Hiring a PR agency is one of the most consequential decisions a technology company can make. The right partner can land you in TechCrunch, position your founders as must-read voices in your industry, and accelerate the kind of brand credibility that no paid media budget can replicate. The wrong one can burn your budget, stall your momentum, and leave you with nothing but a deck full of vague metrics and polished excuses.

Client references are your best safeguard against making the wrong call — but only if you know what to ask. Most companies treat reference calls like a formality: a quick five-minute check-in that rarely surfaces anything the agency hasn't already prepped its past clients to say. That's a mistake. A well-run reference call is a rare window into what it's actually like to work with an agency: the quality of their ideas under pressure, how they handle a slow news cycle, whether the senior team shows up after the contract is signed, and whether they truly understand the world you operate in.

This guide walks you through exactly what questions to ask PR agency references, how to frame them to get honest answers, and what signals — positive and negative — to watch for. Whether you're evaluating your first agency or switching after a disappointing relationship, these questions will help you hire with far greater confidence.

Why Client References Matter More Than You Think

Every PR agency will show you their best work during a pitch. The case studies will be polished, the media logos will be impressive, and the team in the room will be sharp and enthusiastic. What you won't see in a pitch deck is how the relationship felt six months in, what happened when a campaign underperformed, or whether the person who sold you the engagement was the same person doing the actual work. Client references fill that gap.

References also give you something no amount of agency self-promotion can replicate: a third-party perspective from someone who had real money on the line. Past clients have been where you are. They've had the same questions, faced the same uncertainties, and lived through the actual experience of working with the agency day to day. Their insights are grounded in the same realities you'll face — tight timelines, competitive news cycles, internal stakeholders with strong opinions about messaging, and the relentless pressure to show ROI.

The key is approaching these calls as a genuine investigation rather than a rubber stamp. Come prepared with specific questions. Give references room to be candid. And listen not just to what they say, but to how they say it — tone, hesitation, and enthusiasm are all telling.

Before You Call: How to Set Yourself Up for Honest Answers

A few preparation steps will dramatically improve the quality of what you learn from any reference conversation. First, ask the agency to provide references from clients in a similar sector, at a similar stage of growth, or with comparable PR goals. A reference from a Fortune 500 enterprise tells you very little if you're a Series B fintech startup trying to break into tier-one tech media for the first time.

Second, request references beyond the agency's obvious showcase clients. Any agency worth its retainer can produce one or two glowing references. Ask for three to five, and ideally ask whether you can speak with a client who had a challenging experience or whose engagement didn't go entirely to plan. An agency willing to facilitate that kind of honest conversation is one that's confident in how they handle difficulty — and that's a genuinely positive signal.

Finally, let the reference know in advance what you're looking for. A brief email introduction explaining that you're evaluating the agency for a tech PR engagement and would love 20–30 minutes of their honest feedback will help them come prepared to give you useful, specific answers rather than scrambling for details on the fly.

Questions to Ask About Results and Performance

Results are obviously the starting point, but generic questions like "did you get good coverage?" rarely yield useful answers. Go deeper. Ask the reference to describe two or three specific outcomes the agency delivered that they were genuinely proud of — and then ask them to describe a campaign or pitch that didn't land as expected, and what the agency did in response. That second question is where you'll learn the most.

You'll also want to understand how the agency measured and reported on its own performance. Did they track meaningful metrics like domain authority of placements, share of voice versus competitors, or the business impact of specific coverage? Or did they simply send a monthly PDF with a list of links and call it reporting? Agencies that take measurement seriously tend to be the ones that take accountability seriously, too.

Key questions to explore in this area:

• What were the most significant media outcomes the agency delivered for you?
• How did they handle a campaign or pitch that didn't perform as hoped?
• Did they proactively flag when something wasn't working, or did you have to raise it first?
• How did they define and report on success? Were the metrics meaningful to your business goals?
• Looking back, did the coverage they generated actually move the needle for your brand?

Questions to Ask About Communication and Working Style

The day-to-day working relationship with a PR agency can make or break the engagement, regardless of results. A high-performing agency that's difficult to communicate with, slow to respond, or misaligned on expectations will cause friction that compounds over time. References are one of the best ways to get an honest read on what the working relationship actually feels like.

Ask about responsiveness: when something urgent came up — a breaking story, a crisis moment, a time-sensitive opportunity — how quickly did the agency respond, and how effectively did they handle the pressure? Ask about proactivity: did the team bring ideas and opportunities to the client, or did they wait to be directed? And ask about transparency: were they honest about what was and wasn't working, even when the news wasn't good?

Useful questions in this area include:

• How responsive was the team to urgent requests or fast-moving news situations?
• Did the agency proactively bring you story ideas and media opportunities, or was it mostly reactive?
• How were disagreements or misalignments handled? Did they push back constructively when needed?
• How often did you meet, and did those meetings feel valuable or routine?
• Did you ever feel like you were managing the agency more than they were managing the work?

Questions to Ask About Industry and Sector Expertise

This is especially critical for technology companies. PR in the tech sector is not a generic discipline. A generalist agency pitching your AI platform to the same journalists who cover lifestyle brands is going to miss. Sector expertise matters because it shapes everything from the story angles the agency proposes to the journalists they have genuine relationships with to the speed at which they can contextualize a trend and help you own a moment in the conversation.

If you're operating in a specialized vertical — fintech, crypto, greentech, legaltech, or AI — the bar is even higher. Ask references whether the agency demonstrated real fluency in the sector, not just familiarity with the terminology. Did their team understand the regulatory environment? Did they know which journalists actually cover your space with depth and credibility? Did they help you position against competitors in a way that felt grounded in genuine market understanding?

Questions to ask here:

• Did the agency demonstrate genuine understanding of your industry, or did it feel like they were learning on your dime?
• Were the media outlets they targeted actually relevant and credible within your sector?
• Did they help you identify and capitalize on industry trends in real time?
• How strong were their relationships with journalists who specifically cover your space?
• If you operate in a regulated or technically complex industry, did they handle that complexity well?

For context on why this depth matters: agencies like SlicedBrand build dedicated practices around verticals like fintech PR, crypto PR, AI PR, greentech PR, and legaltech PR precisely because the media landscapes, regulatory contexts, and audience expectations in each vertical are genuinely distinct. When you're talking to references, you want to know whether the agency you're evaluating has built that same depth — or is applying a one-size-fits-all approach with a different logo on the pitch deck.

Questions to Ask About the Team You'll Actually Work With

One of the oldest frustrations in the PR industry is the bait-and-switch: senior talent closes the deal, junior team members handle the day-to-day, and the client never sees the people who impressed them in the pitch again. References are your best opportunity to find out whether this happened to them — and how much it mattered.

Ask specifically about who was actually running the account. Was there continuity in the team throughout the engagement, or did they experience high turnover? Did the senior strategists stay involved as the relationship matured, or did they become increasingly difficult to reach? The answers will tell you a lot about how the agency is structured and where its priorities lie.

Questions to ask:

• Who was your primary day-to-day contact, and how senior were they?
• Did the team that pitched you remain involved throughout the engagement?
• Did you experience any significant turnover in your account team, and if so, how was it handled?
• How accessible was senior leadership when you needed strategic input?
• Did the team feel like genuine partners in your growth, or more like service vendors fulfilling a brief?

Red Flags to Listen For in Reference Calls

Sometimes it's not what a reference says, but what they carefully avoid saying, that reveals the most. A reference who responds to every question with polished, enthusiastic praise without any nuance or specificity may have been coached — or may simply not feel comfortable being critical. Either way, that's worth noting. Press gently for specifics: "Can you give me a concrete example of that?" is a question that separates rehearsed answers from genuine experience.

Watch for these specific warning signals during the call:

• Vague answers about outcomes: If a reference can't name specific publications, campaigns, or measurable results, the agency may not have delivered meaningful work.
• Hesitation around communication or responsiveness: Pauses or qualifications when asked about the team's availability often indicate real frustration that's being softened for politeness.
• "They were great for the first few months": This phrase is a classic signal of an agency that over-delivers early to retain the client and then gradually deprioritizes the account.
• Inability to name who they actually worked with: If the reference struggled to remember their main contact or felt the team changed too frequently, that's a structural issue worth taking seriously.
• Reluctance to recommend without caveats: If a reference says something like "I'd work with them again, but only if..." — pay close attention to what follows. That conditional is the actual answer.

Turning Reference Insights Into a Final Decision

After your reference calls, give yourself time to synthesize what you've heard before making a decision. Note themes that appeared across multiple conversations: consistent praise for proactivity is meaningful; consistent vagueness about results is equally meaningful. Weight the feedback from references who were in the most similar situation to yours — same sector, similar company size, comparable PR objectives.

It's also worth considering what a reference's silence on certain topics tells you. If none of the references mentioned thought leadership, speaking opportunities, or podcast placements — services the agency claims to offer — it may indicate those capabilities are underdeveloped or rarely utilized. The best PR agencies are ones where clients rave about the full range of what they experienced, not just the headline media hits.

Ultimately, client references are not just a due diligence checkbox. They're a research tool. Used well, they can give you the confidence to commit to a partnership that will genuinely move your brand forward — or the clarity to walk away from one that looks better on paper than it performs in practice. In a market where a strong PR partnership can accelerate your growth trajectory by years, that clarity is worth every minute you invest in the process.

The Right Questions Lead to the Right Partner

Choosing a PR agency is a significant investment — in budget, in time, and in trust. Client references, when approached with the right questions and genuine curiosity, give you the clearest possible picture of what you're actually buying. Ask about real results, not just polished outcomes. Probe the working relationship, not just the work. Dig into sector expertise, team structure, and how the agency handles adversity as much as success. The answers you get will tell you far more than any pitch deck ever will.

For technology companies in particular, the stakes are high and the landscape is specific enough that a generalist approach simply won't cut it. The agency you choose should be able to demonstrate — through the words of its own past clients — that it understands your world, has the media relationships to reach the audiences that matter to you, and will show up as a genuine strategic partner long after the ink on the contract has dried.