After 90 days: how should you evaluate your communications partner?
Use the 90-day review to compare objectives, outputs, working arrangements and early observable effects. It should produce decisions about what to continue, correct or stop, rather than treating activity as progress.
Agree a starting point at launch
Record objectives, priority audiences, decisions and available evidence from the outset. Identify dependencies such as legal approval, expert access, executive availability and institutional calendars. They affect what the agency can deliver and should not appear for the first time as explanations at the review.
Three months is a useful management checkpoint, not a universal deadline for reputation change. Some effects can emerge quickly; others require time and appropriate measurement. A review should be able to conclude that a metric cannot yet be interpreted rather than manufacture a success story.
Review four levels of performance
| Level | Review question |
|---|---|
| Delivery | Were agreed outputs reliable and timely? |
| Usefulness | Did they support a significant decision or interaction? |
| Observed effects | What changed among audiences, and what evidence supports it? |
| Ways of working | Were approvals, escalation and priorities effective? |
This is a Belief System assessment framework, to be adapted to the mandate. AMEC’s measurement principles provide a useful reference. Executive advice, public affairs and media relations should not be judged through a single generic activity counter.
Prepare a shared, evidence-based review
The agency should bring outputs, scope consumption, decisions, problems and recommendations. The company should bring feedback on usefulness, missing information, delayed approvals and internal changes. For headquarters–France work, examine whether both sides received usable information in time.
Reconstruct a few representative sequences: when was an alert raised, who decided and which version was approved? This is more useful than a general argument about responsiveness. It distinguishes problems of method, capacity, priorities and cooperation.
Interpret differences without claiming automatic causation
In a fictional case, media volume rises but coverage remains imprecise. The next priority may be stronger evidence and expert preparation, rather than more outreach. Conversely, preventing an ill-prepared announcement can be valuable without generating visible coverage.
Document external factors such as market developments or regulatory decisions. Separate measured results, plausible contribution and hypotheses requiring testing. Where data is missing, agree a proportionate way to collect it during the next period instead of retroactively inventing a baseline.
End with decisions and named owners
Produce a short action record: work to continue or stop, scope changes, owners and dates. Identify choices requiring budget approval. Recommendations without accountability cannot be meaningfully reviewed next time.
Set the next quarter’s priorities and evidence needs together. If the relationship is not working, organise a documented transition and useful file handover. A successful review improves the ability to decide, including when the decision is to reduce or end the mandate.
Sources and further reading
From insight to action
Reputation dashboard: template and indicators
A reputation dashboard should inform decisions.
Communications strategy
Connect communications priorities with organisational decisions.
Media relations: how to assess an agency beyond its contact list
Assess a media relations agency through its understanding of the issue, the evidence it can help assemble and the quality of its editorial judgement. The size of a journalist database says little about those capabilities.
Agency fees: how to compare two genuinely different proposals
Compare total cost against a common scope: advice, production, seniority, coordination, availability and expenses. Two prices become meaningful only when responsibilities and exclusions are explicit.
Plan your selection
A short introduction is enough to start: your organisation, the decision at hand, the audiences involved and your deadline. Confidential documents can follow through an agreed channel.
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