Client Feedback Tool Integration with Deltek Vision

Since many A/E/C firms depend upon Deltek Vision to manage their projects and financial information, the video below demonstrates very briefly how you can leverage your existing project management processes to automatically solicit client feedback.

Scheduling Surveys – Understanding the Options

Client Feedback Tool 4.0 offers the ability to schedule surveys for later delivery.  The scheduling tool is simple to use, but offers many options to enhance flexibility.  Here, we will detail some of the ways you can leverage scheduling to your benefit.

First, a few notes on why you might schedule a survey.  Surveys have a 20% higher response rate when sent mid-week in the mornings.  As such, you may want to schedule surveys for a Tuesday – Thursday.  Our scheduler automatically delivers surveys around 9am eastern time (-0500 GMT).  You may also desire to set up a series of surveys when planning your project phases.  Firms that choose to deploy surveys automatically (via integration with Deltek Vision or some other third party project management tool) may desire the human review step, and scheduling provides this as well.

When scheduling surveys, you may specify the following:

• Delivery Date – this is the date on which the survey will be sent, about 9am Eastern Time.
• Reminder Date – this is a reminder to the sender that the survey is about to be sent.  If you have scheduled the survey to be sent on behalf of someone else, that person will receive the reminder.  A reminder provides a link back to the Client Feedback Tool to review and/or modify a survey before it is sent.  You can enable or disable reminders.
• Send Notifications – this notifies the sender when the survey has been sent.  You can use this in addition to or as an alternative to the pre-survey reminder.
• Survey Disposition – what happens on the scheduled date?  By default, the survey will send on the scheduled send date.  However, if you prefer the survey to expire unsent when the date arrives, you can set it to do so.  You can use this as an approval step when sending on behalf of someone else.

Putting this altogether, consider a possible use case:

You schedule a survey to be sent on behalf of a project manager.  You want that project manager to verify the information before the survey is sent, and don’t want the survey to be delivered unless he does.  Schedule the survey to be sent in 7 days, and remind the project manager 6 days in advance.  Tomorrow, the PM will receive an email inviting him to review the survey.  The PM can then click the email link, review and edit the survey, then send it on.  If he disapproves of the survey he may delete it, and if he takes no action the survey will expire automatically.

The survey queue manager provides a list of all scheduled surveys you have access to manage, so you can quickly see a list of pending surveys, send or cancel groups of them, and otherwise manage your scheduled events.

Version 4.0 is here! New Features.

DesignFacilitator is pleased to announce the release of Client Feedback Tool version 4!  The new features are available to all users immediately.  Aside from numerous bug fixes and other enhancements, you will find some very helpful new features:

• Schedule surveys for future delivery
• Survey queue manager (to manage scheduled surveys)
• Save a survey as draft before sending
• Enhanced Enterprise Integration Kit (EIK)
• Deltek Vision workflow integration
• New and improved alerts
• Added support for Project Manager alerts/notifications
• Enhanced Quadrants Report
• Enhanced importing / exporting

In the coming week, we will post additional details about some of these new features to describe them more completely.  Please check in soon.

Koontz-Bryant, PC – Client Feedback Journal, Part 1

Over the coming months, we follow Koontz-Bryant, P.C. as they begin using client feedback to improve their business, culture, and overall prosperity.  In this first installment, Martha Shotwell, Controller, shares their history, current situation, and the decision-making process to use feedback as an agent for change.

Part 1

Koontz-Bryant, P.C. was founded in 1990 to provide surveying and engineering services to the private development sector. We have since expanded clientele to include federal, state and local governments; public and private educators; and commercial, institutional, and industrial clients. Over the years, residential development has been our largest market segment.

Like so many other firms dependent on the building industry, the recession has hit us hard.  Most of our developer clients are not starting new projects; some projects have stalled out; and a few clients have gone out of business.  State and local governments have their own budget shortfalls.  Competition for new projects is fierce.  Our gross revenue and headcount are a third of what they were a few years ago.  We are glad that we have managed to hold on as we have watched some of our competitors disappear, but austerity measures are taking their toll.  Employees have endured pay cuts, reduced hours, and benefits cuts.  All of us feel hungry for good news and hopeful for a better year in 2011.

More than ever, we know that it is critical to retain the clients we have.

Koontz-Bryant has long recognized the need to treat clients well.  As part of a management study, an outside consultant conducted in-depth client surveys on our behalf.  We found that our clients by and large had good things to say about us, and that there were a few areas in which we could improve.  Our principals had some productive conversations with some of the respondents and followed up on areas that needed work.  We toyed with the idea of doing surveys ourselves and we even sent out about half a dozen, but we never established a sustainable program.

A few years ago we bought a few dozen copies of the book “Selling the Invisible,” and conducted a series of lunch meetings about our relationships with clients.  At staff meetings and board retreats, we continued to talk about client service and meeting client expectations.  However, we never really determined what those expectations were!

A couple of months ago, Axium (our accounting software provider) invited us to a webinar about collecting client feedback.  Within the first half hour, we were totally convinced that regular client feedback – and a constructive method to pass client feedback along to staff – had the potential to transform our client relationships.  A key take-away was the realization that we have exhorted staff to serve clients without asking clients what they thought, and that staff are too often shielded from client comments, good or bad.  We felt that a well-implemented system to improve communication could help us retain clients and engage staff, which would surely improve our bottom line.

Persuaded that regular client feedback could improve our business, we talked about creating surveys in-house and using internet-based survey services to collect feedback.  We brainstormed about the logistics, and debated when and how to share the feedback: who should receive the results, how and when to pass along to staff, and how to compile and track the results.  We knew that we could work all these things out ourselves, but we also felt that, short-staffed as we are, it would take a long time to get a self-administered program off the ground.  We contacted the folks at DesignFacilitator to learn more about their Client Feedback Tool.

We were impressed with the thoroughness of the Client Feedback Tool, and have decided to give it a try. As consultants ourselves, we see value in having the Client Feedback Tool’s implementation experts help us work through the logistics.   COO Bill Hestand said, “I believe we will see some good results right away.  Our staff does a good job, and it will be good for them to hear that from our clients.  As a manager I look forward to hearing from clients and to the challenge of responding to any negative feedback right away. ”

In a memo to staff announcing this new initiative, Koontz-Bryant President Greg Koontz wrote, “I am quite sure everyone here is aware that Client Satisfaction is one of the key principles that drives our business.  I think overall we all do a good job of attending to our clients’ needs and requests, based on our level of repeat business.  We have a unique opportunity to take our understanding of this key business principle to another level, giving us a true advantage over our competition.  This is a great opportunity for us to strengthen our existing client relationships, and gives us a great story to discuss with new clients!”

We believe that the investment will prove to be a profitable one.  As we embark on our feedback initiative utilizing the Client Feedback Tool, we will keep you posted with periodic updates.

Here’s to a great 2011!

KLMK Group, LEAN and Client Feeedback

DesignFacilitator recently spoke with KLMK Group, a leading provider of innovative healthcare facility solutions, about their utlization of the Client Feedback Tool and their LEAN approach.

LEAN is a production management-based approach to project delivery. As it us used in the AEC industry, it is a method for designing and building capital facilities.

Read the full interview and report: KLMK Group, LEAN and Client Feeedback

AEMA Article: “Busting the 6 Major Myths Plaguing the A/E Industry”

Myths, or false beliefs, can lead to misconceptions that produce harmful behaviors, and they are present in all facets of society, including A/E/C firms. They can undermine the credibility of design firms and disrupt industry prosperity.

Mike Phillips, Founder of DesignFacilitator, has identified six prevailing industry myths and begins by debunking the first three in a recent article in the Journal of the Architectural Engineering Management Association.  Read the complete “A & E Business” article here:
A&E Business Jan 2011 Cover & Article

For a complimenary copy of this issue, or to subscribe to the AEMA journal, visit Architectural Engineering Management Association, email AEmanagement@sbcglobal.net or call 405-848-1111.

Feedback – Is Your Goal High Scores, or Better Service?

Getting rave reviews from your clients feels great!  We all enjoy positive feedback, particularly from those you work with closely.  However, when designing a feedback process to stay in tune with your clients, too many organizations make the mistake of seeking high scores, rather than actionable information.

If 90% of your feedback comes with top ratings, you may have some great marketing statistics.   But, you really haven’t collected data that lets you improve.  If almost all your scores are at the top of the scale, you have no way to differentiate which clients are most loyal, and place the highest value on your services.  You have no means to capture when something worked especially well, compared to your typical (and still effective) process.

With our Client Feedback Tool, we invested years of research into our patent-pending answering system, based on a self-centering “Met Expectations” sliding scale.  While our system provides the same percentage of “low” scores (~4%), only 16% of results fall in the top score category.  It’s this downward shift that gives you 400% more information with which to make decisions and improvements.  In the cases where you receive “Exceptional” feedback, you can now identify clients that valued your services much more than normal.  You can begin to see trends about what sets these situations apart.  Once you identify the contributors to these high scores, you can work them into your “typical” processes, enhancing value for all clients.

Suddenly, your high scores give you an opportunity to improve, just as much as your low scores do.

90% thumbs up feels good, but dramatically reduces the useful information you have.  

To learn more about our answer scale and how it works, contact us to schedule a demonstration.

Client Feedback Tool Testimonial – Cara Phillips

We interviewed Cara Phillips of Phillips Architecture about her use of the Client Feedback Tool.  Cara is Principal and COO, and has been using the Feedback Tool for four years.

Client Feedback Tool – New Features!

On January 23, 2011 the Client Feedback Tool received an update with several substantial new features and enhancements.

• New, high-security encryption.  The Client Feedback Tool is now secured by 128-bit SSL (https); the same level of encryption used by online banks and merchants.
• All reports now include extensive filtering options (previously this was limited just to Advanced Reports).
• Project Manager Role has been added.  PM’s are added to individual projects, and can see all feedback for that project.  This allows much more granular sharing of feedback than the current Team Manager role.
• When viewing results from a survey, you may click on the name of the respondent to quickly see a summary of that respondent’s past feedback.
• Projects may now be assigned to more than one team.
• New report – Response Details.  View responses to many different surveys in one consolidated report.  Allows you to quickly see all the feedback from a selected person; for selected project(s); etc.
• Enhanced “Export to Excel” capability.
• Enhanced importing capabilities.
• Dozens of other minor tweaks, enhancements, and fixes

ZweigWhite Press Release – Interview with Mike Phillips

ZweigWhite just issued a press release including comments from an interview with DesignFacilitator President Mike Phillips.

http://blog.zweigwhite.com/news/know-your-clients/

ZweigWhite is a leader in enhancing business performance for architecture, engineering, planning, and environmental consulting firms.  They, like many other experts in the A/E/C industry continue encouraging firms to gather feedback effectively, in order to improve service delivery and long term prosperity.