Traditional ways of conducting agency evaluations are no longer working. Old-fashioned evaluations are no longer providing clients and agencies the insight needed to manager their partnership effectively. To move towards 100% mutual accountability, these partnerships demand better data, greater insight and more actionable information that can enhance their work relationship. Here are eight critical obstacles:
1. Delays in getting access to performance evaluations make date obsolete. Clients and agencies often acknowledge that some of the challenges identified in the process are “old news” and therefore not as actionable as they could be. New performance evaluation techniques significantly speed up the data collection, reporting and analytical process to be timely insight.
2. Single dimension performance evaluations limit holistic root-cause analysis. Client organizations historically have focused on evaluating their agency partners without soliciting their input or acknowledging the important role they play in the relationship. Self-assessments (agency assessing its performance) and cross-agency evaluations provide valuable insight for rich root-cause analysis.
3. Over-emphasis on quantifiable scoring undermines real insight and rationale. The ability to mathematically score agencies across a number of relationships attributes has been particularly helpful in assessing trouble areas and areas of strength in relationships. However, the actual scoring process might receive too much attention compared with its more insightful, actionable and quantifiable companion exercise that involves the review and analysis of comments and overall sentiments.
4. Manual reporting and information sharing can be costly and time-consuming. A more streamlined approach to reporting allows clients to create as many views of the data as needed to facilitate conversation between client teams and their respective agencies. Time saved in producing reports can then be reinvested in productive conversations about potential actions to be taken.
5. Once-a-year performance evaluations don’t allow for ongoing course correction and useful feedback. The same principle as employee evaluations applies to client/agency relationships, which benefit most from a constant structured dialog around performance. This includes project post-mortems, or at the very least, semi-annual or quarterly pulse checks, allowing both parties to quickly address problem areas shortly after they occur.
6. Underlying performance objectives are not clearly communicated or understood. Performance evaluations reveal great insight into the relationship if everyone is fully aware of what success looks like and is providing feedback that’s based on a clear articulation of the client’s objectives and relationship expectations.
7. Sentiment analysis is only possible by clearly mining unstructured data. Clients realize that the most valuable pieces of information captured in client/agency performance evaluations are comments received by both sides. Sentiment-type analysis, inspired from social media practices, unleashes a new set of insights that otherwise would not be available to enhance understanding of roadblocks to greater relationships.
8. Actionable and truly objective insight is challenging without the involvement of a reputable, independent third party. The use of a reputable, independent third party of evaluate and analyze results ensures that a productive dialog will take place on issue that matter to both.
Experience over the past few decades has shown that carefully managed agency partnerships make a difference between brand success and failure. Stronger relationships yield better marketing. Invest in conducting robust client/agency evaluations in order to get the most value from your partnership.
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You can reach Bruno Gralpois at bruno@agencymaniasolutions.com. He’s also the author of Agency Mania, which shows how to harness the madness of client/agency relationships for high-impact results. For more information go to www.agencymaniasolutions.com.