Trust is engine that drives client-agency relationship – experts
By Ibidunni Banjoko
The client-agency relationship revolves around trust and the belief that each party wants what’s right for the other. Although the marriage metaphor has been used way too often to describe this bonding, nevertheless every client wants to feel special.
The client-agency relationship starts when a client appoints an advertising or public relations agency for making its ad or handling its PR. It continues till the agency provides satisfactory services to the client. Such a relationship should always be cordial with mutual trust, confidence and understanding between the two parties. After all, the primary objective of both sides is the same, i.e., to make a successful advertising or PR campaign.
Responding to MARKETING EDGE enquiry on how healthy and mutually beneficial relationship could be built in Nigeria’s Integrated Marketing Communications ecosystem, industry practitioners opined that agencies should perform at the optimal level in order to gain the trust of clients.
Nkechi Ali-Balogun, Principal Consultant at NECCI CONSULTING, said: “Brands can’t use agencies they don’t trust these days; the relationship is getting higher, the impact is getting higher, and the income that the brands are getting because of the relationship they are having with agency is getting higher.”
“A client needs to know what an agency is going to offer. An agency doesn’t need to just slam something on you with no means of matching the genuineness of what the client is saying. A client needs to have adequate information to match the initiative of the agency,” she added.
On his part, Austine Chijoke, General Manager Idra Consulting Nigeria Limited, said: “Any agency that is not performing cannot gain the client’s trust. A brand is as good as the trust clients or customers have for it. Agencies can work hard to gain public trust for their brands.”
He mentioned that private sectors will always work hard to get a share of the market while government agencies or public sectors may not feel the urgency or need to make people like them or what they do.
“They do not understand why they should communicate to tell people what they do. They feel indifferent when people complain about their brands or services,” he said.
Corroborating the above views, Eniola Mayowa, Chief Operating Officer Stepcraft Associates, said: “There should be a level of trust before a client can engage an agency. And the degree of trust will depend on so many factors. What have you done before? What is your pedigree? When your client runs into trouble, what are you able to do for them?
She further said: “Agency needs to understand how much of its effort is impacting on the brand; those are the things that will influence the trust. If an agency is not able to deliver to clients, it can’t win their trust.
“The degree of trust depends on what you’re able to bring to the table. How you are able to maximize the potential of what you promise to deliver to your client. Trust doesn’t grow on trees. In building it, for whatever reason, so many factors come to play,” she stated.
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