5 Reasons Why Feedback Is The Vital Tool Between Client And Service Provider

Consulting people is not a new idea. What is new is the growing prominence and frequency of

consultation activities, particularly those involving large numbers of participants. As the

prominence of consultation increases, it is sometimes unclear precisely how client consultation helps managers make better decisions. Managers need to know that, and how to design the consultation process accordingly.

 

Client consultation is linked to the measurement of client satisfaction. You must identify the gaps between what clients expect or need from the organization and the service they feel they are actually receiving. 

 

Here’s a basic difference between products and services. The level of satisfaction of a product often has a direct correlation to sales: you offer a good product that’s well-liked, and most likely sales will go up; for bad products, sales dip. 

 

That relationship is less transparent with services like the kind usually offered by freelancers. Freelance clients buying a service like web design or editing, will usually complete the sale unless you completely botch the deliverable. 

 

In fact, there is a more nuanced spectrum of satisfaction when it comes to services than products, but the consequences are significant: clients that are dissatisfied with your freelance services will just opt for another provider. What’s at stake? A repeat project with the client and the opportunity to aim for bigger, better projects by improving your performance.

Unfortunately, gathering feedback can lead to some skewed results. If clients were a generally satisfied with your work, but not wowed, they may silently opt for another provider, and not bother giving you any feedback at all, even if you solicit them directly.
It’s frustrating: you probably only hear back from the joyously enthusiastic clientele and the ones with the biggest gripes. Small gripes usually get reported less.

Still, there are several benefits to spending the time getting a sense of what your clients think of you and your freelance services:

• It Makes Clients Feel Important. Clients appreciate you asking them to share their thoughts. It shows that you aren’t looking at them as just a one-off opportunity, but that you’re trying to establish a relationship. That inspires loyalty to stay with you on future projects.
• It Makes Clients More Apt To Recommend You To Others. Referrals are a major stream of business for freelancers so it’s vital that you cultivate good customer service. One way to do that is asking for feedback, especially from clients who you know were truly satisfied and thrilled with your work.
  Soliciting feedback will let them re-live feel-good experiences with you. And if you botched a project, talking it out with clients can provide a wonderful way to staunch any bitterness that might haunt you later (word-of-mouth is a powerful thing).
  
• It Provides You Testimonials To Impress Future Prospects. A quote or two from a happy client gives you marketing material for your website, collateral, and other media materials. Ask for permission, of course. Many clients may be effusive in their private praise of you, but have policies against committing testimonials publicly.

Here are proven ways to obtain and use client feedback to improve your services:
Ask Clients Directly During One-On-One Meetings
Commit to meeting with your clients (over Skype or in-person) on a periodic basis to find out how you’re doing. This is especially important for your regular clients. Strong relationships can always be strengthened, even by notches, and your clients will appreciate the attention and care you’re showing.

You can keep these meetings informal: a conversation over lunch every six months. On your agenda, touch on areas of improvement, ways to improve the efficiency of current services provided, and new services that your client may not have thought he or she needed.

Conduct A Web Survey
Use a tool like Survey Monkey to generate simple surveys (keep it under 10 questions) and e-mail clients. Surveys are easy ways to generate feedback and they provide clients the anonymity to be brutally honest about your services.

The downside is that it’s easy to ignore e-mails and many requests just fall by the wayside. Expect a return rate of maybe one out of five; for every five surveys you send out, you’ll get one back.

Review Feedback-  Ask Follow-Up Questions

Satisfied clients are more likely to respond to giving feedback than unhappy ones, so take your positive responses with a grain of salt. Celebrate those successes, but don’t let it lull you into a sense of complacency either.

Always follow-up with questions. The more specifics they can give you, the more you’re able to fine-tune your performance and do better with future projects. You also may need to read between the lines.

Some clients are just not as forthcoming as they should be out of professional courtesy. Maybe they are just kind-hearten people who can’t give pointed critiques for fear of hurting your feelings. Show your professionalism and tell clients their feedback is invaluable for you to improve your services.

Get Quality Client Testimonials

So, how does one go about getting these tantalizing testimonials? One asks. Simple? Yes. But, it's a little task that's often forgotten. In business, as in life, if you don't ask, you don't get. To help ensure you get your fair share of quotable comments, it's a good idea to have a system in place. A really simple way is to ask for a testimonial at the follow-up meeting and then have an email saved that you customize and send out at the end of each project.

You're still fresh in their mind and they're doing the happy dance. Having the testimonial in email form helps to ensure you got it right and it’s easy to copy and paste it into various outlets.

The Follow-up Meeting

There are a few options for remote follow-up meetings. It can be a simple instant messenger conversation, or email back and forth. Both will give you a paper trail and documentation.  

 

Skype is a great tool for conducting online meetings with or without video. GoToMeeting is another option, as are Google’s Talk and Voice products. Always be sure to ask your client about their preference for online meeting tools. It may require a bit of testing, but once you work out any kinks, these tools can be as effective as a face-to-face meeting.

 

 

Support Unity For Project Management (Part 1)

Project Management 

 "Operations keeps the lights on, strategy provides a light at the end of the tunnel, but project management is the train engine that moves the organization forward."

Includes Processes that Encompass Following Steps:

• Requirements definition
• Task definition
• Staffing and resource allocation
• Material selection and equipment specification
• Equipment staging and shipment
• Design
• Development
• Site preparation and compliance with any regulatory or environmental requirements
• Customer support
• On-going maintenance

Requirement Definition:

In product development and process optimization, a requirement is a singular documented physical and functional need that a particular design, product or process must be able to perform. It is most commonly used in a formal sense in systems engineering, software engineering, or enterprise engineering. It is a statement that identifies a necessary attribute, capability, characteristic, or quality of a system for it to have value and utility to a customer, organisation, internal user, or other stakeholder.

Task definition:

Task is an activity that needs to be accomplished within a defined period of time or by a deadline to work towards work-related goals. A task can be broken down into assignments which should also have a defined start and end date or a deadline for completion. One or more assignments on a task puts the task under execution. Completion of all assignments on a specific task normally renders the task completed. Tasks can be linked together to create dependencies.

Tasks completion generally requires the coordination of others. Coordinated human interaction takes on the role of combining the integration of time, energy, effort, ability, and resources of multiple individuals to meet a common goal. Coordination can also be thought of as the critical mechanism that links or ties together the efforts on the singular level to that of the larger task being completed by multiple members. Coordination allows for the successful completion of the otherwise larger tasks that one might encounter.

Staffing And Resource Allocation

"In both organizations, the primary management issue revolved around resources. The portfolio management was overwhelmed issues concerning prioritization of projects and, distribution of personnel from one project to another, and the search for slack resources. However, there were no resources available. Furthermore, when resources were redistributed it often produced negative effects on other projects of the portfolio. This forced the management to continuous fire fighting, resulting in reactive behavior and short-term problem solving. However, the primary lever for portfolio management to affect an ongoing project in trouble was resource re-allocation"

In many organizations, employee workloads consist of a mix of project and operational assignments.  Due to endemic shortfalls in staffing, such folks – particularly those who have key skills and knowledge – generally have little or no spare capacity to take on more work.   However, soon comes along another “important” project in urgent need of staffing and the rest, as they say, is tragedy:  folks who are up to their necks in work are assigned to work on the new project. 

Watch out for the concluding part soon.

Early Age Computer Education: Preparatory Class Tools Needed

Improving Classroom Learning

In the book Curriculum 21: "Essential Education for a Changing World", Bill Sheskey, a former classroom teacher, technology specialist, athletic coach, and now a teacher-educator, writes, “Educators in the 21st century realize that students entering the classroom today are much different from those who have come before. Today’s students
are demanding a change in the classroom because of their ability to gather information faster than any other generation.”  

Improving Classroom Learning

Took an online class (high school) Desire online learning in ultimate high school Work at my own pace be in control of my learning.  Get extra help in a subject that is hard for me. Easier to review class materials many times. More comfortable asking teacher questions. Receive more attention from my teachers(s). 

• Students are interacting with content differently when they can access it as many times as they need and see multiple representations of concepts.

• Discussion boards have the power to extend the class period. Teachers post discussion prompts and we’ve seen that when student work is published and available in a more public
forum, they are more careful with their representation.

Classroom Learning Transformed

When teachers can use these same tools to personalize instruction, and assess student performance more rapidly and strategically, instruction improves and students achieve more. And when these resources are used to enhance teacher learning, competence with technology, and subject-area expertise, their professional experiences improve and that also supports better learning opportunities for their students.

You can read more on how to increases a child exposure on the usage of computer: help them to get acquainted with the relevant information needed for their age circle.  

 Increasing Child Exposure on IT (Part 1)