I can remember that light bulb moment after digesting the basic premise of the book, figuring out what my wife’s love language is, and then realizing that our love languages were very different from one another. This awareness, and acting on that awareness, has been a key component that has contributed to 12 wonderful years of marriage and the foundation to work as a successful team in raising our 4 children and navigating life.

Dr. Chapman states: “Once you identify and learn to speak your spouse’s primary love language, I believe that you will have discovered the key to a long-lasting, loving marriage. Love need not evaporate after the wedding but in order to keep it alive most of us will have to put forth the effort to learn a secondary love language. We cannot rely on our native tongue if our spouse does not understand it. If we want them to feel the love we are trying to communicate, we must express it in his or her primary love language.”

So what does this have to do with Feedback from Clients at AEC firms? As a Senior Client Feedback Specialist I help firms gather feedback from their client’s. The awareness of client’s expectations and preferences helps to create better client experiences, improve communication, build lasting relationships, and help with overall firm improvement. For instance: Your lead engineer gets feedback after a recent meeting presenting construction documents to her client. The engineer got a score of “needs improvement” on the schedule. Perhaps the meeting went 15 minutes long, even though the client drove the conversation beyond the scheduled end time. She now knows her client’s expectations at a much deeper level and that staying on schedule is very important when working with this client. She makes adjustments in her process and is now very schedule and deadline focused on this project. This is a win-win for the client, the engineer, and the firm.

We have years of expertise in helping firms with this process. Much like understanding your spouse’s “Love Language” our ClientFeedbackTool helps you understand the unique expectations and preferences of your clients. If I play with Dr. Chapman’s quote above, I can confidently say that, “Once you identify and learn to speak your clients primary language, I believe that you will have discovered the key to a long-lasting professional relationship.“ Our powerful tools and cutting-edge process helps give you ways to achieve this goal.

If you would like to learn more about our process and how our expertise can help your firm build better client experiences, feel free to reach out to begin a discussion . . . on the other hand if you want help on your marriage or relationship I can’t help you . . . but I do know of a great book to help!

Committed to service and collaboration, they were excited to partner with DesignFacilitator and use the Client Feedback Tool to learn more about the quality of their client services. By using a tool that systematically collects data on a numerical scale that can be merged and tracked over time, Transpo Group has the opportunity to see both a snapshot view of their client feedback and long term trends.

Asking for feedback regularly gives Transpo Group the data they need to determine what practices or ideas lead to client satisfaction, and also identify areas where their process may need adjustment. Because the feedback surveys are tied to specific projects, they can pinpoint exactly where more attention is needed, and give their client a chance to offer positive feedback or voice any concerns that were not addressed in previous conversations. It offers clients an easy and comfortable way to offer their suggestions and their positive comments and praise.

Transpo Group is using the overwhelmingly positive results of their feedback in a creative way. They periodically summarize their consistently great results, and place them into a chart posted directly onto their website. Additionally, testimonials and rave comments collected via the feedback process are displayed in rotation on the page’s side-bar. Now, when clients visit the firm’s website, they can view evidence that the firm is truly dedicated client service and strong relationships. (See adjacent image.)

Learn more about how to incorporate client feedback into your marketing efforts by exploring our blog. Find tips on how to get your firm into the Top 3%  by both collecting and taking action on your feedback,  read Koontz Bryant’s Client Feedback Journal describing how they started using feedback to improve their business, or learn Who should be asking for feedback and why its important to do it in a way that gives your firm honest, valuable information.

Based on popular demand, we are pleased to announce that the Client Feedback Tool version 5.3 now includes support for the Net Promoter Score/Ultimate Question survey methodology. Read on to understand what this is, how it complements our current system, and how to start using it. 

Net Promoter Score Overview 

In recent years, the Net Promoter Score (NPS) customer satisfaction system has become a popular and widely used management metric. Many modern satisfaction and Voice of the Customer (VoC) programs in some way incorporate NPS as a device. 

The founding principles of NPS can be found in The Ultimate Question, a book by Fred Reichheld. In short, Reichheld lays out a methodology in which ONE QUESTION (the Ultimate Question) provides data highly predictive of future growth and success. 

Based on extensive and sound research, NPS provides a simple, single metric by which to track your outcomes and progress. The basic question asked is: 

How likely are you to refer us to a colleague? 

The answer scale ranges from 0-10, very unlikely to very likely. The theory of NPS is that anyone answering 0-6 are detractors, people who will ultimately speak poorly of your company and services. Those responding with scores of 7 and 8 are passives, those who will likely neither promote or defame your company. Finally, the promoters are those providing scores of 9 and 10 – they are very likely to promote your organization to others. 

Your Net Promoter Score (NPS) is the difference between promoters and detractors. For example, if you have 52% promoters and 18% detractors, your NPS is 34. Passives in this case don’t count. 

The very best corporations in America receive NPS scores consistently in the 75% range (think Apple, USAA, Google). Others, such as Time Warner Cable and many other telecoms actually have negative Net Promoter Scores (more detractors than promoters). 

You’ll find extensive research by many pundits showing the correlation between revenue, profit, and market-share growth based on NPS. And while NPS provides a single, simple metric to show where your company currently is, the process of actually improving your NPS is much more nebulous. 

Using Feedback to Improve NPS 

Wait a minute.  I thought NPS was feedback. 

Yes, NPS is a form of feedback.  But NPS is limited to telling you where you are right now (and where you’ve been, once you have history). It doesn’t provide direct insight in how to actually get better. NPS is like a street sign. The sign indicates where you are – but you need the GPS to help you navigate to where you want to be. 

The Ultimate Question typically includes a “part 2″ – which is to ask “Why did you give this score?” By harvesting this data organizations are able to gain insights on what customer perceptions are trending. This may work well for very large data sets – and is well suited to Business to Customer measurements. 

Professional services, on the other hand, are much more personal and interactive. You don’t often have massive data sets to work with, and the value of each client tends to be a much larger percentage of your net revenue. It’s therefore relevant to use the Client Feedback Tool’s established methodology tracking client expectations in six to eight key categories (helpfulness, responsiveness, quality, accuracy, schedule, budget, etc). 

Measuring these at major milestones during project delivery provides clear, specific, and concise guidance for how to get better for each client. During the project, when you can do something about it. Net Promoter Score becomes an additional question to ask at project completion, to identify how well you executed and created a potential promoter. 

In contrast to our self-centering expectations scale, the NPS score is logarithmic. There is a ceiling, and as you improve over time the upward trend in NPS will become smaller and smaller, until you level out somewhere around 80% (the level the very best companies have attained). Once your NPS is higher than anyone else in the market, you have lost your ability to measure further improvement. You can no longer try something new and observe a shift in scores validating the new process actually worked better. So, while NPS is very helpful to track progress over time and understand your market position, it can’t help you identify the value of your continued improvement efforts. 

NPS: Part of Your Complete Feedback ProgramThe Client Feedback Tool enables you to track your own performance relative to expectations, and continuously improve (even if you are already the best in the market). Adding the NPS to your approach, you can now see if you are indeed market-leading. The Net Promoter Question can be added to any survey on the fly when sending, enabled to be on by default for selected templates (e.g., a Project Completion survey), or built into the survey template design when our team creates a custom template for you. 

Learn More 

For questions or help with NPS, or any broader feedback questions, please contact us at answers@designfacilitator.com and one of our consultants will help you on your feedback journey.

A new client of ours recently crafted an excellent letter to their staff, and has kindly offered to share their experience with the Client Feedback Tool community.  WK Dickson, an ENR 500 multidisciplinary consulting firm, began their engagement with a day of strategic planning to prepare a solid foundation.  With that foundation identified, Kraig Kern, Director of Marketing, shared this letter with the firm:

Dear Colleagues,

As you know, we value our client relationships very highly. The root of our firm’s prosperity comes from clients who retain us year after year and trust us to do their work well. It is important not to take these relationships for granted, and to continuously improve our ability to meet their specific needs.

Think about a time in your own life where it was obvious that someone really understood your needs and did everything they could to fulfill them. It felt pretty good didn’t it? Now put yourself in your client’s shoes and imagine their reaction when you do more than they expect.

Every client is different, so we need to identify what project delivery methods and processes work best for each of them. While our firm standards create a good baseline for successful project delivery, we may need to adjust for some clients, project managers, and possibly for each unique project type. The only way to know for sure is to ask.

As of today you have been added as a participant to our new and innovative Client Feedback Tool. For now, only a few of us will manage the tool until we develop a more systematic approach that makes it easy for everyone to take part. We will also soon be scheduling training to teach you how to use this simple system to collect feedback quickly, easily, and consistently from your clients and others.

The Client Feedback Tool is easy to use, and only takes one minute to solicit feedback using the built-in templates and patented slider bar. In fact, some of you may have already experienced what it looks like after feedback was requested following the  recent lunch and learn this week. If you would like to watch a short, 5-minute introduction video on the tool, please click here.

We are excited at this opportunity for each of us to grow personally and professionally; and as a firm improve our client relationships to create real and lasting value.

More details will follow in the coming weeks. In the meantime thank you in advance for your participation.

Kraig’s letter works well for a few key reasons.  First, he opened with a vision – clearly and succinctly defining the objective and importance of the feedback initiative.  He then follows with an encouraging note, appealing directly to the feelings we get when recognized for a job well done.  Rather than focus on problem discovery (which is an important aspect of feedback), the initial impression focuses on the positive element, reducing fear and making feedback feel “safe” for everyone.

In the third paragraph, Kraig outlines the need to discover issues, again crafting the language in the positive – not looking for problems but seeking to adapt to the unique needs each client, project, or project type demands.  Nothing here is scary or cause for concern.

When introducing the actual feedback process, Kraig outlines clear expectations for each employee, what has already occured, what will happen, and when they can expect to begin engaging with the tool.  He again eases the burden on the employees, stating a select group will start it and work out the kinks.  Simultaneously, scarcity and confidence are created.  His team also provided a chance for all employees to try the system from the client perspective, by soliciting feedback on an unrelated training session.  This simple technique exposed all employees to the tool in a simple, helpful way.

Appealing to the eager minds (and those who don’t like being surprised in a training session), Kraig offers an online video (available in our library) for those interested to view and learn more.

As a whole, this simple and short letter is easy to read, encourages staff, and builds confidence that the process will be easy, safe, and effective.

About WK Dickson:

WK Dickson is an ENR Top 500 multi-disciplined consulting firm specializing in community infrastructure solutions including: Transportation Planning & Design; Environmental and Water Resources Engineering; Urban Planning and Development; and Geospatial Technology. The firm has been headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina since 1929 and has grown to operate seven regional offices strategically located throughout the Southeastern United States.

Major performance enhancements:

• Most report load times improved by 50%
• Large report load times reduced by 90%

Enhanced Alert Management:

• Redesigned page for easier access
• Ability to disable ALL notifications
• New administrative tools to set firm standards
• Admins can force specified alert preferences
• Admins can modify any user’s preferences

All New User Management:

• Admins have much more control over users, permissions, alerts, and settings
• Streamlined administrative tasks

Added unofficial support for Apple iPad devices:

• Survey sending refinements
• Basic Report support

Measurement science in the modern era really grew roots in the early 20th century, in a manufacturing experiment. Though the factory in question had measured the number of widgets per hour produced for a while, they thought increasing lighting on the assembly floor might increase output. They set up observers at each step on the assembly line, and observed the impact. Needless to say, production increased.  However, in the early 1900’s lighting was expensive, so they began lowering the light level to find the optimum balance. Strangely, production stayed just as high – even when lighting was reduced to pre-experiment levels. Further research and experimentation led to the what is now known as the Hawthorn Effect – what’s measured, improves.  Lighting wasn’t the change that increased output – measuring was.

Measurement science made many advances in the last hundred years, particularly in productivity environments.  However, measuring the wrong things created many problems along the way. Greg Howell, former Executive Director of the Lean Construction Institute shares his experience from the early days of measuring productivity in construction management:

Once upon a time around 1978, I was asked to help the management team on a large industrial project figure out why reports from the work sampling initiative were showing both improved “wrench time” and reduced productivity. It just seemed unlikely that people could spend more time working and get less done. So I carried my TimeLapse cameras to the site, climbed the structure and filmed operations. I saw strange things going on there. Every time a worker went to the toilet, a piece of pipe or lumber was left leaning against the outhouse and carried away when leaving. And I saw a crew moving heavy lumber from one location to another. Working in pairs, they picked up several pieces and carried them from one pile to the next. And then they carried one back….  Handling materials gained more credit than walking empty-handed; So they always carried materials. The statistics showed walking empty handed was dropping while the amount of time spent handling material was going up. Are we surprised? The old saw, “What gets measured gets done.” is true.

Which brings us to where we started – figuring out what to measure in order to produce the results desired. How do we assure we’re actually heading to the Big Apple, and not circling Washington on the Capitol Beltway over and over again?

If you run a business, measuring financial indicators is certainly important. But like the example earlier, profit numbers can be fluffed up (for a while, at least) when measured inside a vacuum. Any internal metric can be managed and manipulated by a creative business manager, especially if he has a bonus tied to his number. Therefore, choosing the right numbers to track becomes critical.

• First, brainstorm with your leadership group what your goals are, if you don’t already know. Make sure you can create consensus on where you want to go (or, at least where the first stop should be).
• Second, for each metric currently in place, try to identify a counter-metric. What is the “cost” of increasing profit?  Eliminating 50% of your support staff might save a buck for a while – increasing profits –  but ultimately will increase the frustration of those needing your services.  Measure both profits AND customer satisfaction, so profit growth can occur, but not at the expense of something just as critical.
• Finally, test each metric and try to break them before deploying.  Poll those who’ll be using the system, and those who won’t.  Ask them candidly how they’d game the numbers, until you hone in on a set of metrics that matter, and point you closer to true north.

Measuring ensures success. The measurement science of customer loyalty and behavior drives long term growth, committed customers, and a strong inward flow of referrals. Measuring client satisfaction, the real source of success as a professional service organization, is just as critical to track as your income statement and balance sheet. You look at your financial reports every month, and carefully track progress over time –  but when was the last time you looked at metrics from your clients’ perspective – how well you’re doing for them?

If you’d like help developing a strategy for what to measure, our team is here and able to help you find True north for your firm and your clients.

While we might not all immediately connect feelings and business, when it comes to service providers, it really is all about the feelings. Does your client feel like you took good care of them? Do they feel like you are working in way help them reach their various goals?

For a client to feel good about us, it means we have shown them the respect and concern we show others that we care about. We listen. We ask questions to try to understand more. We respond quickly. We check in often to see how things are going and if there is an issue, we work hard to solve it.

We’re all imperfect human beings. Mistakes will be made. But if we take good care of a client they will remember the care, not the errors. This level of client care builds strong business relationships that last, which lead to referrals and more clients for years down the road.

Ask your clients for feedback on how they are feeling about the processes you are using. Find out their thoughts on your level of care, and be willing to make small (or big) changes in your process to make them feel more cared for.  You will find no better investment than investing thoughtfully and purposefully in your client relationships.

Feedback Intro for your Clients

Today I brought a treat into school for Leah’s class. One of her classmates saw me walk by with a Tupperware container and started flagging me down in the lunchroom, mouthing words to me across two tables. I finally deduced that he was asking if I brought something for the class. I nodded,  and he grinned really big. On his way past me to the trash can he leaned over and said, “I love it when you bake!”

My wife, as you can tell, felt GREAT to get this kind of feedback.  As a mother of four wonderful kids, she invests tremendous efforts into being a Supermom – frequently baking, volunteering, and helping any way she can.  She spends many of those efforts outside our immediate family, providing value (baked goods, in this case) to an entire community (the class of eager first graders).

And though her job isn’t paid (trust me, I couldn’t afford 10% of what she’s worth), she does all this for moments like the one today in the cafeteria.  The simple act of an enthusiastic “Thanks!” from a first-grader provided all the compensation she needed to keep on working as hard as she does.

As a professional service provider, your sense that what you do is worthwhile is a huge part of your compensation, and it comes down to feeling appreciated. And yet so many of the people we encounter in the industry are, quite simply, afraid to ask for feedback. There’s no need for that fear!   Helping firms like yours we’ve seen that 96% of feedback is positive, 84% overwhelmingly so.  If you manage a design or engineering staff and you aren’t currently loading them up with real, tangible, feedback (especially from clients), you are missing a huge opportunity to build a powerful sense of purpose in their work.

Your clients, busy professionals, aren’t always positioned to see your people carrying the metaphorical bin of cookies down the school hall.  Sometimes, they simply get distracted and forget to acknowledge your people and the great work they’ve done.

There’s no shame in asking!  Though the purpose of a feedback system is almost always primarily about finding problems, the outcome is predominantly a resounding validation of successes.  With no sense of shameless self-promotion, your staff can seek genuine opportunities to improve, and instead be rewarded with constant doses of appreciation.

As you take a moment this week to pause and reflect on those things of which you are thankful, consider sending some feedback to the professionals around you, that serve you every day.  Even if they don’t ask for it, give them a call (or, better, call their boss) and say thanks for the great work.  Then, as you plan for 2012, find a way to make asking for feedback from your clients a part of your daily processes.  You won’t find an easier, more fun, and more healthy way to engage your staff and let them feel appreciated.

Part 4

When we implemented the Client Feedback Tool, we had certain expectations about how we would use the survey data.  We expected to stimulate dialogue with our clients; to identify opportunities for improvement; and to collect information about group and staff performance.  We found the program to be effective in these areas.  With an onsite visit from DesignFacilitator consultants, we were challenged to do even more with the data.

As we reported last time, we kicked off our program with general satisfaction surveys to faithful clients, initiated by our company president.  Many of the respondents singled out individual employees for praise.  The surveys gave us an additional opportunity for a client “touch” – to thank the client for responding, to show gratitude for their kind words, to reinforce in the clients’ minds how happy they were with us – and to ask for referrals.  When we moved on to project-specific surveys initiated by project managers, the feedback became more specific.  Through this tool we discovered that a client needed to see invoice information a different way.  Another client rated us as merely “acceptable” on “scope and fees.”  This presented an opportunity for a frank discussion with the client about pricing.  Turns out she had beat us up over price and had gotten a reduced fee – which allowed no room for the extra attention to which she was accustomed.  We have had numerous occasions to chat with clients as a result of feedback.

After we were up and running for a few months, Ryan and David from DesignFacilitator came to our office for an onsite consultation.  We were doing a good job responding to individual survey data.  However, they observed that we were not harnessing the power of the reports.  Armed with reports consolidating our company data, they demonstrated that we have a great story to tell.  Using Advanced Reporting Tools, they had produced a pie chart showing our results by performance category.  Fully 77% of the responses showed that we had exceeded expectations or better.  Our consultants recommended that we find a way to make this a part of our company narrative.  They showed us statistical reports showing averages by question category.  We also spent some time analyzing the bar graph report, to isolate particular groups who had unusual aggregate responses.  Seeing that one group, for example, always scored “exceptional” in the “scope and fees” category, for example, might be indicative that this department has set its fees too low.  We have continued to explore the advanced reporting options available to us.  For example, we have made good use of the “Tags” feature.  We can limit reports based on project type or company type, but at times a broader criterion is warranted.  As Firm Administrator, I have created a few tags on which I can filter my reports.

To use the survey results to tell our story, we enlisted our new Marketing Director and social media guru.  Alyah wrote a news piece for our website.  Using data from the reports, she created a bar chart to illustrate our results.  She sent a “Survey says” Tweet with a link to the story, and promoted it on Facebook.  After getting clients’ permission to publish their responses, Alyah plans to include client comments on our web page.  We have also begun modifying our printed marketing materials and presentation outlines to incorporate client care as a differentiator.

Our DesignFacilitator consultants had also advised that we promote our survey results within our company.  We have posted summaries on the company intranet, and we encourage all staff to use our great feedback to promote Koontz-Bryant.  On a large whiteboard in the breakroom, we periodically post a “Client Feedback Quote of the Day” culled from the comments.  Praise for employees by name becomes public in a low-tech, high-touch way.  This has generated some great whiteboard kudos and prompted some great conversations.

When Ryan and David visited with us, they helped us use the Client Feedback Tool in a fuller technical capacity.  More important than that, however, they gave us some sound business and marketing advice.  In a business where the things we do can be perceived as commodities, they have helped us to position ourselves as client caretakers.