Client Trust Score for Agencies

If your PR report looks impressive with big numbers but still feels empty, this post is for you. Most agencies still sell visibility KPIs — impressions, mentions, share of voice, AVE, reach. These agencies aren't wrong in doing it, as these metrics are can be measured with ease. But these metrics lack meaning for clients. These numbers tell you how often your name showed up, not whether your story landed or your reputation strengthened. What you should be tracking instead are Trust Signals — the real indicators of reputation movement. Trust Signals look like this: - A journalist quoting you without you pitching them. - A client repeating your messaging unprompted. - An investor referencing your thought piece in a meeting. - Employees sharing company news with pride. These are lagging indicators of belief. They don’t fit neatly in a dashboard and that's why most agencies avoid them. But if your PR work doesn’t move trust, it’s just paid noise management. PR done right builds confidence in your name, not just coverage reports. So next time you get your monthly report, ask one simple question: “Which of these numbers tells me people trust us more than last month?” Which metric did your PR agency report last month?

2023: clients left after 3 months. 2025: 95% retention rate. Here’s the thing. Most agencies obsess over new clients. But then churn 30-50% of revenue Every. Single. Month. Scaling isn’t about landing clients. It’s about keeping them. We retain 93% of clients. Here’s how: 1. Weekly check-ins > Monthly Reports ↳ Clients don’t pay for silence. ↳ A 5-minute “monthly update” kills trust. ↳ “Are you even working on my account?” → Gone. 2. Under-promise. Over-deliver. ↳ Most agencies are selling a dream. ↳ If we say “Expect 15-20 high-intent leads.” ↳ We’ll push for 30. 3. Bi-weekly video calls (non-negotiable) ↳ No email chains. No assumptions. ↳ 15 mins to align on: - What’s working - What’s not - Next steps ↳ Clients stay because they feel heard. 4. Filter like crazy ↳ My client had: - No case studies - No PMF - Mid-market targets ↳ We said: “Fix this, or our campaigns will fail.” ↳ He fixed it. Booked 100 leads in 90 days. ↳ Including Google. 5. Obsess over incremental wins ↳ Clients don’t care about your “process.” ↳ They care if Month 2 > Month 1. ↳ Even 10% better opens the door for: ↳ “Let’s renew for 6 months.” Retention isn’t easy. But it should be your number 1 priority. P.S. Repost if you found that useful.

The #1 reason Amazon agencies lose clients has nothing to do with ACOS, TACOS, or ROAS. They lose clients because the clients stop trusting the person running the account. Over the years, I’ve learned that agencies fall into 4 tiers: 𝗟𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹 𝟭: 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝘂𝗿𝗳𝗮𝗰𝗲-𝗟𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹 𝗥𝗲𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗲𝗿 (𝗧𝗼 𝗯𝗲 𝗮𝘃𝗼𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗱) – Only shares the “good slides.” – Hides dips until the client notices. – Blames market factors instead of owning the truth. Perfect if you want churn disguised as “performance issues.” 𝗟𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹 𝟮: 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗠𝗲𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗰 𝗗𝗲𝗳𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿 – Lives inside dashboards. – Talks in ACOS, ROAS, TACOS… but never context. – Explains numbers, not decisions. 𝗟𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹 𝟯: 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗛𝗼𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗠𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗿 (𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗶𝗺𝘂𝗺 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗮𝗿𝗱) –Tells the full context before the client asks. –Shows the full picture, even when it stings. –Treats transparency as part of the work, not an afterthought. 𝗟𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹 𝟰: 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝗶𝗰 𝗣𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗻𝗲𝗿 (𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗰𝘆 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝗰𝗹𝗶𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗸𝗲𝗲𝗽𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘆𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘀)  – Communicates proactively. – Turns dips into new angles for growth – Explains why something happened and what happens next. Partners like these get clients saying the line every agency wants to hear: “I trust you. Do what you think is best.” That sentence becomes your new KPI. You can recover from a bad month. You can recover from a missed target. But you will never recover from a client who stops believing you. Because when your clients trust your word as much as your data You’ve already won.

How to not lose your clients’ trust as an agency? Here’s 8 hard truths I've learned over the years. 1. Trust is built when expectations are met consistently over time. It’s better to consistently meet the bar than to exceed the target one moment and dip well below it the next. 2. Most agencies overpromise and underdeliver. This erodes trust faster than anything else. 3. Clarity is kindness. Being upfront about what you can and can't do builds more trust than trying to be a "yes" agency. 4. Trust isn't just about delivering results. It's about how you communicate, how you handle mistakes, and how you show up day after day. 5. Your internal processes directly impact client trust. If your team is chaotic internally, it will show externally. 6. Clients don't expect perfection. They expect honesty and accountability when things go wrong. 7. Trust at scale requires systems. You can't rely on individual heroics as you grow. 8. The biggest opportunity to build trust arrives when you make a mistake. Admit you screwed up, fix it quickly, and clearly communicate how you’ll prevent it happening again—and you’ll be left with stronger trust than before. And by the way… Trust with your team works the same way. Communicate expectations clearly, meet them consistently, admit mistakes—and make sure this flows both ways. Any of y’all have lessons to share in building trust with clients or your team?

Cautionary tale: Our highest-performing client fired us. I made stupid, avoidable mistakes that many founders I talk to are guilty of! Are you? We hit a ROAS of 18+ for 6 straight months… and the client still fired us. It was one of our earliest “dream” clients. A kids’ clothing DTC brand, scaling like crazy, profits through the roof, hundreds of thousands in revenue tied directly to our ads. We naively thought "They'll NEVER leave!" Then one Tuesday… they did. No dip in results. No big conflict. Just gone. We were blindsided, because we believed what so many agency owners believe: “Results will keep clients.” They don’t. Results are table stakes. You’re hired to produce them. The real glue is relationship and clarity. And back then, we had neither. Looking back, here’s what we got wrong: No structured onboarding → We skipped building trust early and left expectations fuzzy. No defined cadence → Reports sent, but no consistent narrative to make the invisible work visible. No clear scope → We let “marketing” mean whatever they thought it meant. Ambiguity everywhere → Violated my (now) core value of Ruthless Clarity. The client saw great numbers… but not leadership, not partnership. When results feel like luck, trust evaporates. It stung. But it forced us to rebuild: - Visual week-by-week onboarding roadmap shown before signing. - Weekly strategy calls in the first phase, shifting to biweekly only after trust is built. - Scope definition SOPs so every deliverable has a yardstick. - “If it didn’t get communicated, it didn’t get done” → We make the work visible and strategic. I dig into this story in greater detail in the latest Agency Uplift episode: https://lnkd.in/geyahvk6

𝐂𝐚𝐧 𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐛𝐞 𝐦𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐝? Most companies measure performance.  Very few measure trust. I kicked off a new project yesterday   with a national firm based in Alberta. We’re starting by surveying their customers to understand one thing: 𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐦𝐮𝐜𝐡 𝐝𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐜𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐦? It’s a simple question.  But most companies never ask it directly. They look at: • Revenue   • Retention   • Referrals   • Customer satisfaction scores  All useful. But none of them answer the real question: 𝐃𝐨 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐜𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐮𝐬 𝐞𝐧𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 𝐭𝐨 𝐤𝐞𝐞𝐩 𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐮𝐬? Some of Canada’s best managed companies don’t leave this to assumption. They measure it. Because over time, we’ve seen something consistent: 𝐓𝐫𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐜𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐟𝐮𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐬𝐮𝐜𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬. Long before revenue changes, trust shows up in customer behaviour: • Hesitation   • Slower decisions   • Fewer referrals   • Projects that feel harder than they should  The companies that invest in this research aren’t looking for reassurance. They want clarity. They want to understand where trust is strong —   and where small gaps are starting to form —   before it affects growth. That’s the idea behind the 𝐂𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐓𝐫𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐈𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐱(TM). Not a score for marketing. A way to see your business through your customer’s eyes. Because what owners believe customers feel…  and what customers actually experience… is sometimes very different.