Have agencies sacrificed service?

If a global client satisfaction survey had just been published (which to the best of my knowledge it hasn’t) I can confidently predict that its shock finding would be that standards of client service in creative agencies have significantly dropped.

Client-on-agency evaluations routinely show numerous complaints about sloppy service (in contrast to the situation with media and other specialist agencies). All the evidence we have is that the old adage that accounts are won on creative work and lost on service is as true as ever. Why have things got worse? Have agencies underestimated the problem? What can clients do about it?

And indeed does it matter? Aren’t agencies hired for big ideas, rather than hot and cold running service? I think it does matter. All my conversations with clients tell me that they want both ideas and service. In any case haven’t agencies told us that the customer is now in charge? Well, in the client/agency relationship the client is the customer! Fee agreements have if anything put the problem into even sharper relief. With commission you expected efficient account handling, but it was by way of being a bonus. If you have a fee agreement with every account service hour specified and multiplied by 2.4, you have the right to be really cross if the suits are inefficient or off working on another client’s business.

Which brings us to the crux of the matter. Fee agreements presuppose agency of record status – effectively retained long term partnership. But we all know that some assignments, even for the biggest agencies, are really projects (typically one-off transformations). Procurement have put their finger on the cost of doing business that way. Poor service is likely that mean that the marketing team (traditionally the agency’s natural ally) will question the wisdom of retained relationships on performance grounds. That could be seriously expensive for the agencies who have sacrificed service.

Mystery agency calls car clients for surprise pitch

Amid all the talk about agencies being on the back foot, it's surprising no one has thought of running pitches the other way round.

After all in the real world there are numerous examples of coveted suppliers being very choosy about which customers they want to work for.

I declare my hand. If there's any agency (and I'm particularly thinking of the stars of digital and communications planning) game to ask clients to compete for their services, I'll open Client Assessments and run the pitch for them.

Go on a diet. Cut out one meeting every day

Dr Tim Hallowell (the psychologist who wrote the "Crazybusy" book) is fast becoming my greatest hero since Edward de Bono. Every second person you talk to not only tells you they are crazybusy, but seems proud of it.What utter nonsense it is in our business to have a diary so congested that you can't fit anything in for the next two weeks. I have the answer - and it's blindingly simple. Look at your engagements for the week and cancel the least important meeting every day. At a stroke (well, five strokes actually) you will have freed up at least an hour a day. Think of how productively you could use that time 

Nor will all the meetings be doomed. Meetings can work perfectly well with four people instead of six. And as for conference calls......don't tempt me! Can anyone explain why it's a good use of time for six people to have to listen to three other people laboriously debating a decision that one of them should have made beforehand and written down?

What's so great about English?

I'm always sceptical about so called inevitable and irresistible trends and outcomes.

You know, 'Chelsea and Man Utd are bound to meet in the final of the Champions' League'. Then there's global warming. You could have got good odds against a Liverpool/Milan final. And did you know that while we had a sizzling April in London, New York had its coldest one for years. My latest candidate for debunking is the rise and rise of English as the global language of advertising and marketing.

Global agency reels are full of commercials from Finland to Venezuela - all with English voiceovers. Makes sense. Everyone can understand what's going on. But presenting brand positioning statements and adcepts in English when their use is going to be confined to Bolivia and the Balkans? That's a different story.

English for foreigners is a dangerous language. We ran a pitch recently where a client from one EU country was entranced by a line - 'Drama's Out' - developed by an agency from another. The line was supposed to mean 'no worries'.

Trouble is it meant nothing in English - and so was untranslatable into any of the other languages. I'm convinced it is easier and safer to conceptualise for international in a 'big' language like Spanish, with regular grammar. Spanish isn't as formal as, say, French.

But at least verbs, nouns and adjectives know their place and aren't interchangeable. English is too darned flexible. The first casualty of relying on it is lack of precision and comprehension when you translate out. The second victim could easily become our own language itself.

Barbarians, Non-execs and the family silver

It is beginning to remind me of the late 60’s. Private equity (we used to call them asset strippers) are making predatory advances on big companies, who seem eager to swap their family silver for short term lucre. The barbarians are not at the gate this time. They are well inside the stockade. But this time there is a big difference. In an attempt to ape the US corporate governance ideals enshrined in Sarbanes-Oxley, boards have very few executive directors. Non-execs dominate.Brand owners are committed to building brand equity as well as shareholder value. Will private equity have that same dedication as they take out cost, fillet that which they can most profitably sell on, and dispose of the rest? I also worry that with so few salaried directors to represent company culture and history, concentration on the short term will go unchallenged. Lucrative disposals will have more immediate appeal than return on the brands retained.  The asset stripping frenzy of the late 60’s was followed by the slump of the early 70’s. Let’s hope history doesn’t repeat itself.