Are We Boring Our Clients?

I saw a great article today about why clients change agencies. I couldn't find an online link to it, so I'll just summarize my take away here.

Clients are changing agencies a lot these days. Maybe it's the economy, maybe it's life as we know it. Maybe it's because they are just plain bored.

It's true that many times clients change agencies because they are just not getting business results. So they switch to a new team with the hope that new energy will generate new ideas that produce the kind of results they are looking for. In a way, there's nothing wrong with that. Sometimes new teams can produce results that other teams just couldn't.

But I think most of the time clients change agencies because they feel like they are falling into a rut and change will get them out of it. Agencies tend to do what they are told, as they are directed, and they spent so much of their time just getting the core deliverables out the door. They lose sight of being proactive.

They forget to be agencies. They forget that they are the clients' hotbeds of creativity that are always coming up with new ideas. They forget to be objective and they forget to be proactive.

It's proactivity that keeps clients from getting bored.

Proactivity: New ideas. Fresh thinking. Unsolicited solutions. An objective point of view on the state of the business. Concepts outside of the agency's traditional view. Helping the other agencies on the team expand their ideas and make them bigger.

Doing the unexpected. This is what keeps clients engaged with the agency and keeps them from ever wondering "is there a better team out there that can get better results?"

So ask yourself --- Are you boring your clients? Being a bit more proactive just might keep that answer "NO!"

What's your experience? Jim