Is your Client Services team set up to serve clients well today?
Why now is the moment to invest in your team
Waiting has its own cost, and it's becoming harder to ignore
With the second quarter underway, agency leaders across the UK, Europe and the US are navigating a familiar tension. The external environment is uncertain, it rarely isn't, but internally, the questions are sharpening.
Are we set up to serve our clients well?
Do we have the right people in place?
Can we afford to wait?
Yet, there's still hesitation.
Do we hire now, or do we wait and see how the next few months play out?
It's a fair question. In the last couple of years, a lot of agencies made difficult decisions, and the focus was firmly on protecting margins rather than building teams. That caution made sense at the time.
But waiting has its own cost, and that's becoming harder to ignore.
At a market level, the signals are broadly positive. UK ad spend is expected to push past £50bn, and across the Atlantic, continued investment in digital, performance and data-led marketing points in the same direction. On paper, the conditions for growth are there.
Inside agencies, the picture is more complex. Teams are leaner than they were, client expectations have risen, and there's far less room for error. Client Services sits right at the centre of that, balancing delivery, relationships and commercial pressure simultaneously.
What's also changed is how clients assess their agency partners. Strong work is still essential, but it's no longer enough on its own. Clients want to feel that their agency genuinely understands their business, not just the brief in front of them. They expect a point of view, not just execution.
When that's missing, relationships start to feel transactional. When it's there, everything changes. Conversations become more open, trust builds faster, and commercial opportunities tend to follow. That difference comes down to the people leading those relationships day to day.
What "good" looks like has changed
Hiring is picking up, but agencies aren't simply rebuilding what they had before. The expectations placed on Client Services have evolved and so has the definition of the right hire.
There's greater emphasis on commercial awareness, on speaking confidently about outcomes, and on understanding how different parts of an agency fit together. It's less about managing a process and more about owning a relationship. That makes each hire more consequential.
The cost of not hiring when it's needed has also come through clearly this year. When teams are stretched, it shows. Work becomes reactive, communication gets rushed, and the quality of client interaction starts to slip even when the underlying work is still strong. Over time, that erodes trust. Clients notice when they're not getting the attention or the thinking they expect, and that's often where relationships begin to drift.
The agencies doing this best are hiring deliberately, bringing in people who can take genuine ownership of key accounts and strengthen what's already there. In that context, strong Client Services talent isn't a nice-to-have. It's how you protect existing revenue and create room to grow.
Retention is the new growth strategy
There’s also a trend worth noting. Retention has become a more conscious strategic priority. Winning new business will always matter, but in a cautious market, growth is increasingly coming from existing clients. That puts even more weight on the consistency and quality of client relationships over time.
And again, that comes back to the Client Services team.
It's still a people business
For all the changes happening across the industry, advertising remains a people business at its core. The difference between an agency that delivers and one that feels like a genuine partner is rarely about process but about the people clients interact with.
For anyone leading a team right now, the real question isn't whether the market feels stable enough to hire. It's whether you have the right people in place to support your clients properly over the next six to twelve months.
The conditions are improving, even if they're not perfect, but opportunity only translates into growth if the team is set up to make the most of it. The agencies moving forward with intent, particularly in Client Services, are the ones best placed to build momentum as the year progresses.
Whatever point you're at in your planning cycle, now is a good moment to take stock and make deliberate decisions about what comes next.
For a lot of agencies, one of those decisions will be about people and it starts with the people closest to your clients.
If you're reviewing your Client Services team or considering your next hire, I'm always happy to share what I'm seeing across the market.
Get in touch to discuss how I can help.
