You’re fired! Seven reasons to leave your PR agency
1) It takes 24 hrs for them to return my call/email. If it’s taking this long, either your account handler is too junior to know the answer, too busy on the 15 other accounts they ‘service’ or off with stress because the agency financial structure demands they work 16 hours a day.
2) It takes a month to get a press release back. So who’s writing this stuff? Is it going up and down some bureaucratic chain of command at the agency, being amended for style not substance. When it does appear, is it lost in jargon with no discernible news hook?
3) I haven’t seen the account director since the pitch. All the IP and experience you saw in the pitch has been very busy with internal projects and has become merely a CC on hundreds of emails from the AM asking questions, questions, always with the questions.
4) You’re their smallest account. If you’re the smallest account at a large agency, they just don’t care enough about you. Doesn’t matter how well known the agency is, you won’t benefit from their award winning expertise.
5) Reactive not proactive. Your PR agency should be bringing things to the table, not lazily waiting for you to ask them to do something.
6) They don’t do ‘online’. Well that’s a shame because that’s where your customers are increasingly.
7) They don’t reveal their fee structure. As we’re in business, you need to know how your retainer is structured, including how much your account management team are charged out at and how many hours of their time you can expect (see 1).
I am continually hearing from new and potential clients that these behaviours are common with large PR agencies. PR is a continual process and a proactive one, if your agency can not be bothered to behave in a professional manner then maybe they are too big for your account – choose a smaller outfit who will nurture your account and value it as one of their main bread and butter accounts.
One of my favorite questions to arm my clients with when other agencies (PR, IR, marcom, etc.) are pitching them is: “Do you get explicit written permission from your clients to utilize their brand identities and case histories in your pitch materials?” and then sit back and gauge the reaction — usually annoyed expressions, squirming in chairs, sputtering non-answers. This portends how one’s Intellectual Property is likely to be used, abused and/or disrespected, and telegraphs the professional ethics (or lack thereof) of the agency or at least the pitch team, and allows one to make a more informed decision as to whether these are really the kind of people you are comfortable trusting with the fortunes of your enterprise.
Of course, you also have to ensure your OWN agency isn’t engaging in such behavior…
This has always been one of the decisions; whether to nurture an existing agency and try them in “my way” or fire them and have to look for another. Do dump the devil you know or use up valuable resources trying to get them back on track?
If I am in a position of having to hire a new agency I will always strive to be the big fish in their small pond, which gives me the quality of attention that I desire and deserve from a supplier. Over the years I have managed large (huge) firms and small agencies and found that smaller, almost boutique sized agencies are better for small to medium sized companies as they tend to be hungry, and willing to respond on your time frames and not theirs. On the flip side, if you are a multi-national large company your requirements will out strip a small agencies resources very quickly and you are better off searching for a slightly larger firm, but still one that can react to your demands. The question then becomes to you segment your requirements and farm them out to multiple smaller companies? In reference to the 7 reasons you fire your PR agency, I would have to say that any of these individually would be grounds to dump an agency!