The Art of Client Service

Chapter 43Going Rogue

You've probably read about top account people who develop such a close personal relationship with their clients that they are said to “own” the account. In truly extreme cases, an account person can shop the client to competing agencies. If the account person switches agencies, the client switches with them.

I can't begin to say how completely, utterly unethical this is. Yes, one of your mandates is to forge a strong bond with your client. Yes, people work with people, not with organizations. But this does not give you license to ignore your obligations to the agency that employs you. This is the primary reason agencies now make senior executives sign non-solicit, non-compete agreements that are designed to prevent account people from taking clients with them when they switch agencies.

Your job is to build a strong client relationship on behalf of your agency, not on behalf of yourself. You do not own the client relationship. You are merely the keeper of it. You have a fiduciary and an ethical responsibility to do everything in your power to ensure that the client feels loyal not just to you, but to other people in the agency, and to the agency as a whole.

If you have done your best to facilitate ties between your client and the agency, the client is much less likely to go with you if you change agencies. If the client does decide to find a new agency after you've left, you'll know that it wasn't due to any shortcoming on your part, but rather on a shortcoming ...