Article · 5 min read
Trust goes the model stays.
We should talk.
Trust is the invisible foundation of every agency relationship. Until at some point the question hangs in the room: is the agency actually working for me? Or only for itself?
The problem rarely begins with a major rupture. It begins with small irritations. The promised consultant disappears. Decisions become opaque. The work can hardly be assessed. Both sides notice that something isn’t right. And still don’t talk about it.
Here, two parties try to find out why trust has turned into caution. And whether a relationship can be repaired whose biggest problem is that both sides pretended for too long that everything was fine.
Minutes of a therapy session.
Opening
The therapist asks both parties to introduce each other as they perceive each other.
K. begins: “An agency. We’ve been working together for three years. In the pitch it was love at first sight. Since then I’ve sometimes wondered whether I hired the same agency I met back then.”
A. nods. Says nothing. The therapist notes: recognition without discussion.
The core problem
The therapist asks K. when trust was first broken.
K. reflects. “Not broken. Torn. Very slowly. The first tear was when I noticed that the consultant I had signed the contract with suddenly only showed up at big meetings. The actual work came from someone else. Younger. Good, but not what I had expected.”
A. clears their throat. “We have a team. No one person can do everything. Everyone knows that.” K.: “Known, yes. Discussed, no.”
The therapist notes: the problem isn’t reality. It’s the silence about it. In 1976, Jensen and Meckling described this phenomenon as moral hazard: when the client can’t fully observe the resources actually being used, structural room opens up for discrepancies between what was promised and what is delivered. Not fraud. But a gap that costs trust.
The structure of the problem
The therapist explains what she has observed in many similar sessions. There is a fundamental imbalance: one side knows more than the other. The agency knows who is really working, how much effort is really involved, what is really possible. The client knows none of this and often can’t reliably judge it even after the project is finished. This is the structural feature of creative services as credence goods: services whose quality can’t be clearly determined even after delivery.
K. nods slowly. “After every project I feel I have no way of checking whether I was well advised.” A., quietly: “Neither do we, always.” A brief silence.
The therapist notes: both are caught in the same dilemma. Only one side knows it.
On transparency
The therapist asks A. why this isn’t communicated openly.
A. thinks. “Because you don’t sell uncertainty. Clients want trust. Clarity. The feeling of being in good hands.”
K.: “I want a good feeling, yes. But that also comes from facts. Who is working on my project? With what experience? Why this approach and not another? What did you discard before presenting this to me?” A. is silent.
K., more calmly: “I’m not asking this to control you. I’m asking because I want to trust your work. And sometimes trust needs insight to create understanding.”
The therapist notes: transparency is feared as a weakness. Yet it is the only foundation for strength. In 1994, Morgan and Hunt showed that trust in business relationships works as a functional substitute for formal control, but only when it rests on real knowledge, not on a carefully tended impression.
The question of responsibility
The therapist asks who would like to see the problem solved. Both raise their hands at the same time. Then they look at each other. For the first time in this session.
A.: “We never learned to discuss this openly. The pitch is designed to persuade. For trust through impression. Not for trust through insight.”
K.: “And I never asked. Because I didn’t know I was allowed to. Because the dynamic was always: you’re the experts. I trust you.” A.: “That’s a high level of trust.” K.: “It was a blind one.”
The therapist notes: the trust problem is not one side’s failure. It’s the result of a dynamic that both sides failed to question for years.
Prognosis
The therapist closes the session with an assessment.
Trust between agencies and clients isn’t destroyed. It is structurally weakened. By an information gap that both sides know about and that neither side can close alone. The solution doesn’t lie in better promises. It lies in fewer promises and more insight. In conversations that don’t begin only once something has gone wrong. In a relationship that can bear uncertainty, because it rests on real knowledge, not on a carefully tended impression.
K. asks whether a second session is necessary. The therapist smiles. “That depends on whether you continue the conversation after this session.”
End of minutes. Homework for both: say what has so far gone unsaid.
47% of clients believe their agency really works for them (Double Check, 2024). 53% don’t. So far, neither side has asked out loud why.
State of research
The principal-agent problem, theoretically grounded above all by Ross (1973) and by Jensen and Meckling (1976), describes situations in which a client (principal) hires a service provider (agent) without being able to fully observe how they proceed. The resulting moral hazard risk, with the agent acting in their own interest rather than the client’s, is particularly pronounced in agency practice, because creative services as credence goods (Darby & Karni, 1973) are hard to assess even ex post. The seniority asymmetry between pitch and delivery, with experienced consultants winning the job and less experienced teams delivering it, is a classic case of this moral hazard. The commitment-trust theory of Morgan and Hunt (1994) describes trust as a central driver of successful business relationships and as a functional substitute for formal control: where quality can’t be measured, trust replaces control and thereby becomes a strategically critical resource. An international industry survey (Double Check, 2024) quantifies the resulting trust deficit: only 47% of clients credit their agency with a consistent focus on results, only 40% see it as a long-term growth partner. The master’s thesis (Walter, 2026) shows empirically that high staff turnover at agencies makes this problem worse: every change costs implicit brand and industry knowledge and extends the onboarding period by an average of a quarter of a year.
Figures
47%
of clients credit their agency with a consistent focus on results (Double Check, 2024)
40%
see their agency as a long-term growth partner (Double Check, 2024)
81%
of agency executives name the personal client relationship as the most important driver of loyalty (Khan, 2025)
approx. 3 months
average onboarding period when changing agencies in industries that require explanation (IP 9)
327
marketing managers were surveyed in the underlying industry survey (Double Check, 2024)
Direct quotes
“But that usually also comes from experience with agencies, that it’s really worthwhile engaging with the agency’s leadership, because that’s where extremely valuable input comes from; with every level I go down, this input noticeably gets thinner.”
IP 9 · Corporate Identity Management “When changing agencies on a larger scale, it takes at least a quarter of a year. That’s valuable time in which we’re not continuing to work on the issues, but really just conveying the basics.”
IP 9 · Corporate Identity Management “Since this is a people’s business, company culture, ways of working and the personal level have to match as well as professional expertise.”
IP 3 · Leadership, Marketing “An established partner provides a solid basis for legitimizing decisions to your own hierarchy.”
IP 2 · Corporate Communications Expertise
What this means in practice
The trust problem isn’t solved by better promises in the pitch, but by structural transparency in the collaboration. Specifically: promising senior continuity throughout the entire project and keeping that promise. Showing the client from the start who works at what level and why. Building in regular quality checks that assess not only the result but also the collaboration. And documenting services proactively: not waiting until the client asks, but regularly showing what has been achieved.
Trust goes the model stays.
Back to ResearchTrust doesn’t come from better promises, but from more insight.
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