Why I'm not an Angry MR Client
I read the latest post of the Angry MR Client recently on the Green Book blog - http://bit.ly/T6nDqm
It was a litany of all the things MR Agencies do that annoy the anonymous Clientside blogger. Definitely an amusing read, but not one that resonates much with me as a Clientside Researcher.
The points she (?) makes are all fine - and why not throw back some negatives at the Agency folk that on occasions take it upon themselves to blame all their woes on the Client, sometimes in public.
But amusing as they are, they're not actually that helpful. Here's my take.
Clients get the Agencies they Deserve
Who are these Agencies that are so bad? Who works with them?
We're in a market economy, where MR supply in my view is outstripping demand - so any Agency that does all the dreadful things that Angry MR recounts will be lucky to be around in a few years time.
If I don't like the work an Agency does, I give them considered feedback - during the project if needed, and certainly afterwards in a review process. Client dissatisfaction is a simple thing to act on - stop working with somebody if they don't improve their performance after a fair time period.
Agencies and Clients need to pause and look around them rather than slinging mud
I think the mud-slinging process between Agencies and MR Clients seriously misses the point - which is that too few people in the real world of Sales, Marketing and Finance care enough about our input. We are simply no longer that relevant or important in a world where data - and frankly insights - is all around us.
We're mid-way in a transformation journey - moving from a survey-heavy past to a multi-modal, data-rich derived and observed insights model - with plenty of headwinds, not the least of which is pressure on budgets.
And speed of course - everything comes with increased timing pressure. Not forgetting the need to look at and integrate data from multiple sources to form a viewpoint.
MR Clients play a pivotal Role in the Transformation Process
I'd say the ability of MR to gain more business credibility has to come more from the Clientside - we have the interfaces with Marketing, Sales, Top Management, Finance, Customer Service that Agencies rarely do.
We need to step up to the plate and deliver differently - and yes, on a re-engineered basis, where we engage on new processes, quicker shorter steps, on lower budgets, for more impact. Phew.
The Agency - MR Client relationship is an interface that needs to deliver an upside, and if it doesn't, then it will become squeezed on budget. Both sides need to work hard on that.
MR Urgently Needs to Expand its Talent Base
As an Industry we urgently need to be more business savvy, attract people from outside - IT, Internet Marketing, PR, Communications are a few that come to mind - to lend us weight. We need to recruit from outside - no disrespect to anyone, but if our pool of Clientside talent is simply MR Agencies, where's the 360 degree business understanding going to come from? It's no longer good enough priding ourselves on stats - Excel will get you pretty far with a lot of stats testing, many Marketing folk know that themselves - it's about business intelligence.
How many Researchers have spent time shadowing people in Sales? Or spent a day working alongside Controlling? Working alongside Team leaders in a Manufacturing context? Successfully driven an Innovation Process? Executed collaborative Workshops?
To return to the initial point: as Clients, we get the Agencies we deserve.
If the industry really is like Angry says, then whose fault is that? Mud slinging might be fun, but it's rarely useful. The real conversations are happening elsewhere.
Curious, as ever, as to others' views.