By Waffa Karkukly

Accurately gauging client satisfaction is critical to the success of a consulting entity. However, the subjective nature of these evaluations makes precise measurement extremely difficult. Successful project managers must find ways to isolate this subjectivity and find specific, measurable criteria to analyze their team's effectiveness.

Defining The Successful Project

One of the many definitions of a successful project is an assignment that is delivered on time, under budget, within scope, and most importantly, delivers a result that satisfies the client.

Missed deadlines and expanding budgets are the obvious causes of dissatisfied clients, but they are also the easiest to remedy in future endeavors. The true problem facing project managers is the project that is completed on time, on budget, and within scope, but remains unsuccessful because the client is not satisfied with the deliverable. This cause of failure puts project managers in a precarious position where they must not only find a solution, but also often need to do some serious investigation to determine what went wrong.

Salvaging the project at this stage is obviously a priority. However, the key to long-term success is avoiding this situation altogether. To do so, one must properly define "Customer Satisfaction," determine the criteria to measure it, and then take the proper steps to achieve it.

Defining Customer Satisfaction

As defined by PMBOK (Project Management Body of Knowledge), customer satisfaction is "understanding, managing, and influencing needs so that customer expectations are met or exceeded." This requires a combination of conformance to specifications (the project must produce what it said it would produce) and fitness for use (it must satisfy real needs).

With customer satisfaction adequately defined, the question becomes "How can you measure it?" Timelines, budgets, and scope are easily assessed, but the subjectivity of human nature makes measuring "satisfaction" imprecise at best. The challenge then becomes "objectifying" customer satisfaction, involving the stakeholders in setting specific, measurable success criteria and tying the project's success directly to those objectives.

Tools for Success

In my own quest to achieve client satisfaction, I have used the following process to help determine my clients' priorities and measure my team's results.

Prior to Starting the Project:

1. Construct an evaluation questionnaire with input from stakeholders and IS management. Be brief and specific, but be sure to include pertinent project information such as the project's name, stakeholders' names and titles, and the project's objective as you and the stakeholders perceive it.
2. Clearly define the project's success criteria with your stakeholders and prioritize success factors such as time, scope, budget, support, responsiveness, communication, etc.
3. Write down clients' expectations for each of these success factors before commencing the work.

After Project Completion:

1. Provide stakeholders with the evaluation questionnaire they constructed previously and have them fill it out within a specific time.
2. Meet with each stakeholder who filled out the evaluation and discuss if expectations were met. Write down any comments and/or actions for improvements next to each of the previous expectations.
3. Share the clients' feedback with your project team as part of the documented lesson learned. Identify any gaps and work to improve them in future endeavors.

I hope that you found these tips helpful. Using this method, I have made great strides toward a more satisfied client base. However, the important thing to keep in mind is that regardless of your specific method, continued success hinges on constantly measuring and improving our customers' satisfaction.