When Clients are Your Biggest Problem

We give seminars all over the country about feedback and it’s impact on professional services firms, their clients, and the industry.  We often ask a fun question:

What is your biggest problem?

Every seminar we pose this question, a large percentage of the audience quickly and simultaneously chime in “THE CLIENTS!”

The audience says this in jest, but the notion is rooted in truth.  Too many professionals have the attitude that it’s clients that make our life so difficult.  That somehow, if we could just get the client out of the way, we could really do some good work.  The client hires us to solve their problem, then we commandeer their problem and turn it into our project.  No wonder why clients are our biggest challenge – they don’t care about our project at all!  All they care about is their problem.

Whose agenda are we serving when we preempt the client and claim a project?  Many architects are talking about “green” everything.  Many try to be environmentally sensitive on all their projects – even if it costs more.  Is that really what the client wants?  Or, is your social conscience to save the planet costing your client the only “green” he cares about?  Don’t get me wrong – green is good, and it often can save a lot of money.  But if your client’s problem is a budget that’s too thin – green should only be a consideration where it saves him money.  Use green strategies to solve his problems, not to create new ones!

The same thing applies with any variable on the project.   Our preferences for quality, aesthetic, budget, social conscious – they really shouldn’t matter.  In order to maximize our value to clients, we need to focus doggedly on their needs and preferences, not ours.  We need to demonstrate an awareness of the client’s problem, and demonstrate that we care enough to solve it.

The thing is, we can’t actually know our clients’ preferences if we’re not asking!  Even worse – their preferences change!  Their problem is not static, but constantly shifting, evolving, and responding to a vast matrix of variables and external influences often beyond control.  How can we possibly get the project right without constantly seeking to understand the evolving nature of the original problem as presented?

You can’t, of course.   We need conversation, communication, and feedback throughout the project life-cycle.  Feedback allows us to identify when we’ve gone off track and made the project ours.  Feedback makes known the changing parameters of the client’s problem.   Feedback keeps us focused on the client’s problem, let’s him see our focus, and truly maximizes our value.

Imagine what business would be like if we truly embraced the clients’ problems and became their expert problem solver, instead of just another problem they had to manage?

When People Think Cheap

When you are busy – and busy making money – you don’t have time to deal with aspects of life that are outside your realm of expertise.  Why would you change your own oil to save $10, when you’re busy making more money than that working?  Instead, you head to the local quick lube pay a little extra, and catch up on phone calls and email on your mobile while someone else does the dirty work.  That is so 2007.

As 2009 rolls out, we’ve seen a very different attitude.  In the A/E/C industry (and others), the amount of available work ground to a halt.  Almost everyone slowed down.  Almost everyone had extra time.  They didn’t have enough work to fill the hours they were hired to work.  One result – dramatic plunges in profitability.

When profits drop, you try to economize.  When people aren’t busy making money, they will often try to stay busy saving expenses.  Insourcing, rather than hiring experts where appropriate.  If you don’t have phone calls to make and emails to catch up on, why pay someone to change your oil?  You’d just be sitting in the reception area waiting.  Instead, you put on some grubby clothes, head to the auto parts store, and you save yourself $10.

Whatever your profession, your clients have likely done the same thing.  In the boom, they scurried around with more to do than time to do it.  With all the deals going on, money was flowing, so the easiest solution to getting work done was to hire you, the expert, to do it.  Now, with deals drying up, your clients have time to do parts of your job for themselves.  Not only is there less work overall, but less of the available work filters down to you.

Your value has changed.  In the “old days” a key part of your value was simply ability and availability.  You could do the work, and do it well enough to be worth the price you charged, relative to competitors.  Now, you have a new competitor – the client!  Your value pitch has to focus on how giving work to you is actually more cost effective than doing it on their own.  When you change your own oil, do you do a 24 point inspection?  Do you check all the fluids, lubricate the chassis, etc?  What effect will it have on your car to NOT do those things?  Besides, do you like to change your own oil, or are you just trying to save a buck?

You’ve got to understand the same case with your clients.  What are they doing (or trying to do) without you, that you used to do for them?  What are they doing, that they really wish you would do for them again?  Have you asked?  They may not only need help doing something, but might need help justifying to their boss why it’s more valuable and cost effective for you to do it instead.  Have you helped your client understand all the ways you can help them save money, and helped him give you the work?  Have you helped your client understand the risks of not employing an expert do to things that really need an expert to do well?

Knowing What to Charge by Knowing What (Your Clients Think) You Are Worth

After running an architectural firm for 20 years, I have found two consistent challenges to a firm’s prosperity that most design firms share:

1. We underestimate our value to our clients

2. We price ourselves according to Problem #1

If you work at a design firm, and especially if you manage a firm, don’t take offense. I believe that these problems were created over time and have a lot to do with the manner in which building contractors represent our work to owners. Since the perfect set of construction documents has likely never been created, contractors usually have something to complain about.

But blaming is the sport of children, so let’s find the solution to the problem.

Remember, the problem is not that clients don’t value our work; it’s that we assume that value is less than it really is. To correct an inaccurate assumption, we need more accurate information concerning our value to clients. We have to ask our clients for this information, something that most design firms avoid like the plague. Why? See Problem #1 above; it’s tough to ask for feedback when you think it’s going to be critical.

The encouraging component to this entire dilemma is that Problem #1 is stated correctly. We underestimate our value to our clients. Our software company, DesignFacilitator, provides the only Client Feedback Tool customized for architects and engineers. Our tool collects objective data regarding what clients really think. Our research shows that, on average, clients think that their design firm’s deliverables and service “exceeded expectations”. This information is based upon over 30,000 responses from clients concerning their perception of their design firm’s value.

While asking for feedback from clients must be done very carefully to produce the most accurate and actionable data, our patent-pending system utilizes state-of-the-art perception mapping to identify what clients think, and what a design firm can do to maximize their value to those clients. Client feedback will also show you which approaches create problems for clients and how to avoid them. With this information, a firm will naturally make more effective decisions concerning:

1. Setting fees relative to a client’s perception of the firm’s value

2. Addressing ’scope creep’ more quickly as an additional service

3. Identifying the most effective assignments for staff

4. Identifying the most efficient training for staff

Since a design firm’s profitability helps determine its strength, a firm becomes stronger when it knows what it can charge by understanding what its clients think. Add to the mix the ability to enhance a firm’s worth by proper staff assignments and training– both made easier by utilizing client feedback regarding the results of staff’s efforts– and you have a recipe for sustainable prosperity.

Best In Class – 2010 Fee and Rate Adjustment Poll
As the premier feedback surveying group for the professional design industry, we are offering to gather and share anonymous fee and rate setting strategies.  By taking the following poll you will have immediate access to the valuable data gathered from firms across the US to help you in your fee and rate setting for 2010.

What percentage adjustment is your firm likely to implement regarding 2010 hourly rates?

• No change planned (65%)
• +2.5% (15%)
• Plan on reducing rates (8%)
• +5% (6%)
• +15% or more (4%)
• +10% (2%)

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What percentage adjustment is your firm likely to implement regarding 2010 standard fees?

• No change planned (59%)
• Plan on reducing rates (11%)
• +2.5% (10%)
• +15% or more (4%)
• +5% (3%)
• +10% (13%)

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Feedback and strategic reports from 50 clients for $999

If you would like to enjoy the competitive advantage of Best In Class client awareness for just $999,

email answers@designfacilitator.com or call us at 866-433-7322

Client Feedback Tool, DesignFacilitator, Feedback, Industry, Polls

Axium Webinar featuring Mike Phillips – Client Feedback

On April 9, 2009 Mike Phillips presented industry best practices webinar for Axium entitled Client Feedback: Learn Simple Ways to Enhance Your Firm.  This program illustrated how a design firm can create a simple system to collect and incorporate client feedback. View a preview clip of the presentation below:

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To view the webinar in its entirety, visit Axium’s Resource Center http://www.axiumae.com/resources/webinars/industry-webinar.aspx?id=61127

Will Your Firm be Ready?

We all know that good news regarding the business economy has been scarce in the past couple years. Architecture firms have certainly not been spared the downward spiral. In January of this year, the AIA’s Architecture Billings Index (ABI) dropped to the lowest level in history. The good news is that a few rays of sunshine may finally be breaking through the gloom. Regardless whether you are trying to survive the storm of a recession or be the front-runner in an economic rebound, to be successful you must know to what degree your clients value your services.

AIArchitect Architectural Billings Index

According to the April 24, 2009 AIArchitect, although generally weak conditions still prevail at many architecture firms (particularly in the West); fewer firms are reporting declining billings in the last several months. In March, the  AIA’s Architecture Billings Index (ABI) rose to its highest level since August 2008.  Growth in inquiries is reportedly the highest in a year.

When the economy in general and the construction industry in particular rebounds and growth returns, will your clients come to you for the services they need? Just as your firm’s survival depends on client loyalty in the worst of economic times, your firm’s growth depends on it during economic recovery. In both cases, your staff must strive to meet client needs to ensure client satisfaction and loyalty. First, they must be aware of the clients’ needs. Then, they must respond to those needs. Lastly and most importantly, the architect or designer must know to what degree the client felt his needs were satisfied. They must ask, act and react.

Now, if there was just a tool that could help do all this…  DesignFacilitator’s Feedback Tool was specifically designed to help architects and designers become aware of not only their clients’ needs, but their satisfaction with the designers’ actions in fulfilling those needs. The tool helps you to continuously collect feedback, analyzes it and presents the results in simple understandable reports. See how this simple yet powerful web tool works here.

Source: http://info.aia.org/aiarchitect/thisweek09/0424/0424b_otb.cfm

Getting Started with a Feedback Initiative

Regardless of how you collect feedback – almost everyone agrees it is important to do so.  Organizing your client feedback efforts into a systematic approach will ensure that you actually get the results you need.

The WickerPark Group, which focuses on client service interviews and client growth programs in the legal industry, authors a great blog, and a recent post highlights some good advice for getting started on a feedback regimen:

The success of client feedback programs requires leadership buy in and top down support. When asking for feedback and opinions from clients, the firm is making a promise that it will respond to the feedback – both good and bad.

Effective feedback doesn’t just happen – like anything else it takes some effort, guided by a purpose, to maximize the potential benefits.  When the impetus for improving client relationships through feedback comes from the top, with support down the command chain, the results can be quick and extraordinary.

Each client requires a different service strategy.

This simple statement captures the entire essence of why feedback is critical.  Every client is a little bit different – and each person you interact with has his or her own set of personal preferences, needs, cares, concerns, and personalities.

Your process might be great in general, but needs subtle tweaking to maximize the relationship potential for each interaction.  Helping your staff understand this, and that feedback during the project is the only way to identify adjustments, will drive use of any feedback systems you put in place.

Is the firm willing to respond to the feedback and take action? How?

This may seem like an obvious question, but the answer will decide your success with a feedback program.  Prompt, effective, and helpful follow-up, focused on the client who gave you feedback, will create new opportunities and positive relationships.  When those engaging in feedback activities begin to see these results, they will naturally tend to continue collecting feedback.

From the very beginning, start with the end in mind – the goal of getting feedback is to follow-up with a response to the benefit of the client.  Start off with great responses, and your feedback program will grow quickly and sustainably.

Feedback Case Study: Discovering Expectations Early

Feedback collected early in a project’s lifecycle critically affects many projects to better results. Marc Christopher and Jason Byrd, architects at Phillips Architecture in Raleigh, NC, share an experience that occurred in the schematic design phase of a new activity center for a local church.

Having used a previously successful process to collect programming information about the project, Marc and Jason met with the client to review the initial schematic designs. The meeting went smoothly, and both left feeling the project was on track. However, after a survey was sent to the eight participants, two attendees rated the efforts “needing improvement.”

Surprised, Jason quickly followed up, and discovered that these project participants hadn’t been through an architectural project of this nature before – and therefore had no basis to set expectations for what a schematic design was, nor what the deliverables from that phase included. After some discussion (and education) everyone was up to speed. Subsequent surveys revealed a very high level of excellence, consistently exceeding the client’s more informed expectations. The project resolved successfully. Of the experience, Jason says, “Had we never sent a survey requesting feedback, we would have been oblivious to the client’s feelings as to where we stood to date.” Armed with this information, Jason could adjust expectations accordingly by walking through the project’s process clearly.

Taking the lesson learned more broadly, Marc and Jason now approach new projects differently. Rather than take for granted an understanding of the architectural project’s process and deliverables, an initial project conversation is held to:

• Clearly quantify expectations for the next deliverable.
• Establish a clear timeline to meet those expectations.
• Communicate any deviations in advance.

“While these items may seem obvious, we sometimes take for granted that we are delivering in accordance with our clients expectations, ” says Marc.

Recent projects have accordingly seen consistently high marks across the board, as the improved processes are taking place.

A Service Driven Business

Chris Hazlett, President of Integrate (www.integratechange.com) wrote an excellent blog post about focusing on client needs. You can read it here.  Though Chris’s business of custom software development differs in many ways from Architects and Engineers, the service delivery nature of work is very much the same.  An excerpt from the post sheds light on the right attitude to have about your clients:

Most recently, I received a call from one of the division heads at Merrill Lynch about the software we developed for them, Account and Account::Coaching. If you have ever gone through a merger at a big company, you know that one of the hardest things to merge (other than the personnel) are the different software systems that run the businesses. So when this director called me to talk about Account, I thought they were going to ask what the best way to decommission it is. To my surprise, Bank of America and Merrill Lynch were so happy with the system that Bank of America’s representatives have made the decision to continue to use it into the foreseeable future.

The reason I tell that story is not for accolades. I tell that story because I’m extremely proud of what we accomplished, not just in the software arena (It’s been running for 2 1/2 years without being touched by us), but because of how proud I am that Integrate got it right for this client. Low-maintenance and ease of use are certainly worth praise, but the service we had to provide to get it right is more important to me. (emphasis by Ryan Suydam).

All to often in service delivery of any sort, we tend to lose sight of the service we provide, and focus instead on how great the product of that service is.  If clients only needed great product – a market would exist to buy and sell products (a completed set of plans, for example) without the added cost of service included.

Rather, clients need care, attention, and a vast array of problems solved. A product doesn’t actually solve problems, and often times presents a host of new problems altogether.  The product is all about ME – and my “masterpiece”.  The service, on the otherhand, is about YOU – the client – and how I can help YOU with the problems you face.

As you compete for work against increasingly desperate competitors – who often have “better” examples of previous product – stay focused on the client’s service needs today.  Take pride in how well the service is delivered first and foremost, and your clients are sure to feel the product delivered is a success.  Measure your ability to provide quality service by collecting feedback often!

Feedback and the Johari Window

DesignFacilitator’s Client Feedback Tool uses many of the premises described by the Johari Window. The Johari Window describes two axis of feedback:

• Asking for Feedback (Horizontal)
• Giving Feedback (Vertical)

In brief, the health of your relationship with someone (a client for example) can be measured by the SIZE of your “arena” (see the diagram). The more you ask for feedback, the more awareness you develop about yourself – reducing your blind spot and increasing your arena (the vertical line moves to the right). Likewise, the more feedback you provide, the smaller your facade, and again, the bigger your arena (the horizontal line moves down).

Diagram of the Johari Window

Using a feedback system like DesignFacilitator to constantly ask for feedback from clients will increase the health of your client relationships. When you know what your clients think and feel about your project processes, you have eliminated your blind spot. Being aware of your relationships’ quality allows you to make intelligent, informed business decisions (such as when a client will be amenable to a fee increase).

Likewise, building a healthy system of communication by asking for feedback frequently will enable you to give feedback to your clients as well. With an open feedback loop, you can both guide and tweak each others’ processes to create better performing projects for everyone.