This question is, almost without exception, the first one asked when we talk to firms about client feedback.  The short answer is NO!  Not if you ask for feedback when they want to give you feedback.

We are so conditioned to the idea of “feedback” as being a long survey sent to hundreds or thousands of people.  These surveys are generic, and don’t offer anything to the person responding.   They also usually come after the product or service has been offered, when it’s too late to do anything about it.  They are separated from the project, and don’t seem relevant at the time they are sent.

But you already ask for feedback all the time!  When you deliver something to a client, don’t you ask “is this what you were looking for?”  When you wrap up a meeting, don’t you ask if everything was covered? That’s asking for feedback!  It’s not very structured, and it doesn’t always get asked, but no client will ever be bothered if you check with them to make sure you covered your (and their) bases.

Our Client Feedback Tool blends the best from both approaches.  While we use email and the internet to deliver surveys, they are not typically designed to be sent broadly (though, they can be).  Instead, we’ve built hundreds of templates and supporting processes to send surveys, systematically, in a much more focused manner.

When should you ask for feedback (i.e., send a survey)?  Send one every time your client may want to give you feedback.  No client waits around to answer a mass survey.  If you send that out monthly, it’s too much.   On the other hand, if you give your client a key deliverable every week, don’t you want to make sure, each time, that you’ve given him what he needed/expected?  You could call or email asking “did you get what you need?”   Or, you could send a short feedback request that digs a little deeper and gives you more data, while not really taking any more time.

Odds are, you’ll only annoy your clients if you ask them for feedback two months AFTER a project is over as part of a quarterly survey.  It’s too late to fix, so why ask now?

Instead, show clients you care.   Ask for feedback when it makes sense.  Deliver something?  Ask for feedback.  That easy.  Since asking via The Client Feedback Tool is a simple email, clients can always ignore/delete it.  Even that gives you feedback!  NOT responding, in essence, let’s you know that things are most likely going well enough they don’t feel a need to correct anything.  However, for every few times they ignore your request because things are going okay, there will be one time when they have feedback, and will be glad you asked.  And they’ll respond.   Until you ask, you don’t know.  So, you have to ask.  And ask again.

If you’re still concerned, ask your clients!  Find out from them when they’d like to be asked for feedback.  Odds are, it’s more often than you think.

If you already subscribe to the Client Feedback Tool, you don’t need to do anything to obtain the great new features.  Simply log in, and see what’s new.

Version 3.5 includes:

• Completely updated process for sending a survey.  The steps are the same, but performance is increased 25-570%
• Added ability to include individual survey responses (answers reports) in batch and scheduled reports.
• Enhanced reporting filters to make viewing/customizing reports more flexible
• Sending survey  reminders made easier and faster
• Over 100 additional enhancements and improvements to make the feedback experience smoother and more intuitive than before

If you have any questions or desire any update training, please contact support@designfacilitator.com to sign up for our New Features webinar scheduled for Thursday, February 18th, at 2:00pm EST.

About six month prior, I had taken her out to the same place, and received unusually exceptional service.  As a feedback guru, I took the time to find the comment card box and leave some detailed praise of who did what, and why it was so great.  My daughter asked what I was doing, so I explained a basic theory of feedback and why it’s important.

Six months later, at the tender of age of six, she remembered the lesson.  After another good night of service, she wanted to leave a note of appreciation that was specifically about what she liked.  She gets it.

Firm leaders have a similar opportunity.  Most firms employ at least some very young, very fresh professionals.  For many, you are their first “real job” out of school.  And just like my six year old, they are looking to you and your firm leaders for the behaviors that create an effective and successful professional career.

If you are fortunate enough to employ these eager and easily influenced minds, what behaviors and patterns are you teaching them about client relationships?  Interns are often quickly trained up on technical skills and rushed into a production role.  But these are the same people that will grow up and begin taking care of your clients.  Introduce them right away to effective client management skills.  Give them feedback regularly.  Give clients feedback in front of them.   More importantly, ask for feedback in front of them.  Let them see you engaging clients to better understand their preferences.  Let them see the results that open feedback brings.

As they grow professionally, give your young professionals opportunities to interact with clients, and solicit feedback about those interactions.  Empower them with the tools they need to manage clients and respond to their expectations.

The results?  Clients that are more engaged and loyal.  Beyond that, you have technicians learning to become business people.  You have interns focused on the client’s problem, rather than production.  Their awareness of what they are working on and why will increase, leading to better product going out the door.  You will also end up with young professionals who feel a part of the system, building their sense of self worth and increasing their job satisfaction.

You will also be raising the next generation of experts to help your firm continue and thrive for years to come.

All too often we get caught up in our ability to solve problems.  We are problem solvers!  It’s how we sell our services.  You have a problem, we can help you solve it.

But how often do we create our own problems?  How much work (which you can’t usually get paid for), must you do just to recover from a situation you created for yourself?  A clever person might find a way out without losing much profit on the job.  As Einstein implied, the wise person will keep (or increase)  his profit by avoiding extra unbillable efforts.

The wise person seeks first to understand the problem.  The problem is not a technical one.  Nor is it an artistic one.  The problem is a client problem.  More accurately, the client’s problem.  Until we understand the problem as the client perceives it, we will not be able to solve it.  Regardless of how clever the technical and artistic solutions are, if the client’s basic issues were not addressed, the project has not succeeded.

If we can engage our clients systematically and frequently throughout the project, and measure their perceptions of our success with solving their problems, we can avoid creating our own.  Before we’ve gone off track, the client can correct, clarify, and guide us in the right direction.

Only when we are truly asking our clients how we’re doing, listening to their feedback, and responding with a refined approach, will we ever attain professional services “genius” on level with Mr. Einstein himself.

I’m in the business of feedback, so I replied with some friendly but strong criticism.  I offered it as feedback – information to be processed, with no intent to hurt or offend.  I took time to highlight some of the good points, but spent most of my words identifying problem areas.   The reply I received could have been one of indignation, defensiveness, anger, or any other counter-productive reaction.  Instead, I got probably the best response I could have.

Ouch!  But thank you!

That’s the subject line of the email I received in reply.  What a great response!  In four words, two punctuation marks, and an emoticon this young woman managed to set the entire mood for our (still ongoing) dialog.  She accepted that challenges in her work exist, and acknowledged the effort (and even pain) needed to fix them.  She expressed honest gratitude for identifying issues for her to work on.  She also set a tone of friendly collaboration – probably the most important reaction to have when receiving tough feedback.  Before reading her response, I knew she was open to ideas, and willing to work with me to improve.

I appreciate your feed back and will work on it…

If you still want to help me organize my resume, etc, I am all ears….

Thanks for the insight.  I know you are right, I think I need someone to literally get in my face and prove it, instead of sugar coating it like people have been.

Within the email, she again thanked me for feedback.  Instead of defending why she did things her way, opened the door to further feedback, correction, and adjustment.

Not only has she set a tone of collaboration, but she also diffused any fear or anxiety on my part about giving feedback.  Since I had never met this woman before, it took quite a bit of courage to provide feedback.  I really wanted to help, but also wanted to avoid hurting her feelings, or causing her any more anxiety when she’s already out of work.  Instead, her reply opened the door wide open to mutually honest communication.  What I thought would be a one-time note with some suggestions turned into a week-long exercise to build a great resume.   I have been able to share my opinions openly and without fear of reprisal.

Now, I feel invested in this woman’s success.  I want to be a part of that.  Why?  Because her resume, and by extension, her process of finding a job, is now a part of me and my process.  I feel some ownership of what she’s built, and thus I feel connected by proxy to her eventual employment (and success).

When your clients give you feedback, they earn the same kind of ownership.  Engage a client who has given you feedback with a proactive, collaborative, and kind attitude and you will tend to get more feedback!  As you work with your client to tweak the processes and methods used to deliver services, these revised methods become your clients methods too.  He becomes invested, not just financially, but at a deeper level as well.  No one wants to see their own work or efforts fail.  It’s natural to want to win, to be right, and to succeed.  The more you can adopt processes and methods that match your clients preferences, the more he will want you to succeed.  Your success becomes his success.

Can you imagine a business where all your clients want you to succeed?  Where your clients are your biggest advocates?  Imagine what this attitude shift will bring when it’s time to send invoices, or raise your fee structure, or request a contract addendum for additional services or a change order.  Instead of arm wrestling over details, you have a client engaged with you on a deeper level.  And since he was fundamentally a part of the process that created the need for billings, your ability to recover fair and rewarding compensation is secure.

Ask for feedback!  Then respond openly and engage your clients in the solutions that follow.  Mutual success is not far behind.

As for the resume, it has gone from something that would very quickly hit my recycle bin, to something I would even pass along – not because of her skills or experience, but because of the process she used to improve.  That’s the kind of person I want to work with.

Except, you didn’t see the car in your blind spot.  If you’re lucky, he sees you and honks, avoiding disaster.  But if he’s busy yapping on his cell phone or otherwise focused, kaboom!  Your easy solution to speed things up just blew up, leaving you in quite a mess.  Your car is mangled; it’s going to take hours to sort out; you’ve got a very irate driver in the other car (hopefully not injured), and there’s no way you’re going to make that meeting now.  Oh, yeah, and there’s the increased insurance premiums, the lawsuit, and hours of work over the coming weeks and months to sort out all the financial and legal issues.

This was totally avoidable, if you had just checked your blind spot!

If you work on projects for a client, the same story holds true.

How often have you been working on a project, and part way in, you realize there’s a “better” or “faster” way to get things done.  Of course your client wants his project better and faster, so you “change lanes” and start doing things a bit differently.  You innovate every day – it’s how you solve the problems needed to get projects done.  You are constantly changing, adapting and adjusting your processes to “get there faster/better/cheaper.”  You have to, just to meet the demands of your clients and be competitive in your market.

However, have you checked your blind spot?  Do you always include your client in these process adjustments, to let him know what you’re doing and why?  Most of the time, your client will appreciate that you’ve adjusted and innovated for his benefit.  Does he know you’ve done so?  If not, let him know so he can appreciate the value you are adding.

But what about those times when the process doesn’t work for your client?  Your bright idea didn’t factor in some information your client knows (that you don’t) which will cause a wreck?  Assuming nothing can go wrong is a costly and risky proposition.   What you must do is check your blind spot!  Get feedback from your clients constantly throughout the project.  If you shift gears in order to “improve” the project, schedule, or budget – let your client know and get validation that the changes really are an enhancement.   Otherwise, you risk running into your client, and damaging not just the project delivery, but your very valuable client relationship.

To read more about feedback and your blind spot, check out my post on the Johari Window.

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?

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?