As a general contractor, client satisfaction is a top priority for us at The Douglas Company. Rightfully so, as happy clients turn into 5-star reviews and strong referrals. But how do we know that our clients are happy? How do we measure customer feedback in a straightforward way that encourages honesty and helps identify areas of improvements? At The Douglas Company, we utilize client surveys on a regular basis to fully understand each client’s individual experience.
REGULAR CLIENT SURVEYS
Each month, our Business Development team reaches out to our clients to get their feedback in the form of a survey and a rating on a scale of one to five. On occasion, we don’t hear anything back.
I don’t know about you, but I get asked to fill out surveys several times a week, in every aspect of my life. With every errand, I’m hit with another customer service survey request at the bottom of the receipt. Most of the time, it annoys me and I forego the survey unless something goes impressively right or horribly wrong. We understand that our clients probably experience this same survey fatigue.
To accommodate, they can elect to be surveyed quarterly rather than monthly. We still insist on the surveys, however. While we likely know how are things are going, we value hearing it directly from the client.
Surveys help give our clients a minute to let us know how things are going without feeling the pressure to gloss over the hard points. It also helps those who are not as directly responsible for the project, giving them an opportunity to weigh-in on how the project is going.
WHAT EXACTLY DO CLIENT SURVEYS DO?
First off, our surveys help us to identify areas of improvement. While this is true of most feedback surveys, our practice of surveying clients on a regular basis throughout the lifespan of the project increases the impact tenfold. By surveying regularly, we have found that we receive insight into our performance beyond just the overall experience. We hear about their experience in the implementation of every step in our Integri-D process. It allows us to troubleshoot when things are not working how they were designed. These surveys lead directly to improved project outcomes.
Next, our surveys give us a direct view into our client’s perspective. Sometimes, the project team members are too close to the situation to have an objective view. The surveys help management to identify these areas so they can pull the team back and help them see it from a different angle. When performed regularly, the surveys can help to catch these issues before they become costly and difficult to fix. So much goes on at a jobsite in the span of a month, so catching things early can go a long way towards keeping the project on budget and on schedule.
Finally, client circumstances and focuses can change throughout the life of a project and surveys are a great way to communicate that. By hearing about these changes early, we can adapt quickly to achieve the best results. We can increase focus on a particular area of project that may have become a hot button item for the client. We can work more closely with the Owners sales team on certain items to help them with their marketing objectives.
NEED A GENERAL CONTRACTOR THAT LISTENS TO FEEDBACK FOR YOUR NEXT SENIOR LIVING OR MULTIFAMILY DEVELOPMENT?
At The Douglas Company, client satisfaction is very important to us. Keeping our clients happy was the driving force in creating our client survey process. These surveys are just one of the tools we use to help provide our clients with a high-quality product and the best building experience possible. We’d love to hear about your vision for your next high-quality living community. If you want to learn more about our Integri-D Process and how we work with our clients, click here. When you’re ready to have a conversation about working together, you can fill out our contact form and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.
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Brian Carter |