Dysfunctional relationships with PR agencies are about as common as marriage relationship issues. This week I felt like the PR Doctor (or relationship counselor) as a long-standing corporate acquaintance had a cry on my shoulder about the troubles she was having with the organisation’s PR agency.
The concerns/complaints were nothing I hadn’t heard before – and experienced first hand during my 30 years on the agency side.
There were lots of first-hand examples of ‘we wanted this’ but ‘they did this’. But summed up they came down to an apparent disconnect between PR agency and PR department staff and disappointment at some of the outputs and outcomes from the PR agency’s work.
The sad thing is that this Australian organisation is one that any PR agency would be falling over to work for; and the agency has a good reputation, good people and does good work. And they’ve been together for nearly three years and to the outside world it seems a solid and good relationship – a good marriage between two parties suited to one another!
To continue with the medical analogy like any doctor there are a range of tests and procedures that I adopt when faced with working with an organisation that has PR agency relationship ‘problems’ and has determined that it wants to seriously diagnose work to address them. Now’s not the time to go down that path!
But in a general sense like all relationship issues it’s my experience that there are normally faults on both sides. The courting stage (ie PR agency selection) was exciting, the honeymoon (the first 2-3 months) were fulfilling. But now the PR relationship has to run on a day-to-day basis and its not going as smoothly as both parties (or at least one!) had hoped.
Over the years I’ve found that the two most common issues are around:
• Power. Both the PR Director/Manager want to be recognised by general management for their contribution. However, sometimes a PR Director or Manager can feel vulnerable or threatened and deny the agency access beyond them. In other situations the PR agency can be too aggressive and assertive and try and go around the PR Director or Manager. Neither is healthy or productive.
• Process. Very often there’s a lack of reporting systems and mechanisms governing the relationship. That means the lines of responsibility and accountability can cause expectations to become blurred. In such situations good outcomes are difficult – if not impossible – to achieve.
Taking a comprehensive ‘health check’ that pinpoints all of these is the starting point to getting the relationship back on track. The issue is whether this can be initiated by the PR Director/Manager or whether it’s best to bring in an independent party.
As I said to my acquaintance, seldom do either of the parties wish to part company. But too often that’s exactly what the outcome can be within a few months if nothing is done to address the issues. And as with her case, there was little wrong that couldn’t, with goodwill on both sides, be fixed!
The sad thing is that as with marriages there are a lot more unhappy client-pr agency relationships out there than there should be. And it’s so silly when the underlying issues are not that insurmountable or the remedies that difficult.
All it takes is the courage and commitment to address them. And being the initiator of that first step is often half the battle!
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