Over the last decades many companies have discovered the benefits and advantages public relations can offer for the improvement of their communications and business operations. Efficient public relations can help companies to spot out, mold and change their target customer and other audiences? perceptions about their bands, services and products, which, in their turn, greatly affect the stakeholders? behavior and actions towards those companies.

Owing to this fact, the professional services PR market has been experiencing a rapid growth and extension. Many older public relations companies attained a rich history of achievements and have grown to be leading public relations shops in their fields of expertise, along with coming into the sight of a great number of smaller independent public relations agencies, which provide a high level competition in the professional services PR market. Presently, the expected growth in the areas of public relations, consulting services and management is about five percent.

However, in spite of such significant and fast growth and development of the professional services PR market, now it experiences some serious scrutiny. This scrutiny is evoked by some negative clients? perceptions as to the public relations and consulting services? efficiency. In some cases, clients feel that certain public relations and consulting agencies exaggerate their claims and the effects of their services, though their performances do not match up to them. Sometimes, public relations shops send out the most professional and experienced person to close the sale of their services to a company, though, when the sale is closed, they send less experienced people to do the job.

Another problem that does not improve the situation is the lack of relevant measurement models and tools for public relations and consulting services. In most cases, clients are not able to count their returns on investments and to measure up the results, produced by those investments. These are two main factors that to some degree spoil the positive prospective of the ever growing and developing professional services PR market.

In view of the above listed problems, many companies prefer to work with smaller independent public relations and consultancy shops, since such communication agencies can offer their clients a closer partnership and more accountability in their team-work process. Usually, smaller agencies do not have many people on staff with them; thus, the person, who closes the sale is the one, who will actually perform the work.

Lately, the common practice in the public relations and consulting services market is insuring public relations and consulting agencies? professional liabilities. More and more often client companies make such insurances one of the demands of their partnership work with a public relations or a consultancy boutique. Therefore, such liability or error insurance no longer remains a nice-to-have in public relations business. Such is the present situation of the professional services PR market.