As an architect, engineer, contractor, or manufacturer, you must continually ask your clients for feedback. They have purchased your services and will give you both positive feedback and constructive criticism on your completed project and current level of service you are providing. Learn from both the positive and the negative feedback, because it will help improve your business operations, customer service, accounting, and marketing. Sometimes your clients will come up with a great idea that can be implemented into the business and create an even larger perceived gap between you and your competitors.

Most of you have probably received an email survey. What do you do with it? Delete it. To ensure you received feedback, you will need to complete face-to-face client surveys vs. email or mailed survey. A paper or email surveys can be conducted but usually you don’t get a good response and can’t read body language or ask for additional information or clarification on particular questions. Completing a face-to-face client survey is a larger time investment but well worth the effort.

A face-to-face survey leaves a positive impression on your client about the seriousness of client satisfaction. They view your firm as caring enough about their opinion and believe you are invested in their success, which you are. Make a targeted list of five to ten of your clients to complete face-to-face surveys. Usually having someone that wasn’t directly related in the project or service conduct these face-to-face surveys gets a better response, because they are more inclined to give you the constructive feedback. A marketing manager, business development manager, project secretary, or office manager are all good options for people to conduct the survey. I once conducted a face-to-face survey and when I arrived the client told me they never complete surveys but since I called to request a face-to-face survey, he knew the company was serious about gathering feedback. That’s pretty darn impressive!

The positive remarks should be condensed and used as testimonials throughout all your marketing material. Before publicly publishing these, make sure your client is okay with your firm using them for marketing purposes. Once created and approved, the testimonial can be used on your

• Website
• Social media outlets
• Proposals
• Award submissions
• Trade show banners
• Brochures
• Case Studies
• Project Sheets
• Boilerplates

A testimonial is just an expansion of your reference sheet but your prospects can call these clients to get more details about your services. If you have some very well-known clients in your community or region, then these companies and executives will bode well among your prospects. A good testimonial is just another piece of marketing to solidify your firm is the right choice when it comes to architecture, engineer, construction, or manufacturing solution. It also proves you have a strong enough relationship with that client to utilize their testimonial on your marketing materials. In addition, it gives your client’s company some publicity on your marketing materials, too. Creating that win-win partnership is key to recruiting and retaining your clients.

If you haven’t conducted any face-to-face surveys and received any testimonials, call your clients today and ask for some. They aren’t afraid to give you constructive feedback or a raving review. If you aren’t comfortable with doing the survey yourself, call nu marketing today, and we would be happy to assist.