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Over Deliver - The Key to Customer SatisfactionClient satisfaction starts with meeting or beating the contractual obligations of the relationship. There are also some intangibles that can help you to over deliver to a client. Meetings In most organizations it's easy to deliver additional value around meetings, because statistically, most companies run meetings poorly. Capture important notes during your meetings and then deliver your neatly typed notes consistently with your client's format. Not only will it allow you to capture the main ideas and benefit of important discussions, but it will almost always be appreciated by your client's team members. Send this as soon after the meeting as possible. Proactively help to define the agendas and outcomes for each meeting. Help keep things on track and try to meaningfully contribute towards these goals. Become highly proficient at running successful meetings. If there are action items for other team members that are critical to your projects success, tactfully contact the team member and offer your help if it makes sense. Keeping the project on track internally helps you accomplish your goals as a consultant and you'll be viewed favorably as a team player. Reports Delivering quality reports during your client engagement will enhance your image as a consultant because they're so visible to the internal team members. In your earliest meeting possible get together with the client and define parameters for the report format and content. Every client has different needs so don't assume that your template doesn't need to change. Information important to one client is not interesting to another. Define up front what works and then deliver it. As with the rest of your communications, a picture is worth a thousand words. You or your staff should become proficient at producing flow charts, Gantt charts, performance charts and architectural diagrams. Drawings in your report that communicate an abundance of information make it easy to use. Perfect the art of the executive summary. For busy executives in the client organization, sometimes they'll only want a one page summary. Make sure it communicates the key issues of the report. If they want more information, they'll drill down. Accessibility Make it easy to contact you around the clock using email, phone, or mobile. The more you're as accessible as internal team members the more you will be regarded as one. Have backup plans when you know you're not going to be available. Proactively contact your clients letting them know if there will be a period of time they won't be able to get a hold of you and give them some alternative options. Profit Engineering Our company focuses on profit engineered technology, that is, how we maximize the ROI on the technology we deploy. We pay attention to the business process, the costs of the process and try to achieve the best solution possible that will impact the bottom line for our client. And we're also pretty good at communicating this to the client so they can appreciate our responsible efforts. Other articles by this author »
About Bryan Brandenburg
Bryan Brandenburg has published 5 books as well as a number of
articles both in print and on the internet. He has published almost
30 software programs both for consumers and business. More
information can be found at www.vmmg.net. Related
And here is another random article you might be interested in... Beware of Bogus Credit Repair Companies!So-called "credit repair" companies claim they can remove negative information from credit reports. Advertising as "Credit Advisors," "Credit Rating Correction Services" or "Credit Consultants," they trumpet variations on this message: "Turned down because of bad credit? We can help!" Many of these companies charge hundreds if not thousands of dollars for the promise to "clean up" bad credit reports. But the truth is, these companies can only do what you could do yourself--at no charge. Nobody can remove negative information that is accurate from your credit report. No company has a "secret" ability to remove all negative information. But this doesn't stop their claims. This deceptive quote is from a credit repair company brochure: "Charged-off accounts, collection accounts, judgments, tax liens, repossessions, and even bankruptcies can be removed from your credit records in less than one year (five to seven month average)." One tactic is to bombard credit reporting agencies with requests to verify information. If a credit reporting agency cannot verify an entry within 60 days, it will remove the information from the report. But if the information is later verified to be accurate, it will go back in the report. Before you even consider signing a contract with a company that promises to repair your credit, remember these facts:
Beware guaranteed credit offers! Credit repair and other companies often claim they "guarantee" to get you a credit card, regardless of your credit history. In fact, these companies do not always honor their guarantee. Sometimes, they'll just take your money and run--you will not get any credit, regardless of what they promised. If they get you a card at all it often will be a "secured" bank credit card, with high up-front "application" fees, that requires you to deposit and keep several hundred dollars in a savings account, or a card that only allows you to buy items in a catalogue from a business that you probably never heard of. (You can apply for a secured credit card by yourself. For a free list of banks that do not charge application fees for secured cards, see the information from Consumer Action in the "For More Information" section below.) Credit repair companies often advertise on television, in newspapers and even on matchbooks. Sometimes they require consumers to dial a "900" telephone number to get more information. Calls to 900 numbers can cost $2 or $3 a minute, so listening to a few minutes of information about the cards can be expensive. Some companies try to get people a credit card by having them apply using financial information of other people with good credit histories. It is a criminal act to apply for credit under someone else's name--do not do business with one of these companies. Law enforcement agencies have shut down many credit repair outfits, but it is hard to stop a fraudulent credit repair outfit unless people complain about it. Therefore, be careful about responding to credit repair ads and be sure to complain to the agencies listed below if you think a credit repair company took advantage of you. For more information
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