How to read the schedule and budget through the customer's eyes

Perceived schedule adherence is a rating of how the customer experienced the project deadlines, regardless of what your project plan says. It differs from reality most often where changes were announced late.

• Schedule: compare the answers Rather loosely and Very loosely with the real delay. When the project finished on time and the customer still gives a poor rating, they were missing regular status information.
• Budget: the template distinguishes a change the customer knew about in time from a change they found out about late. The first is a normal part of a project, the second is a failure of communication, not of price.
• Handling of changes and problems from the star rating should be read next to both questions. Low stars and a late announced budget change point to the same cause.
• Project manager: a good rating of the person with a poor rating of deadlines points to capacity or process, not to people.

If the same pattern repeats across several projects, change the way you report changes to customers, for example with a regular weekly status report.

How to send the survey to a customer after the project handover

1. Create a new survey in Quanda and enter the nine questions of the template. The help article Creating and setting up an online survey describes the procedure.
2. Replace the general words in the questions with the name of the project and of the project manager, so the customer knows exactly what they are rating.
3. In the Distribution step switch the survey status to Ready to use and choose Distribute by e-mail.
4. Send the campaign within a week of the handover to all the customer's contacts who took part in the project. Sign the e-mail with the name of a person the customer knows.
5. Send one reminder to those who do not answer within a week. More reminders already feel like pressure.

How to evaluate a project rating

Net Promoter Score (NPS) is an indicator of willingness to recommend, based on a question with a 0 to 10 scale. For projects, read it together with the answer to whether the customer would come back with another project.

1. Open Analysis of answers in the survey. For each question you see how many people answered and how many skipped it.
2. In the star rating find the aspect of the cooperation with the lowest average. That is the first topic for the team meeting.
3. Use the advanced filter to show the answers of customers who found out about a budget change late or who rate the schedule as loose, and read their comments.
4. Calculate NPS from the recommendation question: the share of answers 9 and 10 minus the share of answers 0 to 6. Compare projects and teams with each other.
5. Download the results as a PDF in the Final report and go through them with the team at the project retrospective.

How to turn ratings into references and further projects

A project reference is a public recommendation by the customer that you may use only with their consent. The last question of the template obtains that consent at the moment the customer is satisfied and the project is fresh in their mind.

• To customers who gave 9 or 10 and agree to a reference with their name, send a draft of the reference for approval within a week. Start from their own comment.
• Use anonymous consent as an unnamed quote in proposals and on the website, for example with the customer's industry.
• Get in touch within a month with a specific proposal for follow-up work with everyone who answered Definitely yes or Probably yes to another project.
• Treat the answer I don't know as an invitation to talk. Ask what the customer would need to see in order to decide.
• Call the detractors (0 to 6) before you start talking about references. A resolved complaint is often the start of further cooperation.