This post is written by Andrew Miller, Co-Founder and VP of Client Services at Workshop Digital. Workshop Digital is a valued member of CallRail’s agency community.
“Clients are people, too,” I reminded myself while sitting across the table from a marketing director who was grilling our agency team about performance trends. What started as a normal strategy & performance review meeting quickly turned into a red-flag, all-hands-on-deck conversation to salvage a successful partnership that spanned more than 10 years.
You’ll recognize this scenario if you spend enough time in an agency environment. A routine meeting can quickly turn into an inquisition with almost no warning.
Here’s what I’ve learned from nearly two decades of consulting and client relations: it’s rarely just about the KPIs. There’s always a deeper motivation behind a change in a client’s behavior or communication patterns.
So what can agency folks do to recognize and avoid these situations? Remind yourself that clients are people, too. Then help them solve their real pain points.
The hidden drivers: What clients don't tell you
We can talk all day about positive trends in lead quality, ROI, and incrementality, but it won’t save a relationship if our clients’ deeper needs aren’t being met. Here are a few common triggers or pressures that often precede a change in relationship status:
Concerns about job security
Company performance or macro factors can lead marketers to fear being replaced or seen as ineffective.
Internal politics or leadership changes
A client may be navigating challenging relationships with their bosses or coworkers and are working to improve their internal perceptions.
External factors and home life
Stress from everyday life can creep into a client’s working relationships or impact decision-making.
Uncertainty about an agency partnership
Concerns about the agency's expertise, reliability, or communication style can manifest as micromanagement or reluctance to fully trust the agency's recommendations.
Desire to appease a specific stakeholder
A demanding boss or investor could influence a marketer’s priorities, even if they don’t necessarily drive the best results.
Sound familiar? It should. We’re all real people dealing with real life behind our work personas.
Uncovering the "why" behind the "what": Tactics for deeper understanding
Some clients may openly share their hidden drivers but most won’t open up unless your relationship is built on mutual trust. Others may not even be aware that these other factors influence their decisions at work.
Regardless, the hidden pressures can trigger uncomfortable conversations that often seem to come out of nowhere. Here are some ways to dig deeper while still respecting professional boundaries:
Active listening & empathetic questioning
Go beyond surface-level questions. Ask "why" questions to interrogate assumptions or perceptions. For example, “Why is this important to you (or your boss)?” or “Why do you think your (or your boss’s) perceptions of our performance are changing?”
Build rapport & trust
Begin this work well before any issues arise. Show genuine interest in their well-being and their business. Be a trusted advisor, not just a vendor. Engage them outside of your meeting structures at conferences, sharing a meal, or with simple small talk to learn more about the human behind the employee. Let them see a glimpse of your personal life as well.
Understand their company culture
Some companies just behave differently or have different norms. One of our clients preaches, “Be hard on the work, but good to each other.” This helps put some of their feedback into perspective. It’s ok, and usually welcomed, to ask about their internal expectations for each other, because that’s likely how they will engage externally as well.
Once you understand what might be driving your client’s decisions, it’s time to take action and help them address the real pain points or pressures they are facing.
Turning insights into action: Strategies for addressing hidden motivations
Now that we know our clients may have needs that extend beyond the performance, we can begin to paint a more complete picture of success for the client in terms that matter to them.
Observe & ask about pattern changes
A client may change their communication style or cadence before a challenging conversation. It’s ok to proactively ask if there’s anything they’d like to adjust or if there’s a deeper reason for the changes. It’s not ok to just assume everything will be fine.
Offer internal training for their teams
Educating your client’s teams or stakeholders is a win-win. It positions your client as an in-house expert and builds credibility for your work together.
Ask the “home run” question
This is one of my favorites. Asking a client “What does a home run look like for you inside your company?” often reveals more personal motivations and what makes them look good. They may want to impress a boss with some wins over a key competitor. They may be aiming for a promotion and need to show mastery of some new skill sets. They may be stretched too thin and need to find ways to improve their efficiency. Even if you can’t directly help them hit that home run, just being aware of them can help you align your work with their goals.
Provide external validation
Share case studies, industry benchmarks, or relevant analyses to reinforce your expertise and recommendations. Your client will appreciate the due diligence and their stakeholders will view your work more objectively.
Identify and act on “quick wins”
If your questions uncover quick-win opportunities, prioritize them to help your client move toward a solution. Quick wins don’t replace long-term performance improvements, but they can help smooth over a challenging conversation or prevent a future rift in the relationship.
There are many other things you can do as an agency marketer to help your clients succeed. This is just a short list to get the ideas flowing. You can decide which actions are best given your scope of work and bandwidth.
The benefits of taking action
The best defense is a good offense. Don’t wait until a client derails a normal call before taking some of the steps mentioned above. Start working these tactics into your working relationship and you’ll be surprised how many client relationships go from at-risk to raving fans.
How did it go with the client mentioned at the beginning? In that case, we dug into her CEO’s definition of success which was different from the marketing KPIs we were given. It turns out that the CEO had formed a new grudge against a competitor and wanted to outrank them in all forms of paid and organic search results. This was a surprise for us after putting up solid results and continual improvement in fundamental business metrics for over a decade!
We knew this was a vanity play, but our client’s “home run” was delivering some extra analysis from our team that showed A) we were already beating the competition in most of the high-value (but lower volume) search rankings, and B) the incremental ROI from beating that competition in every channel hits diminishing returns pretty quickly.
In other words, we had to help our client get out of a CEO grudge match by picking our battles and bringing data to an opinion fight. Problem solved and relationship saved!
