When was the last time you stepped out of the daily race to get things done, slowed down and had a conversation with your clients? It’s one of those things that we all know holds value, but when push comes to shove, it often gets bumped to the back burner.

1. Value of Client Satisfaction Surveys
It’s a Lightning Fast World we Live in;
Take Time to Slow…Down…and Connect with Clients
When was the last time you stepped out of the daily race to get things done, slowed
down and had a conversation with your clients? It’s one of those things that we all
know holds value, but when push comes to shove, it often gets bumped to the back
burner.
Connecting with clients through a formal process or a
simple phone call goes a long way to not only
strengthen your relationships, but gives you insights
into the services you deliver that would likely be
hard to learn about otherwise. We recently
implemented a client satisfaction survey strategy
here at ClearEdge that includes regularly touching
base with our clients at various milestones in our
relationship. Our client satisfaction effort has been
very informative for us.
For example, the start of a client relationship can seem overwhelming as we work to
learn about the client, their work style and communication preferences. Therefore,
one of our survey touch points is specifically designed to make sure our new client is
getting the information they need and confirming that deliverables meet expectations.
By having this at the start of our relationship, we can make adjustments early on to
ensure a positive experience for the client and ClearEdge going forward.
If putting a formal system in place isn’t part of your company’s immediate plans, I
highly suggest making a list of your clients and calling one per week (or whatever fits
best into your schedule). From our experience, a simple phone call to gauge client
satisfaction is much appreciated.
For clients who are interested in building an extensive client satisfaction survey
program, we partner with a company called Inavero. They have a proprietary
technology platform to gather and report satisfaction information. In fact, you may
have heard of the Best of Staffing award executed by Inavero.
Regardless of the format you choose for your client satisfaction efforts, there’s a high
probability that you will learn something new or strengthen a connection as a result.
Following are the examples of things we have realized at ClearEdge Marketing as a
result of our client satisfaction survey efforts:
1. It’s nice to slow down and talk with clients in person now and then. In
today’s fast-paced world, so many of us communicate mainly via email. It’s
been a treat to talk with clients directly to hear their input on our services and

2. how we can improve. It’s also a nice opportunity to get to know our clients on
a more personal level.
2. Why didn’t we think of that? What a great approach to learn ways we can
improve our service delivery. We had one client share an idea with us around
our writing process. He suggested we share different writing samples before
starting a writing project to give the client a chance to look at styles they
prefer and would like for us to follow for their writing. As a result, for those
clients who are interested, we have added a step to our content writing
process: sharing samples for style and tone.
3. So glad we asked! Sometimes what we think is too much communication is
just right. There is often a lot to communicate about and from a project
manager’s perspective; it can feel like we are providing too much information.
However, when we ask this question to our clients, not one has said that there
was too much communication. Now format is another thing – some prefer
phone calls and others prefer email for the majority of their communications.
Knowing these preferences allows us to customize our approach.
Some other compelling reasons to implement even the simplest of client satisfaction
surveys:
Client Loyalty: When you take time to talk with clients one-on-one or through
an online client satisfaction survey, you show that their opinion matters, which
ultimately strengthens a client’s loyalty to you.
Additional Sales: Client satisfaction surveys give you a chance to ask value-add
questions to help improve service. It also allows you a chance to share new
developments in your business that might benefit your client.
Discovering Trends: What’s happening in the Atlanta IT staffing market? Is
there a particular skill set more in demand than another? Carving out time to
talk with clients and ask questions is a doable way to add to your knowledge
base and keep abreast of the latest happenings.
Have you implemented a client satisfaction survey for your company? Please share
your experiences!