For as long as I (Dan) have been in and around the agency world, I’ve heard the term “manage their expectations” as a top priority in dealing with clients. There’s an honest half to this and a self-serving half to this. The line between the two is pretty blurry.
The honest half wants to make sure the client doesn’t expect things the agency knows it can’t deliver. For example, if you run a local CPA firm, your PR firm is very unlikely to get you on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. You’d better make sure that’s understood. It’s only fair to the client to be honest about that.
The self-serving half wants to tamper down the clients’ hopes of things that would really help them a lot but that the agency either doesn’t want to do or doesn’t think it’s getting enough money to do. This isn’t necessarily about hopes and dreams that are entirely unrealistic. It’s more about what the agency might see as “overservicing the account.”
Even more so, however, there is the question of results. Agencies suffer anxiety on this point because, no matter how good your strategic thinking or the content you create, you can’t guarantee that people will buy as a result of it. You can’t control the economy, or people’s budgets, or the moves competitors will make – or a whole host of intangibles that might render your otherwise excellent work ineffective.
So agencies try to “manage expectations” by downplaying the idea that the client will get a big boost in revenue as a result of their efforts.
The problem arises, though, when the agency pulls a bait-and-switch on the client. During the pitch-and-proposal period, the agency encourages the client’s expectations to be sky-high. The agency will present a vision of what can be achieved when the two work together, and make the case for why the agency is the essential last part of the puzzle that will drive the client to new levels of success.
Then, once the agreement is reached and the work begins, account executives start looking for every opportunity to tamper down the expectations they encouraged only a few weeks earlier.
There is a way to do this right. It starts before the agency ever talks to any particular client. The key is for the agency to structure itself – its people, its technology, its culture, its methods, its core competencies – in a way that puts it in the strongest position to always deliver something of value. Whatever that is. More sales. More persuasion. More access to good people.
Whatever it is an agency was created to do, it should be designed in such a way that you know you can do it successfully every time you engage – and you know why that’s the case.
Then, when you’re pitching a client, promise that. The thing you know you can deliver.
It might take some work to connect with the prospective clients who want and need that, but when you find them, it will set you up for the best and most durable business relationships.
Now you won’t have to “manage expectations” because you already know you can do the very thing you promised in the proposal.
A long time ago I worked for an agency that was getting ready to pitch a major grocery chain. The pitch was very important to the CEO, but the CEO wasn’t very confident in the pitch. The night before the presentation, he told the team, “We’re gonna have to do a lot of dancing to sell this.”
Hoo boy.
That situation was primed for a “manage their expectations” approach to client service, except that God was good (to the grocery chain, that is) and another agency got the account.
Design your company to do whatever it is you do with consistent excellence, so you know you can deliver good results and you know how.
Promise the very good results you know you can deliver.
Deliver them.
And you’ll never have to “manage” anyone’s expectations.