Becoming Closer While Far Apart: Client Research for Enhanced Client Engagement
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For many of us, the idealized image of working from home has been replaced by a harsh reality of barking dogs, fighting kids, and questionable internet connections. Fortunately, we’re figuring out how to work in this ‘new normal’. We’re using Teams, Zoom, and other vehicles to connect more regularly with our internal colleagues and our project teams to keep projects moving. In some cases, we’re communicating more often than we did when we were physically collocated; the distance has brought us closer because we’ve had to be more mindful about communicating.
What many of us are missing, though, is similarly mindful and deeper connection with our clients outside of day-to-day projects. As one way to build connection, now is an excellent time to start a program of focused client research, either implemented in-house or with a trained research consultant. As a communication strategist and facilitator of more intentional communication between AEC professionals and their clients, I have some thoughts about how to get started on both an immediate engagement strategy and how to continue that strategy once we are back working in our offices in a new way of engaging.
Understanding the Value of Client Research
The first step in any research program is to consider the value of research as a catalyst for more effective client engagement. A focused performance interview with a client or prospective client takes about an hour, is 100% focused on the client and their perceptions rather than on selling the capabilities or portfolio of the team, and yields a treasure trove of valuable insight that can be immediately integrated into how firms engage with and serve their clients. Clients will tell you exactly how they’re feeling and what they need—we just need to listen.
Get Ready: Develop an Interview Guide
A great research program starts with a well-developed interview guide that contains the right questions and follows a logical flow. With a clear guide, interviews can be conducted by in-house team members or by an outside consultant, both with effective results. I’ve helped several design firms develop interview guides for their own engagement with clients, both for pursuit debriefs and project performance reviews. For example, we helped a national design firm develop an interview guide, and then we trained eight of their internal team members in how to effectively conduct and document interviews. My team and I have also conducted focused performance interviews with clients on behalf of both design and construction firms that yielded critical current perception information these firms can use to inform their engagement strategies.
Get Set: Develop a Target Client List
Concurrent with developing an interview guide, the firm must also develop a list of targeted clients and decide whether they wish to engage in a singular data-gathering engagement or establish a more regular engagement program. This will determine the selection criteria for participation in a study.
Some firms decide to do a one-time gathering of data, selecting a complete list or logical subset of clients over a certain size or of a certain type. Others decide to gather data regularly, selecting a subset of clients to participate in a set number of interviews each month or at key points in the project delivery lifecycle. In fact, most healthy firms create a regular program of client research as a central element of their client engagement and development efforts.
Go! Gather Data
Once you have an interview guide and a client list, you are ready to gather data. If using an outside consultant, make sure to select a team or researcher with two key attributes: the personality to engage clients in a friendly and detailed interview and the industry background to understand what they are hearing to facilitate follow up on fruitful lines of discussion.
I recommend interviewers document the conversation in real time; this results in an incredibly rich set of discussion notes and a detail-oriented write-up that can inform decision-making and discussion by the team and the firm. We’ve learned the value of not only documenting in real time but including a research associate on each of our calls whose sole responsibility is to document. This provides two sets of notes, increases the quality of the final write-up, and enables us to turn around the write-ups much faster to drive discussion within our client organizations.
To Participate, or Not to Participate?
Here’s the question I get all the time: “Will our clients really want to participate in this?” The answer: Yes and no. Clients with which you have strong relationships and who value you as a design or construction professional will participate, and with enthusiasm. Those who see you as a commodity probably won’t. That distinction in itself provides a valuable data point.
For those clients who will participate, the interview and your follow up can be one of the most beneficial relationship-building things a firm can do. When we conduct interviews on behalf of our clients, we ask each interviewee if they’d like to add anything about which they haven’t already been asked (typically at the conclusion of the interview). In at least one in five interviews we do, the interviewee says a variant of the following: “I know XX cares about clients like me because they are asking you to speak to me.” Interestingly, we get this type of comment even from respondents who are otherwise negative about the firm for which we’re gathering data.
The Critical Step: Follow Up and Follow Through
How the firm follows up with their clients and what the firm does with the data gathered are the most important steps in a client research and engagement process. Each interaction in the interview process is an opportunity for enhanced client engagement: at the point in time the client manager contacts the client to ask for interview, in the thank-you note you send to the client for giving you their time and candid feedback, and in the more detailed, focused conversation to follow up from the interview. Make the most of each interaction with timely and sincere engagement.
Firms can also deeply integrate what they learn from the aggregate of clients in their business development, marketing, and project execution strategies. We’ve had clients use what they learn to update their websites and create branded collateral highlighting key strengths or a summary of what they learned from industry-related questions, and to write focused publications about client-directed values and innovations.
Making Lemonade
Our clients who learn negative information from their clients about projects, team members, or reputations have a tremendous opportunity to heal relationships and to learn from experiences to improve performance on future projects. Even if the feedback received seems one-sided or even unfair, our clients learn information they can use to change the optics of a situation or to change how their teams communicate with clients to create more positive outcomes. Again, the value is in what you do with the information you receive.
Key Takeaways:
Whether you engage in client research using in-house resources or trained consultants, do it. Don’t wait. This is an excellent time to engage with clients through focused interviews. Clients are also feeling disconnected from their project and consultant teams. As a result, a focused program of research – even a small number of interviews – can reinforce a positive relationship with an existing client or keep you and your team top-of-mind for a prospective client.
Make sure your research process is well-designed and executed using a logical and flowing guide and conducted by a skilled, flexible, and engaging interviewer.
Document the results objectively, completely, and quickly.
Send thank-you notes quickly that respond to the client with an attitude of gratitude, regardless of the positive or negative nature of what you learn.
Follow up strategically, without defensiveness, to build a stronger partnership or to repair a process or a relationship.
Use aggregate data to review work processes, communication protocols, and the alignment of marketing collateral (websites, proposals, brochures, etc.)
All In
Clients, even busy clients, understand the value of teams learning about how they are perceived and how projects are going. Most clients are grateful for the opportunity to participate and to share their thoughts and ideas. Don’t assume your clients are too busy, and don’t assume that regular client meetings substitute for the opportunity for a client to say what they think and what they need in a non-threatening and engaging conversation. Research has value, and client conversations matter. We don’t have to wait until we can be physically closer again. We can, and we should, build closer relationships right now.
