information (name, contact details, company name, product) and ask whether you’d like to be called back, or hold for the right person? (If so, give your agency high marks.)
If you get passed along to another human, do you need to repeat your request all over again? And how many tries does it take to get to the right office?
Once you’ve done this a few times, you’ll have a clearer sense of what your firm feels like to your clients, and what your team needs to be communicating to the outside world.
Variations of this approach can be done for existing accounts, too. Particularly informative is calling your accounts receivable department with a question about an invoice. How does the experience feel?
Again, it’s far better to make sure everyone knows you do these tests periodically, than to risk resentment and fear that can come from your people feeling they’re not trusted. It’s not about trust; it’s about communication skills that are necessary in a service business, and making certain they’re as strong as they can be. Similarly, avoid the well-meaning but misguided temptation to give rewards—spot bonuses, recognition, etc.—when the experience is top-notch. Your people shouldn’t be delivering great service because they get bonused for it; they should want to do it because it’s part of the agency’s culture. And bonuses like that can breed resentment among others who haven’t had the opportunity to deliver a great experience.
Help your people understand that the best way to create a great client experience is to, well, experience what it feels like to be a client. Interestingly, some medical schools are doing this with their med students, who get to spend a day being undressed, poked, prodded, interviewed, ignored, and otherwise treated the way doctors often treat patients—all towards the goal of better service. It’s good medicine for doctors-to-be—and great medicine to keep your agency healthy.
