It happens. People leave, sometimes for personal reasons, often due to a new opportunity, and occasionally because you (or the employee) feel they no longer are a “fit.” In the agency business, this often has an impact on client relationships.
In our business more than most, employees often have direct contact with key client staff, even the top-tier client contacts. This is especially true for smaller agencies working with smaller clients. So when a key agency person leaves the agency, the client may fear changes to what had been a satisfactory and stable relationship.
As an agency leader, you must anticipate potential reactions, act to quell client recoil and quash their fears about change. A key employee’s departure does not need to be a disaster, but you must manage the departure with the sole goal of reassuring the client that they will not be negatively affected.
Here are six steps to take.
- Identify client relationships that may feel the impact of the exiting employee’s departure. Look not just at top-tier client contacts, but lower-level client personnel who may have worked directly with the agency person.
- Draft a “script” explaining the employee’s departure to each key client person, and detailing who their new contact person will be. Determine who you must speak to in person, and who might better receive a letter or phone call.
- CALL or VISIT each client CEO/CMO about the departure. NEVER send “bad news” by mail or email. In your call, be reassuring and calm. Schedule a meeting to discuss the change in-person and introduce the new agency team member. Call other important but lower-tier client contacts. Send letters to contacts further down the list.
- The agency principal and account manager, and the new employee contact, should pay a call on each affected client—first to the CEO or CMO, then to any next-level down client contacts you deem critical to maintaining good working relationships.
- Agency leaders should stay personally involved in regular account service—weekly contact via email or call, and/or in-person visits—until you are satisfied that the new employee and client contacts are adjusted to the change.
- If you sense any client reservations about the new employee, act quickly to reassure the client. Even if an agency principal has to service the client, help develop creative or manage projects until you can hire or move another employee into position, do whatever is necessary to ensure the client feels comfortable and secure in the relationship.
This is exactly why we argue in favor of team servicing of accounts. The more agency faces the client sees, the less likely it is that a single person’s leaving will harm the agency-client relationship.
Agencies continue to state they earn most of their AGI from doing more business with current clients. Do everything you can to keep your clients happy, especially when change is in the air.
Download a sample letter explaining an agency employee’s departure.
