Agencies and clients love to play the blame game when projects fail. Clients see it as the agency’s fault for missing deadlines, failing to deliver on objectives and going over budget. Agencies, on the other hand, see it as the client’s fault for not giving them enough budget, making unreasonable requests and frequently changing their minds.
The reality is that both are operating in increasingly challenging environments. Agencies are competing against massive management consultancies and are constantly challenged to do more for less, and advertisers face a demand for disruptive growth and shifting C-suite priorities. To execute projects successfully, both parties need to step up, own their bad habits and change the nature of their relationships.
Here are three solutions to classic problems with the agency-client relationship.
Create a common understanding
From the agency’s perspective, projects fail when clients change their minds for little to no reason and make unreasonable demands. But as Jack Skeels, CEO of AgencyAgile, noted in a recent Adweek webinar, the real problem is that the project’s scope was never clearly defined in the first place. Often, agencies don’t fully understand the project until they begin executing it. Only once they are in the depths of a project do they realize that a lot of important questions got skipped, and they don’t have a solid idea of what the client was actually asking for.
Instead of a one-sided discussion, Skeels suggests the agency define scope internally and then have a conversation with the client to ensure everyone is on the same page. “Anything you can do to take the client along on the journey, they’ll be forever grateful for,” said Skeels.
Another area to focus on is the handoff. It’s a bad sign if there are no questions after a team is briefed. Ask your team what they’re missing. What else can you provide to help this project excel? What’s a common area of confusion that needs to be solved for? All stakeholders also need to know what is explicitly off the table. A surefire strategy to improve communications? Don’t dismiss the meeting until at least two questions are asked.
On the client side, it’s important to take the time to educate the agency on why things are changing or why unique requests are being made. The project will progress much more smoothly if everyone is on the same page.
Solve budget pains
Advertisers are infamous for demanding innovative, strategic ideas but not being able to pay for them. They need to face the facts, analyze their budgets and business priorities and strategically assign work that’s realistic within the budget parameters.
It’s also important to be transparent about how much budget is available for the project early on. If agencies know from the get-go that there is some breathing room on the budget (or alternatively, a lack of air), they will be able to execute more confidently.
Any leadership that has to sign off on projects should also be fully informed about the scope before the project starts—as well as what is out of scope. Looping them in at the last minute can lead to changes in direction, missed deadlines and additional unanticipated costs.
On the agency side, be realistic when estimating the amount of time needed for the project. You’ve watched your people execute successfully and unsuccessfully many times. What do the successful projects have in common? And how long did it take to deliver final materials? What does it take to equip your team with the right tools, people and other resources for this project?
Don’t let bad projects contaminate good ones
If you have a project that is missing its deadlines, needing more resources and making your team rip their hair out, isolate it immediately. Projects will fail, it’s almost inevitable, but you lose as an agency if you steal resources from your good projects to use as a band-aid for your bad ones.
Project contagion is the term Skeels used to describe this phenomenon. “When bad projects destroy your good projects, they fatigue and wear out your people, chew up your money and alert your clients.” He added, “With contagion, virtually every project becomes a crisis.”
Part of avoiding project contagion is learning how to inform clients when requests are out of scope and will require more time and resources, as well as being able to say no to new projects. Turning down a project can be hard to justify, but it can save you from overextending your team. Carefully evaluate how much work your team can handle before taking on a new project and be transparent with your accounts people.
Like all relationships, agencies and clients will have their moments of closeness and their moments of conflict. That’s inevitable. But keeping the lines of communication open, having a clear idea of project scope, and not letting bad projects impact your good ones will help you get to the ideal outcome.
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Liana Tallarico leads marketing for OpenText Hightail, a cloud-based collaboration and file sharing software designed for creative content reviews and approvals. Before joining the Hightail team over 3 years ago, Liana started her career working for a number of advertising agencies prior to going client-side.
