This Consultancy Redefined the RFP Process

Agencies and clients alike will tell you the review process is far from ideal. That's why one agency is asking brands to compete to work with the shop instead. The typical request for proposal (RFP) often results in a review. That can feel transactional to agencies faced with clients chasing more work at lower rates and performative for clients wooed by an agency's new business team only to find a very different working relationship once the partnership is finalized. Consultancy AgencyAgile is trying to reimagine the process in a way that corrects issues on both sides of relationship and gauges real working chemistry, transforming the RFP into a "request for partnership." AgencyAgile president and co-founder Greg Morrell explained that his qualms with the review process date back to his agency experience dealing with RFPs typically conducted by search consultants. "I never felt it added to the process," he told Adweek. "They kept us at arm's length [and] didn't let us have as much interaction with the client as possible. There was never a part of the process where you could criticize what the client is asking for. Even if there's no search consultants involved, clients aren’t very good at this." Stacia Garner director of U.S. patient marketing for medical devices company Edwards Life Sciences, told Adweek that "businesses are won on creative and lost on relationships." "Typically, consultants focus on the short term and do whatever it takes to get the link made," she added. "Then it's six to nine months later, and you realize [it doesn't work]. These [reviews] are not cheap endeavors." Maybe you're the problem? When Edwards Life Sciences came to AgencyAgile to advise on a digital agency RFP it had put out, Morrell asked what it was they were looking for in an agency partner. After speaking to existing and former agency partners, AgencyAgile realized the client had a history of turnover with agencies, suggesting the problem was deeper than any one relationship. "You can blame agencies all day long for not learning to work with clients better, but there's a massive gap in understanding of what makes a relationship work," Morrell told Adweek, though acknowledged that agencies need to be proactive about helping clients arrive at that understanding. "It's always a surprise to me that agencies don't take more of a stance to help their clients be better clients. It's our stance that it's the agency's job to help clients be better at their job, including how they work with their agency," he added. Morrell recalled an earlier example highlighting issues with the RFP process when a client asked for advice on their RFP. "I said, 'This is the worst RFP I have ever read, and based on what you said you are looking for and what I read in the RFP, you're never going to get that.' There was a realization that clients need a lot more help in what they're truly asking for and what they truly need," he said. He asked the client to issue an apology and reissue the revised RFP, which they did. Why Clients Are Rethinking Their Agency Partnerships Right Now A different kind of review After conducting workshops with Edwards Life Sciences, AgencyAgile worked with the company to help reframe their RFP around insights that they needed not just a digital agency to help with executing assets but one which fit with how they worked as a client. From there, AgencyAgile developed a methodology and process allowing the client to work with potential agency partners to define the services they'd need. "It was a highly collaborative, experiential and interactive process to co-create a brief," Morrell said, defining "the scope of what they're looking for from agencies and how they would interact [throughout] the process." Edwards Life Sciences worked with agencies throughout the review as if already engaged in a partnership, giving the client a clearer glimpse of who they'd be working with while giving the agency an idea of what the actual working relationship would entail. The client was transparent about how they worked with agency partners, including areas which could lead to difficulties, in order to find a relationship that worked. "The most important piece is not about chemistry. It's about literally do they know how to work well together, want to experience it, have an opportunity to test drive [the relationship] and really get to know [if their ways of working are compatible]. That’s true for both parties," Morrell said. "If you're asking for a long-term relationship, you better do your homework." Hans Kaspersetz, chief innovation officer of Relevate + Arteric (the agency which won the review), said the process allowed the agency to demonstrate how it worked in a day-to-day relationship which meant the team already had a head-start on working with the client by the time they won the account. Garner said the process encouraged both transparency and productive dissent to arrive at a holistic view of the right partnership. "Relationships are where things work or fall apart, and it's much more important for us to flip the script on this process and look for who we want to marry rather than who we want to date," she said. Garner characterized the new process as arduous but ultimately beneficial for all involved. She said in phone calls with review participants, agencies consistently gave feedback that the RFP allowed for much more authenticity than a traditional process. AgencyAgile's decision to conduct a deeper, more reflective process could suggest broad takeaways beyond the benefits of their specific approach, and perhaps a cautionary counterpoint for marketers inclined to rapidly switch agencies without a deeper understanding of what they require from an agency partnership.