Insight

AURA Trusted Partner Nomination: why long-term client relationships have never been so important.

Written by

Laura Morris

We were finalists in the Trusted Partner category at the AURA awards 2020. The category highlighted agencies who “understand their clients business’s agenda and go beyond the call of duty to help them deliver it”.

The nomination got me thinking about the idea of what being a trusted partner means, and why it’s so important in the current climate.

With uncertainty at every turn, clients now more than ever are leaning into the long-term, trusted relationships they have with their agencies. As a research agency, it is our responsibility to help our clients make sense of emerging themes in a turbulent climate in an agile and reliable fashion. This means making agile judgements in response to briefs, data sets and business scenarios that are constantly changing, ensuring decisions can be informed by the best insight available at the time.

Professional expertise and judgement has been a critical skill for agencies like ours to apply in this climate – helping our clients navigate the choppy waters of Covid.

However, more than just professional expertise, it is the relationship element of trust that clients have relied upon. Often, business relationships are thought of as different from our personal relationships. But at Trinity McQueen, we uphold all the same qualities in our professional relationships that you would expect to come from a committed friendship.

1. Through thick and thin

Covid-19 restricted budgets, but increased the need for insight. Everything that we believed about seasonal trends was thrown out the window when the ‘new-normal’ arrived. The uncertainty of the times put things on hold for our clients and for us. Despite the moments when our clients were without work, we stood firm with them, together.

Conducting primary research through traditional methods was no longer the norm, and it was our job to support our clients with other sustainable routes to business-leading insights. We displayed our ability to adjust to changing

circumstances by quickly switching to digital and other agile approaches while, I believe, delivering insights that were just as good quality – even if the actual deliver of those insights was made that much more challenging in the absence of face to face collaboration time.

2. Putting our clients’ needs first

Throughout Covid, clients had neither the time nor budgets to onboard new agencies easily. This was evidenced in the recent MRS Dephi report which found that clients retreated from new contracts and turned to their trusted agencies. In that report a client was quoted as saying. “We decided to work with just the companies that we normally do, so anything they send we will read. Otherwise, there is just too much stuff to take in.” In other words, although there was empathy that agencies were also struggling business wise, clients were not receptive to desperate new business drives, if anything approaches had to be even more relevant, helpful and respectful / empathetic in these times.

Ensuring business continuity has been pivotal in maintaining the trust of clients. At Trinity McQueen, we kept our usual account team and core service teams out of furlough to deliver confidence and stability to our clients. And we continued to support our clients while managing our own business challenges internally

3. Honesty in communication

During Covid-19, all parts of normal business were strained. The demand from clients for more value, with less time and increased flexibility while trying to ensure long-lasting deep relationships required agile judgement on our behalf. Research was not always smooth sailing and expectations needed to be managed honestly.

4. With great power, comes great responsibility

Being trusted comes with responsibility. In our case, this means delivering accurate insights even when leveraging them becomes hard. As a financially stable and solid partner, despite the constantly changing briefs and objectives, we always offered the best quality advice. Just like when a friend is lost and in need of support, a trusted agency partner should be committed to consistently guiding their clients in the right direction when that path becomes unclear. Informed, honest opinions were also order of the day – putting ourselves in our clients’ shoes and truly stating where we would prioritise research spend, for example, being just one of areas clients sought guidance on.

After this turbulent period, it was very humbling to be nominated for the Trusted Partner award at the AURA’s. Now even more than ever, it seems like being ‘rock solid’ is the most important role an agency can play.

From all the team at Trinity McQueen, we wish all the best to those businesses and individuals who have struggled so much in light of the current situation.