In a recent survey release on MarketingProfs, it has become painfully clear that what agencies think they are really good at isn’t viewed quite as kindly by their marketer counterparts.

76% of agencies are “very confident” with their overall level of service provided to their marketer clients, which is great. It’s great that agencies are feeling really good about the value and quality of the things they’re doing for their clients.

The problem is only 39% of marketers are “very satisfied” with the level and quality of service being provided by their marketing agency partner.

Now, I’ll give agencies a break here as I have a lot of experience surveying both marketers and agencies. Getting really high scores in the “very” range is often a difficult thing to do, especially when you’re talking about satisfaction with something other than yourself.

But the 76-39 differential is still pretty large.

And when you peel it back and look at the things that are getting under the skin of the marketer when asked about agencies, the list seems to be rather robust.

“Speed of delivery”, “budget over-runs”, “lack of communication”, and “misalignment of goals” all rise to the top as issues marketers have with the firms that help shape their success in-market.

These are all basic blocking and tackling “must do’s” for agencies and if your agency is falling down in any one of these areas, sit down with your agency partner and try and get it all back on track. And if you continue to see the same bad behavior, might be time to look for a new firm.

When we run our surveys among marketers and agencies every year for the past 19 years, we consistently see marketers tell us that the top reasons why they look for new firms aren’t necessarily because of the things listed above, but because the agency isn’t going above and beyond to help them move their business ahead. Things like “lack of new ideas”, “not proactive”, and “not happy with strategy or thinking” all consistently rise to the top of the “why we look” list.

I suspect that if an agency can’t do the basic stuff, that same agency isn’t going to be proactive and be strategic and be thoughtful in how they manage their relationship with their client.

Marketers deserve the basics and more. You’re all being asked to do more with less. You’re all under the microscope to justify everything you do, and you barely have time to get done what you need to get done – let alone take the time to think strategically about your business.

You need an agency partner that you cannot just be happy that they’re doing the fundamentals right, but that they’re really stepping up and thinking about the assignment with you not just as a communications or creative assignment, but as a business assignment and how they can partner with you to move your business ahead.

So…need to find a better partner firm? Don’t try and do it on your own. We cost you nothing to manage a professional search for new agencies.  We take a small commission from the winning firm.

And importantly, we have been getting much higher levels of satisfaction than agencies and have been doing it for 14 years.

Text me if you’re interested in learning more:  513-293-6785.