Before you do anything: work out where the problem sits. There are three causes, they feel exactly the same, and they need different interventions. Switching agencies fixes only one of them and costs you six months.
The three causes
1. The team. The people on your account are too junior, too busy, or not the people you met in the pitch. This is the most common cause and the easiest to fix: it is a conversation with the agency's management, not a break-up.
2. The briefing. You ask unclearly, late, or with shifting direction. If you recognise this pattern (every proposal needs rebriefing, feedback changes every round, five people decide), another agency will produce exactly the same result.
3. The agreements. The contract does not cover what you expect: too few hours for what you ask, no strategic work in the scope, a remuneration model rewarding the wrong behaviour. Here too, switching agencies changes nothing.
How to work out which it is
Ask the agency for three concrete examples of what they think went wrong, and give three of your own. Put those six side by side. If they all point at the same phase (the start, the execution, the delivery), you know enough.
A measurement helps more than a conversation here: have both sides answer the same questions on expertise, process and attitude, and look at the scores and above all at the differences. See how to evaluate your agency.
The order of interventions
- Name it, immediately and concretely. Not "we are not happy" but "this proposal deviated from the briefing on these three points". Waiting for the review turns a correction into an indictment.
- Ask for a different team if that is where it sits. That is a normal request, and a good agency handles it without drama.
- Revise the agreements if the scope or the model is wrong.
- Set a deadline. Three months with concrete expectations, and a moment to look back.
- Only then switch, if nothing changed after that period.
One thing not to do
Launch a pitch to shake up your current agency. It works once, it costs you the people you liked most, and the rest of the market hears about it.
If you would rather not have that conversation yourself, an evaluation by a third party is the shortest route to the same outcome without damaging the relationship. See Agency evaluation & remuneration.
See also: why the collaboration is grinding and when to switch agencies.