Eleanor Trickett's piece on the Central Office of Information's agency assessment programme (Campaign, last week) and the wider issue of appraisal generally is a timely reminder that the process is unlikely to go away as we move inexorably toward introducing greater accountability to all forms of marketing communication as well as to those who work in it.
In our experience, having worked with leading agencies and their clients in the UK and the US to audit and track relationship health, each party's perception of its own performance can be at odds with the view held by its "partner". This may be because neither party can bring themselves to say what they really think for fear of being seen to be confrontational; or one party believes it has told the other about the seriousness of an issue and got no response because its partner didn't appreciate the "volume" of the issue.
Sometimes there is a level of "permafrost" at senior level that prevents the real truth about a relationship from getting through to agency management (this may be, incidentally, why nearly 75 per cent of those clients who decide to look around haven't told their incumbent). Finally, in our view, identifying the issues in play, while hugely important, is only part of the job. Our experience shows that many agencies fail to merchandise what they've done in response to client criticisms. The result is that the client feels he's been ignored and gives up. That's why the process we use tracks progress in resolution as well as identifying the issues in the first place. Assuming you've got it right is downright dangerous. Assumption, after all, is the mother of all cock ups.
Carey Evans, Relationship Audits & Management, London W1.
CAMPAIGN 25/02/2000
