Once I was chatting with a new client as he was about to leave for Ottawa to celebrate New Year's Eve. He was in an angry mood and complained bitterly that he had not heard from his retainer agency since mid-November!

Such sentiments are not uncommon among clients. One of the first comments we hear from new clients pertains to the existing agency’s lack of interest or absence of proactive approach. They invariably complain that client servicing is being handled by amateurs or immature or arrogant PR executives. To cut the story short, relations between the agency and the client are getting increasingly strained, and clients are quick to point out the only thing that catapults agencies into action is the dollar or euro sign!

If PR agencies are about managing relationships between a company and its stakeholders, how come they are not able to manage their own relationships with clients? This is because not much thought is given to the task of nurturing relationships. The agency-client relationship is so sensitive and complex that it requires a great deal of strategic planning and confidence building measures.
What is the average lifespan of an agency-client relationship? Or, to put it differently, how many agencies can maintain fruitful long-term retainer relationship with their clients.

In the 80s, the average client-agency relationship lifespan was 7.2 years in Europe. In the Middle East, the scenario is very different. I would say clients search for a new agency every 12 months.

Is this a healthy sign or a bad sign? I would think it is a healthy trend, because it spurs agencies to go an extra mile to develop carefully planned and result-oriented customer servicing techniques, focused on nurturing mutually beneficial relationships that will not come to an abrupt end after a few moons.

Agencies always yearn for client loyalty, but the critical question is: Are they loyal to their clients in the first place?

Clients today look for agencies with a fully integrated approach to organizational communication, with a proven track record and the ability to make every client feel important. The perennial complaint of clients is that most agencies believe in mouthing promises, but default on deliverables.

As most marketing experts and practitioners believe, the ideal relationship between a client and its PR agency hinges on proactive approach and extensive planning. Further, a PR agency should regard itself as a family doctor, rather than a mere specialist! A family doctor spells comfort, friendliness and unmatched patient knowledge. He can come up with a solution even before the patient has told him the full story of his ailment!

PR agencies need to use improved customer servicing techniques through out-of-the-box value additions. This calls for dynamic account management skills with clear evaluation metrics to assess the effectiveness of PR campaigns.

There is a real need to relook at PR evaluation. Number of “impressions” or “advertising equivalency” are not convincing enough. We need to measure the power and impact of PR through a more effective yardstick. Column per cm is not a dynamic unit of measurement and English/Arabic or country segregation doesn't meet the standards?

PR today is no longer a tick box in a marketing campaign; PR agencies are now penetrating the glass ceiling to report directly to the C-Suite management. It is not media coverage coordination between two account handlers from the client and agency, who usually lack forward thinking or strategic approach.

Understanding the clients' culture and getting under the skin of its products and projects will pave the way for developing PR campaigns that will pay off and deliver promised results, and build successful and sustainable relations between agencies and clients.