“YEAH, EVERYONE SEEMS HAPPY” - WHY WE MEASURE CLIENT SATISFACTION
Happy clients are at the core of everything we do at Sunshine and everything I’ve done throughout my career. If our clients aren’t satisfied with the work we’re delivering, then why are we bothering?
Despite years of leading client relationships, I’ve never followed a formal process to measure client satisfaction. “Happy clients” was often measured by telling senior leaders, “Yeah, everyone seems happy.” Of course, revenue tells part of the story, unhappy clients don’t spend or grow with you, but in 2025 I took the step to build on Sunshine’s processes, formalise and measure our Net Promoter Score (NPS) to better understand how our clients really feel about working with us.
Why We Chose to Measure NPS
NPS surveys ask a simple question: “How likely are you to recommend us to a friend or colleague?” to measure loyalty and advocacy.
I built a simple five question survey that included the NPS question alongside others designed to understand how well we know our clients and their brands, and where we can improve. We split this into two groups:
Retained clients, who we checked in with quarterly
Project clients, who received the survey at project completion
The survey didn’t replace our regular touchpoints, monthly and quarterly reviews focused on the work and the team, this survey was designed to give us a clear, repeatable way to understand what we’re doing well and where we can do better.
How We Approached 2025
We set internal targets to benchmark ourselves and challenge what “good” really looks like. We set a target of 50, based on the following tiered scoring:
Above 0 → More promoters than detractors (not great, but not bad)
Above 30 → Good
Above 50 → Excellent
Above 70 → World-class
By the end of the year, we achieved:
● 50 for our project clients
● 82 across our retained clients
● This gave us an overall average of 66 for the year.
The results exceeded all of my expectations. Particularly the score among our retained clients. They gave us valuable insight into where we’re delivering exceptional value and where we can continue to sharpen our offering.
What the Feedback Told Us
What’s been most meaningful isn’t just the scores, but what our clients shared in their responses:
‘You feel like part of our team, senior team involvement and closeness to our business on a regular basis, positive can-do attitude.’ Emma Heath, Director of Marketing at Quality Meat Scotland
‘The thought leadership you’ve brought, whether that’s new ideas or guidance on best practice has definitely added value and helped shape our approach.’ Timea Cooper, Digital Brand Manager at Highland Spring
‘Great energy, great ideas and delivered brilliantly.’ Lynne McEwan, Head of Brand at The Botanist
These really brought the numbers to life. They reinforce what we suspected, that strong strategic partnerships matter, and highlight where we’re already taking action, including clearer communication at project kick-offs, more structured check-ins and that clients are happy with a ‘less is more’ approach to ideas.
What We Learned and What’s Next
Through our first year of formal measurement:
● We’ve strengthened our processes, building better checkpoints into our workflows
● We’ve identified opportunities to improve the project experience, particularly for shorter-term deliveries
● We’re embedding NPS as a living tool, to back up those “Yeah, everyone seems happy” discussions.
We’re proud of these results, but more importantly, we’re committed to using this feedback to make Sunshine even more valuable to our clients’ success.
Why This Matters
As we look ahead to 2026, it’s impossible to ignore the growing role AI plays in how agencies operate. For us, that makes measuring client satisfaction more important, not less.
We use AI to support efficiencies within the team. From note-taking and summarising meetings to managing survey workflows. But the reason we do that is simple: to free up more time for meaningful, human interactions with our clients.
When it comes down to it, the reason we “bother”, the reason client satisfaction matters, isn’t the tools we use or the outputs we deliver. It’s the trust, understanding and conversations we build with the people we work alongside every day.
NPS helps us protect that. It gives us a structured way to listen, learn and ensure those relationships remain at the heart of everything we do.
Finally, thank you. To every client who took the time to respond, your honesty matters, and we don’t take it for granted.
We’re proud of these results, but of course we’re not getting complacent. We’re excited for 2026, pushing ourselves even further and challenging ourselves to raise those targets again.
