Blog

Scarlett Letter #91: When conducting client surveys, wear your investigative reporter’s hat

Two days ago, Susan S., an AE marketing director, contacted me about the ‘right’ questions to ask during client perception surveys. Susan intends for these surveys to be conducted as face-to-face interviews with existing clients. Findings will help inform the direction of her firm’s new strategic marketing plan.

Sequentially, Susan’s firm is on the right track by conducting client surveys prior to strategic planning. As well, their format is on target (personal discussions, rather than a more typical Likert-scale questionnaire).

Here are some tips for preparing a set of dialogue-inspiring questions:

• >Design open-ended questions. (I know, duh!)
• >First question or two: Commence the conversation with big picture questions about their company/university/municipality/etc. Decide upon a question relating to their key challenges or industry trends. Or ask about their firm’s mission/vision for the year ahead. Encourage this response to be big picture, rather than specific to the organization’s facilities.
• >Followup question: How can an architectural/engineering firm help your organization–if at all—to tackle its challenges/leverage the trends/support the vision?
• >Then, move into performance questions: Ask just one or two questions relating to your firm’s performance on a particular project or series of projects. It may be as simple as: name one thing we did really well (and why) and one thing we should improve upon (and how/why). At this stage, you could also take the time to have them rank your success around  5-7 key performance indicators around quality of drawings, longevity of solutions, communications and response times, performance during various phases of project, etc. I only recommend that you do the latter if you have received permission to spend a lot of time with that client. Otherwise, your time is better spent asking the open-ended questions, in my opinion.
• >Finally, as time allows, ask 1-2 questions regarding your firm’s key points of focus: If you are trying to gauge your brand perception, as them for the first three words that come to mind when they hear your firm’s name. If you are trying to make decisions on which marketing channels to invest the most time and money into, then ask them how they prefer to receive information from service providers (ie, in print, by email newsletters, in RSS blog feeds, personal visits, etc). If you are trying to understand how you rank against your competitors, ask them what their competitors are doing right on a project, or within their pitches/marketing efforts. (Never engage in negative conversations with your clients about your competitors. Take the high road, even if they initiate it). In other words, use those last one or two questions to get answers on your most burning questions.

It’s imperative to:

1. Respect the client’s time (Whether you say it’s going to take 15 minutes or one hour, keep to your promise and look at your watch as needed).

2. Get the most candid, open client feedback by providing the client with a safe environment to share fully. This means you need to have someone who did NOT work on the project(s) conduct the interview.

3. Select interviewers that are likable, and enjoy wearing the ‘investigative reporter’ hat. He or she should be a great listener—plus unbiased, proficient, communicative, and warm.  In Susan’s case, if her firm executes this endeavor using internal resources, then perhaps they will opt to have principals ‘trade’ clients for the purposes of this exercise.

4. Use the data in a multitude of ways. The big picture data is great to inspire articles demonstrating your understanding of your target markets. The performance data can be followed up in more detail by the Principal-in-Charge or the Project Manager on the project. That data can also serve as excellent testimonial material! And finally, the data collected regarding your firm’s improvement areas must feed into your decision-making process.

Scarlett Consulting often conduct client feedback surveys for our clients—either in face-to-face focus group format, or by phone interviews. Our client surveys follow the progression mentioned above (big picture; specific to performance; specific to the AE firm’s goals for improvement). No surprise…the specific questions vary from survey to survey.

For additional content related to client perception surveys, see Scarlett Letter #6,  Scarlett Letter #66, as well as these published articles:

Get the skinny from those that matter and Your client—a well-planted seed

           

Tags: AEC client perception surveys, Anne Scarlett A/E Marketing, client feedback surveys, linkedin, professional services marketing, professional services sales, Scarlett Consulting AEC business development

Leave a Reply

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website