Agency Newsletters

Want to trigger an emotional eruption? Talk to almost anyone about the infamous off- shore (typically Indian dialect) customer support; the phony cover names, the fact they sound virtually identical. Add the fact that when we call from the US, we're talking with people that ought to be sleeping and who have the uncanny talent to ignore most of what we say, and instead encourage us to follow a step-by-step process from their one- size-fits-all support manuals.

How many times have we heard that it's cheaper and more effective to cultivate more business from current clients than to create new ones. So when off-shore support drives your client's customers away, that's not cost-effective!

WHAT EXACTLY DO CLIENTS WANT & EXPECT FROM A SEARCH CONSULTANT?

The current Porsche review raises that question. Plans for the review had been in the works since early November 2006. When the story broke in the press on March 8th, it stated the client was "currently considering consultants to handle the review process." On March 23rd, they announced they had made that appointment. Most agencies assume the consultant plays a pivotal role in the identification of candidates, yet this "pre- consultant" announcement and the 15 days hence gave more than adequate time for every agency in the country

with an appetite for a car account to pounce. Time to prepare and dispatch another FedEx bouquet. I know for a fact that many of our agencies did just that.

In a client search, I know what we do. Our virtually fool-proof process identifies agencies that have precisely what the client (or consultant) says they want. Meaning previous category experience, services, target markets, size, age, location, even type of firm. We facilitate all that up-front imperative, but in most cases, we fall back in the shadows after we issue the invitations. Historically, AgencyFinder clients prefer to manage what happens next. We're there to help, but we don't "run" the process. From the agency perspective, most love it, since you always get to speak directly with the horse.

Agencies are always hungry to understand who does what, what happens next, how did we do, can we do better, where did we fall short? It would be helpful for conventional consultants (those hired and compensated by the client to do their bidding) to share, to explain, even to publish a bit more detail of what they do and when, how they affect the ultimate decision, and even how (but not necessarily how much) they get paid.