Great article in Adnews today:

http://www.adnews.com.au/blog-post/two-cents-time-cost-quality

If you asked your client this question, what would the answer be?

In the creative industry, it’s too often that our clients have unrealistic expectations around the time and cost of a task. The inevitable trade-off of an unrealistic deadline is quality. But surely our clients should care more about quality than us, right? After all, it’s their brand (or job!) that is at stake, not ours. So why are we always the ones trying to push for higher quality and relent on one of the other two axes?

It’s not the client’s fault – they have been pushed into this way of thinking by all too eager agency staff who make unrealistic promises and then under-deliver. We internalise our client’s problems and make them their own. If only agency folk were able to make clients understand that in most cases, the quality is much more important than the cost or time of a task.

In 6 months time, will your client remember that a campaign was delivered on a random date that they’ve promised to their boss? Or will they remember that it was a great quality piece of work that delivered fantastic business success and got them that promotion?

Agencies, it’s time to sit your clients down and have a good long chat with them about why quality is the most important of these three potential trade-offs. If a job is worth doing, it’s worth doing well. If the job is not delivering any value to your client, then you should question why we’re doing it at all. There is no grey area, just fear of having a difficult conversation with the client… but I guarantee they will thank you in the long run.