The Blue Highway Beacon: Vol. III, NO. 1

Further Empowering Our Clients is More of a Focus Than Ever Before

…Or, I Looked Up, Took a Breath, and Nearly All of Q1 2026 was Gone…

By Ian Christopher McCaleb, BHA/BHG Founder & Principal

It’s the end of March, and I couldn’t possibly begin to reconstruct or account for where all the time has gone. Not only is 25 percent of 2026 out of the way, but we haven’t posted a company update since the end of October, when we re-launched the main Web site.

That’s five months down without any new horn-blowing or attention-seeking by us… which feels a bit strange internally by our self-set standards for marketing, yet the gap was wholly necessary.

And that is simply because we’ve had far too much to do in that time.

Since we last reported to our subscribers, we have:

• Put finishing touches on Version 1 of a proprietary, deliberately curated Customer Relations Management (CRM) system that will doubtlessly become our greatest outreach asset, not to mention, we think, the envy of our business sector,

• Added in-house Web design and Digital Marketing capabilities in London,

• Started an innovative and eye-catching full color print ad campaign,

• Added new senior consultants (at a time when others in our sector are slowing their hiring),

• Greatly expanded our Open-Source Intelligence (OSInt) capabilities in the US, adding to our already formidable abilities in the UK,

• Again, been one of just a small handful of comms and strategic services firms to be named to LawDragon’s coveted 2026 500 Global Leaders in Crisis Management list,

• Added increased customer care safeguards and avenues of interaction (see more just below – we see this as ‘big’),

• And, added several new, treasured, long-term clients: All, we believe, as the logical result of every bit of strategic heavy lifting we’ve been busy with in the five months since the last Beacon.

One of the most innovative strategic decisions we’ve made includes a title change for one of our longest-tenured veterans, Senior Vice President Andy Och, who now, aside from leading our external marketing and social media campaign efforts, now takes on the added responsibility of becoming Blue Highway’s first Client Relations Officer.

In essence, Andy will become the company’s ambassador of service and ‘goodwill,’ taking on an independent ombudsman’s-type role to assure that all Blue Highway Advisory and Blue Highway Global client teams are working to the client’s ultimate satisfaction. -- With the client, then, having a new direct communications line to BHA senior-most management about satisfaction, or more importantly, desired improvement or dissatisfaction, in working with assigned BHA advisors.

Andy will be contacting client leads routinely, (we anticipate a 90-day cadence, but the client can ultimately decide how often they want to have these conversations), to ask for reflections on levels of interaction and service, inquire about scope targets, discuss desired scope expansion or reduction, and to seek honest assessments of the client’s BHA team performance – even if those assessments come back to us characterized as ‘brutally’ honest.

There is no better direct communicator on our team than Andy, and the clients we have quizzed about the possibility of adding this function have responded with expansive (and in some cases, almost giddy) enthusiasm.

“When we say the client comes first and is the most important part of the equation, we mean it,” Andy says. “We will work from within to gather regular feedback from clients about how they feel things are going to make all necessary adjustments as we move through each phase of a client contract, adjusting Scopes or Work as we go, per the client’s unique aspirations and preferences.”

We’re confident in what we do, and clients have confirmed our confidence is reasonable by staying with us for very long terms indeed.

But the nagging question of how to get ‘better’ has dogged communications and PR firm internal planning meetings since PR’s Mesozoic era, and thus we’ve had to conclude that in the longest of long runs, it isn’t for us to say.

It’s for the clients to express, and for us to respond specifically, and in kind.

Too often in the comms agency world, clients have no available avenues to speak to an independent ear away from their working teams. Some law firms have experimented with this protocol, and some have mastered it, (some others, we hear, maybe not so much). We plan to get this right.

This is an absolute priority for us, starting Q2.

And so, if you’re a client, you’ll be hearing from Andy shortly.

If you’d like to be a client, Andy can help set you up as well.

And if you’re looking to maybe do some work with us in the fields we specialize in, please give us an immediate shout as well. In our first three years of existence, this is the first time I have made this ask so publicly. We need more expertise as we grow.

Next time around, new faces at Blue Highway, and new capabilities. The Next Beacon won’t be five-months in the making.