The quality of your work is stellar. You’ve completed the project on time and under budget, yet the client does not think that you have exceeded expectations. Why?

Often, from the client’s perspective, perception is reality and value is subjective. For better or worse, what they perceive is all too often the standard by which they make value assessments.

Well designed and properly executed client satisfaction surveys can improve your service to the client  real or otherwise, both for your team and your client. Surveys are an essential tool for measuring performance, but also a device through which knowledge sharing creates ongoing lessons learned and defines best practices for both parties involved.

Why Surveys are Important

The client-contractor relationship is anything but consistent. Time and budget constraints aside, every experience brings its own unique criteria which plays a role in shaping the success of a project. How you deal with organizational culture, methodologies, communication strategies and varied expectations combine to create an overall evaluation. Surveys designed to elicit feedback- positive or negative- are important for true understanding. Without feedback, you may not know something is wrong. And in the absence of one-on-one contact with clients, surveys provide invaluable information and help to create conversations around that feedback with stakeholders.

Satisfaction surveys benefit clients by giving them the opportunity to engage in a knowledge transfer. Using feedback to dissect what went wrong – or what worked – and transferring this information into meaningful knowledge or shared learning can supplement methodologies and help to create best practices for the client.

Surveys help you more effectively identify these hidden value propositions and most importantly, help you guide clients in bringing best practices to the table. Surveys give you avenues to help them use their resources and develop as a team. And making your client more successful in the eyes of their peers and superiors is always a successful strategy.

Who Should the Surveys Target?

As a general rule, target the key stakeholders with whom you have interactions. Generally, these are the decision makers and the ones who will have the most input as to how or why a procedure was effective or efficient.

Distributing surveys before project completion gives you the opportunity to meet with stakeholders and determine their expectations  as to what is on track and what needs improvement. With this information you can adjust your focus curing the project for improved Client satisfaction.

Create a Knowledge Transfer

The old adage that the project was a success because it was completed on time and within budget, isn’t always true, and if a client has the feeling that something just isn’t right, it can be damaging. Satisfaction surveys are more than measures of performance. They are essential tools for starting an engagement with a client to identify what it is they want to get out of a project besides being finished on time and within budget.