How Do Site Owners Approach The Agency Selection Process?

Finding the right agency partner can be a difficult and onerous journey. To help shed some light on the process, we surveyed 41 customer experience professionals, 40 of whom are working with or have worked with an agency in the past. Our respondents told us that they often call on previous agency partners or colleagues for recommendations on whom to work with and use requests for information (RFIs) and requests for proposals (RFPs) to narrow down their choices, a process that takes three or more months on average. When selecting an agency, customer experience professionals rank industry expertise and capabilities as the most important selection criteria, followed by the agency's reputation and the amount of personal attention provided. Site owners can optimize their agency selection efforts by asking agencies to show their work instead of merely describing it, focusing on business results instead of awards, and eliminating unnecessary questions from their RFPs.