Gemma Barrett of Rapporting on Why Client Feedback Needs More Than a Satisfaction Score
Gemma Barrett is the Founder and Director of Rapporting, a client listening business for PR agencies. Rapporting spends 30 minutes with each of an agency's clients on a video call and writes up a full report of the conversation. Before starting it, Gemma spent years in corporate customer service, designing surveys and managing customers.
In this Q&A, Gemma shares what made her look beyond the survey, what PR agencies most often miss about how their clients really feel, and what is next for Rapporting, along with her advice for women thinking about starting their own business.
Her perspective is a reminder that a satisfaction score never explains why, and that the small issue nobody raises is often the one that ends a client relationship.
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Q: What made you start Rapporting, and why client listening for PR agencies?
After a career in customer service, I’d designed plenty of surveys, but I kept hitting the same question: what happens after the survey? Online surveys give you a snapshot, and a customer’s answer can be shaped by the commute they had that morning. I wanted to go deeper.
So we spend 30 minutes with each client on a video call, where tone and body language tell us what a form never could, and we write up a full report of each conversation.
PR agencies are a perfect fit. They build their reputations on relationships, and most work on retainers, so clients often won’t rock the boat, even when something isn’t right. Then a cheaper pitch arrives at retender and they’re gone. We give clients a safe, independent third party to tell the whole story to. That’s where the name comes from: rapport and reporting, working together.
Q: What do PR agencies most often miss about how their clients really feel?
Many agencies treat client listening as a tick-box exercise, a satisfaction score for the board meeting. But a score doesn’t tell you why. Often a client who leaves is unhappy about something small that was never fixed, and a candid conversation would have caught it months earlier. PR agencies spend their days protecting their clients’ reputations, but few have a way to hear how their own are really doing.
Q: What’s next for Rapporting, and what would you tell women thinking about starting their own business?
Rapporting is entering a new stage. We can now track trends in client satisfaction over time, so agencies can see what’s going well, spot issues early, and find quick wins, training needs or process fixes. We also work closely with account teams so they trust the process and use it to build stronger relationships with their clients.
To women thinking about starting out: take the first step before you feel completely ready. Remember what you’re good at and back yourself. Years in corporate customer service taught me how to manage customers, and being a customer myself means I can see both sides. Your own experience is more valuable than you think. I’ve also learned the importance of being clear about expectations from the start, so I can help manage my clients’ too.
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