Managing Your Client's Expectations.

You know I am a great believer in Client Service and Customer Satisfaction. Infact satisfaction is a poor word. I believe that Clients when they have received our service should be Delighted with the service that they have received from us. Now delivering any project is a complex process and quite often the 'stages' get out of sync from the normal procedural process and on this basis it's up to us to try and keep all the balls juggling in the air and then landing in the correct order. It's quite a skill which often goes unnoticed by the Client however at the end of the day that's why the Client approaches us in the first instance.

In order to achieve clarity it is important to manage the Client's expectations from the start and that often means 'positioning them'. This basically means that after you have had an initial meeting with block architects and we have listened to your requirements, that we then have to explain any challenges that we foresee with the project whether that be a planning issue, building warrant issue or even cost issue. This is positioning. Putting you the Client in a place where you hopefully understand the delivery process, timescales and likely costs. However you need to remember that a project can involve many people and organisations some of which don't always meet in the middle and on this basis it can quite often be the case that projects suffer at some level, hopefully minor.

Now what happens when it goes wrong? I believe that we are great communicators and mostly we do get the necessary information to the Clients that they require but sometimes the Client doesn't listen/understand properly what is being suggested to them or sometimes they don't quite understand the jargon associated with our industry. It's important that on these occasions that You the Client ask the 'silly' question. It benefits everyone if this is the case.

You will see from our web page a selection of the many Testimonials that we receive from our Clients, but occasionally we do get the odd gripe. I personally deal with all dissatisfied Clients and take their complaints personally to the extent that I will resolve them if an issue can be resolved. This said we occasionally get absolutely silly complaints and whilst we try to deal with them in a professional and curteous manner I would suggest that Client's beware. We are professionals who have much experience in the indusrty and we do not suffer fools gladly.

Now that we have set out the Rules of the Game, lets Build...