Creating happier, healthier and more productive client and agency relationships

Have you ever had to have a difficult conversation with your agency? Or needed to let a client know they were running significantly over budget? Maybe you’ve wondered why your client is emailing you at all hours of the night and weekend? Or worse, you need to tell your agency that it’s not you, it’s them?

Client/agency relationships are intricate and complicated, yet that doesn’t mean they have to be adversarial and combative, they can and SHOULD be meaningful and strategic partnerships…with the right mindset is in place.

Join three industry veterans who work together currently and intimately understand how to forge and maintain successful client/agency relationships.

• Amy Atwood (Head of Vaccine Communications, Takeda) has been managing agencies for the better part of her career and has observed several key ingredients that make for the most successful partnerships
• Monique Kelley (Neuroscience Communications Lead, US Business Unit, Takeda) spent many years working in communications agencies until moving to an in-house role. She brings valuable insight from that transition, which has translated into both managing her agencies and her internal ‘clients’.
• Molly Stock (Practice Leader, W2O Group) been leading client relationships agency-side for nearly her whole 22-year career, and at W2O Group specifically for 13 years. She brings an unparalleled understanding of the attributes that agencies, especially, need to prioritize to ensure that client relationships start and continue positively and productively.

The panelists will outline five strategies to establishing and maintaining healthy client/agency relationships that keep teams motivated and sets the foundation for greater creativity and strategy.

• We Are One Team: Master/slave or client/vendor relationships are not welcome! Treat your agency as an extension of your team - and set the tone for others within the organization to do the same. The result? An empowered agency team with greater knowledge and insight to provide better, more strategic guidance and recommendations.
• Set the Ground Rules: An agency is only as good as the guidance given to them by the clients. That means communication flow must be constant, direction clear, feedback quick and constructive and expectations established up-front. And if things change? Communicate and recalibrate.
• Communicate Issues Early and Often: Clients/agencies are often afraid to tackle the hard issues like staffing, budget and performance, and all too often the point at which they’re addressing it, is at a crisis point. Spot issues early and lean into that conversation by making it a strategic discussion.
• Listen and Brainstorm: Clients are paying agencies for their expertise and agencies want to help solve business challenges so find time to brainstorm how to solve those challenges in new and creative ways.
• Abide by the Golden Rule: Treat each other as you’d want to be treated and remember that everyone is a person. A simple thank you can often go a long way and especially during times of crisis and change, empathy for what another person may be experiencing can often help break down barriers, create deeper relationships and sometimes, even inspire creativity in problem solving.

Finally, they’ll also address how even during the most difficult of times – when budgets, time and yes, even patience, are more limited than ever, employing an approach rooted in collaboration, partnership and empathy can help drive both results and greater satisfaction for everyone!