The type of relationship an agency has with its clients is determined by the expectations it sets and the experience it delivers throughout the customer journey. Client expectations and experience start with marketing and positioning, are reinforced during the sales process and solidified by the service and client success teams.
Everyone in the agency must understand the kind of relationship the agency wants to create with its clients and how each staff member’s individual role and function support building that kind of relationship.
For example, if Marketing & Sales set the expectation that an agency can be a strategic partner that will mature their clients’ capabilities and help set them apart as an industry leader, the service team and the strategic guidance provided by the agency must stand up to the very highest client expectations.
Alternatively, if Marketing & Sales set the expectation that an agency is an affordable, low-risk alternative to in-house staffing for a narrow set of services, delivery expectations are far less demanding and strategic guidance probably isn’t expected.
Agencies often seek to develop more involved relationships with their clients than they can support. This is because the more valuable you are to your clients, the more sustainable the revenue is. Deep client relationships lead to clients spending more and sticking around longer. However, meeting more demanding expectations across all business areas is no cakewalk.
ServiceCrowd categorizes agencies based on their predominant client relationship type. This helps identify the expectations most clients have of the agency, which is typically the experience the agency is most capable of supporting (for a similar model that we also think is great, see this post from Jenny Plant).
Basic Provider - The agency is a high-quality service provider working at the client’s direction. Clients value speed and responsiveness to their requests. The provider is easy to work with and typically offers flexible hourly or short-term contracts that allow the client to easily expand or reduce scope and budget.
Preferred Provider - The agency is a high-quality service provider with experienced staff capable of communicating the value of services. Clients see the agency as extremely helpful and knowledgeable. Clients rely on the provider's recommendations within its core service areas. The agency is not as “sticky” as it could be, and growth within accounts is hard because clients will only seek out the narrow band of services they understand the agency to have, but if the pain point the client is experiencing falls within that narrow band, the agency is top of mind for its clients.
Partner - Clients view the agency as a partner to include in their planning motions. The agency manages delivery to the outcomes clients want, not just the SOW. These providers easily grow their accounts because clients work with them with the expectation of achieving outcomes and expect the provider to design the roadmap and report on performance using the same metrics & KPIs that the client’s internal leadership team will use to evaluate outcomes.
The difference between the client relationship an agency’s leadership team seeks to support and the one it is most capable of supporting can uncover alignment issues that must be corrected for the agency to drive more sustainable, long-term revenue.
That said, not all agencies should strive to be strategic partners. Those able to operate profitably with well-established reputations for delivering high-quality services as preferred providers for their clients may face huge challenges to level up. Agencies must make the jump with the understanding that processes supporting the entire customer experience must be aligned, and that can represent a substantial investment and massive change to how the agency operates.
Agencies should not only assess where they have specific shortcomings but should also identify where there are isolated areas of over-investment. When individual teams or functions seek to change client expectations or improve client experience, and the other areas of the business do not seek to match their efforts, they will face significant headwinds and have a much lower likelihood of achieving the desired results.
That is why it is critical to align customer expectations across the agency with a clear vision for the type of client relationship they are seeking to create and maintain. Client expectation and experience management within agencies doesn’t begin and end with service delivery. It touches every part of how agencies interact with their clients, from their first encounter with the brand to how projects are staffed to how the agency wraps up at the end of an engagement. Proactive definition and alignment are key to solidifying the relationship with the clients and ensuring that all parts of the business are working to create a unified experience that will result in strong referrals and happy customers.