Client Client satisfaction on a project
Client satisfaction on a project is almost always measured at the wrong time: at the end, by a survey sent when everything is settled. It then produces a score, a ranking, sometimes a lesson for the next project. What it never produces is a correction on the project it evaluates, or a conversation at a time when it would still have changed something.
An end-of-project survey only records what happened.
Four reasons, and none comes down to the quality of the questionnaire.
It arrives after the decision
The client has already decided whether they will hire you again. The score records that choice, it no longer influences it.
It is crushed by the end
The last three weeks weigh on the whole project. An exemplary start does not make up for a difficult acceptance.
It is answered by a single person
Often the one with the fewest grievances, or the one who has the time. The voice of the business does not come through.
It commits no one
A score given after the fact creates no obligation, neither for the one who gives it nor for the one who receives it.
A monthly weather report that the client confirms.
The shift is twofold, and it comes down to two words: during, and confirmed.
During, because an assessment made in the course of a project leaves time to act. A client who says in March that the delivery pace worries them gives usable information; the same client writing it in September in a closing survey is merely documenting a break.
Confirmed, because a weather report that the supplier declares alone is an opinion about oneself, and no one has ever graded their own work severely in the middle of a project. When the client confirms or challenges it, it becomes two-sided: both parties hold the same finding, or else they discover that they do not, which is even more useful. This is what we call operational commitment management.
In pylotik.
Two mechanisms, at two different rhythms, and neither looks like an annual barometer.
The monthly weather report
The supplier sets their assessment of the month, backed by progress, milestones and risks. The client confirms or challenges it.
The survey after the committee
Triggered at the close of a meeting, short, about what was just said. It is the moment when the client has the subject in mind.
A weather history
Twelve months of weather can be read in a row. A slow deterioration becomes visible, whereas it goes unnoticed month by month.
No cost for the client
Client access is free: the request does not run into a licensing question. See the project client portal.
A useful precision: the weather is set on facts, not on an impression. Milestones met or shifted, pending actions, scope gap, open alerts. That is what makes it open to discussion in the good sense of the term: the client can challenge the assessment by relying on the same elements, and the discussion is then about the project rather than about sensitivities. Nor is the weather a score given to people: it is an assessment of a project, made by both parties. The full tour is on the product page, and the contractual modes on the commitment levels.
What a lost client costs.
Putting the two side by side is the real subject: what damages a client relationship is almost never a technical failure, it is a gap in perception that set in without being voiced. The details are on the value lost in projects.
What we are asked about satisfaction.
Which satisfaction indicator should you use on a project?
A simple assessment, made every month and confirmed by the client, is worth more than a sophisticated index collected once. What matters is not the fineness of the scale, it is the frequency and the two-sided nature.
Should you still run an end-of-project survey?
It remains useful for the commercial relationship and for capitalizing on lessons. It simply stops being the only measurement point, and therefore stops carrying the whole burden of information.
What should you do with a deteriorated weather report?
Treat it as an agenda item of the next committee, with what explains it: shifted milestone, pending action, scope gap. A weather report with no fact attached is a feeling; backed by project data, it becomes a topic.
Will the client agree to confirm it every month?
Many will not do it every month, and the mechanism does not collapse for that: the supplier's weather report remains set and dated. One confirmation out of two is enough to make the reading two-sided.
Is it a rating of the teams?
No. The weather is about a project, not about people. No individual score exists in the product.
Does it work with an internal client?
Yes, and that is often where the need is greatest: an internal department generally has no way to know how its business units perceive its deliveries, before the budget decision.
Going further.
- The project client portal: what the client sees and confirms.
- Approval of minutes: the other two-sided act.
- Operational commitment management: the definition of the category.
- The product tour: weather, committees, client access.