Benchmarking Client Service Expectations

If you're not taking steps to uncover your clients' service expectations, you're missing a valuable opportunity to distinguish your firm and strengthen client relationships. In my last post, I tried to make the compelling case for doing what I call "service benchmarking" at the outset of every project. I also outlined the general content of that process and offered a helpful resource to use from my website.

In this article, I'd like to go further in describing how you can benchmark service expectations. Every client is different, so you'll need to tweak the process to fit both the client and your firm. 

How to Do Service Benchmarking

Talk to every key client contact who will experience your service. Client perceptions of your performance are rarely limited to a single person. Yet it is not uncommon for us to talk about client preferences with only the primary point of contact (e.g., the client PM). Instead, attempt to meet with all key client contacts with whom you will have significant interaction.

Determine how many benchmarking meetings are appropriate. There are advantages to meeting with multiple client contacts in a single benchmarking session. Besides the efficiency of getting feedback from different individuals in one sitting, the combined session enables them to better understand each other's expectations and to reach a consensus where necessary. But some client contacts (e.g., senior management or accounting) might be better engaged in a separate meeting.

Take time to plan the meeting. Having a standard questionnaire provides a general outline for the benchmarking session. Yet you should review the questions in advance to determine which are appropriate to ask and what additional or modified questions should be added. Different client contacts will undoubtedly warrant different questions.

Expect to spend one to two hours in the benchmarking session. The time involved will depend on a number of factors—how familiar you are with the client, how many client contacts will be participating, how much time the client is willing to commit to this discussion, etc. For large projects or contracts, I've found that a two-hour meeting is pretty typical to cover the bases.

Consider collecting the information in multiple conversations. The average client will likely balk at spending two hours—or any amount of time—to formally benchmark expectations, especially on smaller projects. But don't abandon the process too quickly! You can collect the information in multiple meetings and phone conversations—even without the client being aware that you are doing "benchmarking."

Be sure to allow the client to bring up issues you may not have anticipated. One disadvantage of a standard questionnaire is that it can lead you to be too focused on the questions listed, perhaps bypassing issues of importance to the client. Instead, keep the conversation loose enough to allow the client to venture into issues that might not be addressed in your questionnaire. Be sure to ask, "Is there anything else we haven't discussed that you'd like to talk about?"

How to Do Service Benchmarking

It's natural to think of applying this process only to new clients or new projects. But it can be entirely appropriate to employ it with current clients or later in the project. Since great service is primarily about meeting and exceeding expectations, understanding those expectations better is worth pursuing at any stage of the project or relationship.

Begin uncovering client expectations during the sales process. This enables you to better address client service issues in your proposal or presentation. Indeed, giving attention to the working relationship can be a substantial competitive advantage, since likely no one else will. Doing this in the sales process also shortens the benchmarking step after contract award.

Initiate the formal process shortly after contract award. The insights gained from service benchmarking should be integrated with other elements of project planning. There are many obvious advantages in doing this process at the outset, enabling a mutual understanding of what's expected before the work begins. Many of the service problems I've encountered could have been avoided if the two parties had gone through this step at the start of the project.

Revisit the process at key project transition points. Client expectations often change to some degree over the course of the project. You will be wise to check periodically to confirm that your initial understanding of client expectations is still valid. A convenient time to do this is at project transitions such as planning-to-design, preliminary-to-final, design-to-construction.

Fill in benchmarking gaps at any stage of the project. If the project is already underway, a full-blown benchmarking session is probably tough to sell to the client. But you should still attempt to fill in gaps in your understanding of client expectations. Be careful not to assume too much. Check to make sure that what you think you know is accurate.

Employ the process when there are service problems. If you didn't do benchmarking at the start, you should at least use elements of the process in response to any service issues that arise later in the project. Sometimes clients who were reluctant to participate early are eager to do so after problems appear.

Of course, service benchmarking is only the start of an effective client service process. But even your best service efforts will fall short if you don't understand what the client expects. So don't fail to ask, whatever form that may take.