Customer Satisfaction and Its Importance in Securing Work

As A/E/C Marketers, we understand that our brand loyalty and client satisfaction are paramount to our ability to secure future work. Since our marketing strategies don’t include traditional advertising tactics, our customer satisfaction levels are imperative to consistently monitor and nourish. However, thanks to our close working relationships with our clients, these metrics are relatively easily attainable and direct.

What is Customer Satisfaction?

Customer satisfaction is a measure of how we well are meeting our client’s expectations and the resulting level of brand loyalty and potential for future purchases. Meeting or exceeding our clients’ expectations on a regular and consistent basis will build our brand equity and give our clients a positive experience with our firm, resulting in positive brand associations and increasing the likelihood they will choose to work with us in the future. On the other hand, low levels of customer satisfaction will significantly impact our likelihood of securing work with particular clients, or even similar ones, as the industry tends to be niche and interconnected; a project manager who we performed poorly for could very easily transition into a similar role in a nearby municipality or transportation department and remember their negative experience when selecting their next consultant.

How Can We Monitor Customer Satisfaction?

The best way we as A/E/C marketers can monitor our customer satisfaction levels is by conducting regular debriefs and gathering feedback from our technical staff on project progress and any issuesin relation to upcoming key pursuits. Many times in marketing we are removed from the day-to-day relationships with our key clients, so it is important to also maintain open communication with our technical teams who are dealing with these important clients on a daily basis. We need to utilize them as a resource to gain insight into our clients’ changing needs, staffing updates, and any issues on major projects to be mindful of how we can successfully overcome these issues on our next pursuits.

Our Customer Satisfaction is Low – What Now?

It’s easy to know how to relate to our clients when everything is going great, but what about when things go wrong? We are all human – it is inevitable that sometimes a project or a pursuit won’t go as planned and we have made a less than desirable impression on an important client. How can we move pastthis bump in the road to rebuild that relationship? This can be a long, strategic process. Immediately after the completion of the project, the technical team should hold a debrief with the client to openly discuss what went well, what went wrong, and ways we can help improve their customer experience in the future. Marketing and technical staff need to work together throughout the capture planning process to establish pre-positioning and pursuit strategies to acknowledge our past mistakes and show that we have made improvements. This may not be a one-time process but with consistency and persistence we can get back in the good graces of our clients and continue to build our prominence and secure future work for our firm.