At an event my agency hosted last night, one of the speakers gave a presentation on exactly what he values from his suppliers and what they should avoid.
Now whilst the list of things he values would be of no great surprise to any professional service organisation – understand your clients needs, have a proven track record, make sure you’re honest, etc – what I found more interesting were his list of things suppliers should avoid:
• Over sell and under deliver
• Complacency
• Taking short term gains (hidden costs, invention of new revenue streams,layers of hierarchy and confusion, ‘toothless’ client manager)
• Attempting to go around the organisation
I looked at this list in terms of the working relationship a marketing agency has with its clients and whilst I agree with most I think there was one that was missing – lack of responsiveness. Now when I talk about responsiveness I split this into two parts. Firstly responsiveness in terms of timeliness in responding to emails, messages etc and secondly, responsiveness in terms of being flexible and creative in responding to clients’ project requirements. As I’m sure most agencies have realised in the past couple of years this second point has never been more relevant and those agencies that haven’t had the flexibility required in creativity and responsiveness have suffered in recent times.
Oh and as one last point seeing as we appear to already be in full Christmas party swing….. I’m pretty sure that most clients would consider the lack of an invitation to a Christmas lunch or drinks pretty poor service!
