What clients want from PR firms in the post-pandemic era

Change offers a window for risk-taking and innovation, for new thinking and improved efficiency. For comms pros, the COVID-19 pandemic has transformed their influence within organizations. It’s demonstrated their unique value in reassuring anxious stakeholders and reaching ever more distant audiences.

For PR agencies, it’s created the opportunity to recommit to excellent client service.

PR has always been a relationships business, but those relationships were put to the test during the pandemic. And coming out of the crisis, clients are clamoring for time with senior strategists and experts.

“There is a higher level of expectation for partnership with senior counsel and senior support,” says Katie Huang Shin, president of Big Valley Marketing and a 2021 honoree in Ragan and PR Daily’s Top Women in Communications Awards.

Part of the increased demand for senior strategy help is due to ongoing pandemic uncertainty and marketplace disruption. But that’s not the full story.

The expectations clients face from their own stakeholders haven’t really changed despite the pandemic’s effects, says Shin.

A turning point for business leaders