Client satisfaction is the most important factor in defining a successful project. To improve customer satisfaction, the project is adjusted, sculpted, and tailored. Customers are primarily focused on project management operations, and they must be involved from the beginning (requirements gathering) to the finish (provision of products and services).
As a result, project managers must constantly consider client satisfaction, or customer satisfaction, in their planning.
Something just doesn’t feel right. You’re in charge of a project, but it doesn’t appear that your client is having fun. Perhaps communication is missing, or they’ve suddenly begun to micromanage you… or perhaps it’s something else. Whatever the case may be, your client does not appear to be overjoyed with the way things are going. That can be challenging to get through because we all understand how crucial customer happiness is in project management.
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Fundamentals to Improve Customer Satisfaction
Understanding, identifying, measuring, and managing client needs in order to meet their expectations is the foundation of customer happiness. This idea entails adhering to the specifications in order to ensure that the project achieves the desired output.
Customer satisfaction is an important aspect of project management since it guarantees that the project’s goals, objectives, and responsibilities are met by all stakeholders. Once the value of customer satisfaction is achieved, it enables the customers to rely on the project managers and their services.
In order to make the project managers do so, we have listed some of the ways to improve client satisfaction in project management.
Top ways to enhance client satisfaction in project management
Include a useful dashboard in the weekly status report
Dashboards are quite popular among executives for a customer satisfaction project. Create a robust dashboard with a lot of information that can be used as a status report for all stakeholders. The detail section of the status report, which comprises the typical bullet points that are updated before, during, and after each status meeting, will still be required.
A smart dashboard with red/green/yellow indications, bars or pies, and budget information, on the other hand, will reduce the need to produce many levels of progress reports for each project. And the customer presentation will be both pleasing and instructive.
Obtain a C-level representative for a forthcoming project client status call/meeting
Nothing communicates “you are important” to a project. Customers like having your CEO pay them a visit or attend a couple of project status meetings. If you’re at a large organization, it doesn’t have to be the CEO; it might be another C-level executive or a VP.
However, it must be someone at a really senior level inside your firm. It conveys to your customer that this project is important to us and that we want to make sure we are reaching your expectations. Such practices could leverage your consumer satisfaction project on a positive note.
Workshops on lessons learned should be held multiple times throughout the project.
Lessons learned sessions are held with the customer at the end of the project to examine what went well and what did not. The goal is to apply what you’ve learned in these sessions to your next assignment.
You may increase your and your project team’s performance and delivery on the current project by engaging your project customer on a regular basis throughout the current project – say, at every significant deliverable, phase, or milestone. Your initiative is an excellent method to enhance your project customer’s experience and maintain high levels of customer satisfaction.
Make a user acceptance testing resource available to the client
On technological projects, project customers are notoriously lousy at preparing – and typically at executing – user acceptability testing (UAT). We can’t do the testing for them since it would be a conflict of interest and would serve no purpose, but we can help them. We can help them prepare test scenarios and use cases, as well as lead them through the UAT process.
Again, we should not build the scenarios and use cases for them; but, we may demonstrate how to do so appropriately. And by designating a FREE resource to do so with them, we are not only assisting them, but we are also not breaking their budget.
Make sure that everything is thoroughly planned out before deploying the final solution
The way you and your team manage the project’s conclusion can make or break the customer experience. Some project managers believe that if the project has gone relatively smoothly, you may simply phone it in at the conclusion.
No, it does not. Much like your mother-in-law, who just got a new Macbook and you spent 30 minutes helping her get started before saying, “Gotta go!” you’ll score a lot more points if you hold their hand until deployment and then some.
Believe me, those project customers who have just been handed a technical solution will feel a lot better knowing you’re still available to contact after the final project job on the schedule is marked as 100% complete. That’s how you hit a nail to improve customer satisfaction.
Plan for a 30 to 60-day transition to support the project solution for technical projects, and agree to keep you and your team available to the customer as needed. If you’ve built a solid relationship with the client prior to closeout, this act of closeout contact and assistance will go a long way toward assuring customer happiness and maybe further add-on work for your firm.
Why should customer pleasure be quantifiable?
- To determine how well customers’ expectations are met. If client satisfaction is poor, it is vital to collaborate in order to identify innovative ways to suit their needs.
- Identifying loyal clients and figuring out how to keep them.
- To recognize people and internal teams who make a major contribution to customer satisfaction.
- To keep track of methods and techniques that aid in the satisfaction and refinement of customers.
- To comprehend the disparity between the organization’s internal sense of quality and the customer’s view of the quality received.
How Projectopia can Improve Client Satisfaction?
Projectopia is a dedicated project management plugin that allows you to manage all processes in one place. This saves a lot of time as well as increases project efficiency.
Here are some of the key processes that make Projectopia improve client satisfaction:
- Client Support and Coordination: Projectopia has an inbuilt chat feature where project managers can easily interact with clients and discuss project progress, ideas and even share files.
- Project Progress: Using Projectopia, you can keep your clients in sync with the project progress.
- Client Ticketing: Projectopia has a client ticketing feature where they can easily raise tickets and the project team can get it resolved easily.
Final Words
It is sometimes true that the smallest details are the most important. The extra mile you go in taking the time and making the effort to gratify your clients will not go unnoticed. Reduce your technical knowledge and consider it from their point of view. Consider what would make you nervous if you were sitting in their seat. And then point them out.
This is a general list, and projects are specific — as is technology. Every project is unique, and looking at the project through the eyes of your client can provide you with new and varied recommendations for a better customer experience.
Finally, in order to boost customer satisfaction, a dedicated project management process and firm contact with customers are required. In order to manage projects smoothly, you can use Projectopia. It has everything which you require to make a successful project. To know more, you can check its features or try a demo here.
Also, we have a Black Friday and Cyber Monday ongoing sale where you can receive 30% off on Projectopia. Grab the deal here.