Client Satisfaction Today, or The Parable of The Red Dress

There's an old axiom, "the customer is always right." You've all seen it displayed. In auto body shops above the cash register; in a diner above the counter. I must admit I heard it for the first time many, many years ago working a summer job at a major retail department store. This axiom has been around a long time, and mostly for good reason. In fact, it has spawned many off-springs; things like "the customer is not an interruption in our business, but rather the customer is our reason for being here."

No argument on the value of the customer, or, as we call them, "the client." We absolutely agree that our raison d'etre is simply the client. Here's my point and the big BUT that is coming: just giving the client what they asked for is not enough in our business. In fact, I would argue it can be dangerous.

How many agencies have gone to a year-end client review meeting only to hear, "you guys are good executors, but we need you to step up in the area of strategic thinking"? How many agencies have, in fact, been terminated, because the client felt the agency had "gone stale"…which is a euphemism for not bringing new and sometimes challenging strategic thinking and innovation to the table? After all, if we just give the client exactly what he/she asked for, couldn't they get that from a vendor rather than a full-service advertising agency?

What I am describing here as the preferred behavior is not simply challenge or contrarian thinking for the sake of challenge. Rather what I am describing is to: always give the client what they asked for AND something more...what the agency strongly believes is what the client needs and may not have asked for.

I call this behavior the parable of The Red Dress and the Blue Dress.

Let me explain.

Our job, first, is to listen to the client and to understand the expressed need. We get this from being a partner...hopefully this means we sat together with the client in the focus groups to hear the end user talk about the products and brands in the category or to hear the end user talk about the needs in the category. At any rate, we are to be engaged, active, and understanding what the client has asked for.

Next, we need to ask clarifying questions. As we go off to concept on a new advertising campaign, we need to ask the client some grounding questions. Things like:
 

• What will constitute a "range" of ideas to you when we come back? (ie, let them tell us about their expectations of how many and how much thinking and creativity constitutes a successful presentation of our work)
• Is there something you would be disappointed in if it were not included in our work when we come back? (ie, let them tell us about the idea that is specifically stuck in their head...likely this is the Blue Dress).
• Is there something you would be disappointed in if it were included in our work when we come back? (ie, let them tell us about where they perceive the edges of the creative playing field stop. Frankly, we hope for clients who have very few of these "hard-stop edges" we should not cross).

Now, we get to go do what agencies like to do. Think. Create. Invariably, we do come up with a range of ideas to deliver the strategy, whether that is advertising concepts or other creative business ideas. Now, here is the crucible test. As we sort through the work internally at the agency, we begin to apply our own filters. Is it on strategy? Is it within the brand's core personality and essence?

I have seen agencies that then only bring back to the client the handful (often translated as three...but that's a story for another day) of creative work that is exactly in the realm of what the client asked for, or "what they will buy" because we know them so well. This is the trap of the Blue Dress. The client asked for a specific kind of work (aka the Blue Dress). We know from past experience the client likes a specific kind of work (aka the Blue Dress). Many agencies stop here. And they become the Blue Dress Factory. It's a dangerous thing to become. Sure, it can be profitable...for a while. But, eventually, there comes that performance review day and "we think you need to dial up the strategic input"; "we would like to see some new thinking." All potentially dangerous in that that's the time a CMO often asks for a change to be made.

So, my Red Dress/Blue Dress thinking goes like this:

If the client asks for a specific piece of work (aka the Blue Dress), we must come back with that as an option. In fact, in my experience, it is best to present that first to the client. By leading with the Blue Dress, the specific work that was asked for, we immediately telegraph to the client that we listened and we respect them. We brought exactly what was asked for. Now, it is time for the Red Dress. This is where we get to do our thing. "We also brought another option; another way in to solve the problem" (aka the Red Dress). Explain why we believe the Red Dress is the right answer. The support can and should be delivered with passion, but grounded in logical reasons...it is more likely to cut through the category clutter because as we looked at the rest of the category...it is more consistent in tone and manner with your brand essence because....

Then comes the hardest part, I've found, for agency people to learn. We must stop talking. Stop selling the idea. Let the client react. And, ultimately, let the client decide. If at the end of the day, after our most persuasive and passionate defense of the Red Dress, the client still wants to go with the work that is the Blue Dress...that's ok....after all, it is the client's brand and the client's money.

There are some agency people I have worked with who have mastered and support the Red Dress/Blue Dress thinking in terms of bringing value-added work to clients, but who fail in the moment of execution...meaning they get so attached to a solution (aka the Red Dress) they go beyond persuasion and passion to stubbornness. Passion and support for an idea is right, and even noble. Taking it too far is the entrance to the freeway called Agency Review Trouble.

After many years and many miles, I understand the old retailer's adage of the "customer is always right"; but I prefer to think that the client will always be a little surprised, delighted, even stretched in his/her thinking; and, yes, ultimately, extremely SATISFIED that they got the best work they could from their agency to support their brand.