I know that when I go a period of time without talking to someone important to me that I feel out of the loop. It doesn’t matter whether it is a personal friend of mine (who I haven’t caught up with recently) or a business acquaintance (and I’m curious as to how a new initiative is going). It’s not that I need to know every detail, of every moment, of everyday of what’s happening, I just want to ensure that things are going smoothly.
Why Do Reviews?
This is the main reason why our team has an internal review/feedback process for our clients. We want to ensure that we are intentional about taking a small amount of time to “zoom out” from the day-to-day project work and make sure we’re hitting our goals.
But why does it matter?
Open and Honest Feedback
Our goal with our internal review process is to make sure we have an open forum for honest discussion. If we talk early (and often) small problems are easy to work out with some adjustments to either the expectation or process. If that discussion doesn’t happen, it can leave small issues festering over time and becoming a larger problem than they should ever be.
Not Just Net Promoter Score
NPS is a great metric to get a quick level of how things are going. However, your digital marketing partner should strive to receive more detail than a single number for a single question. It’s hard to understand the nuances of a relationship with only a simple question of “would you recommend us?” The actual answer to that question could be: “Yes, but…..” and without asking further questions, you may never know the person who rated you a “7” thinks that you do good work but are terrible are communication.
What Should Be Ranked?
Communication
Are you satisfied with the communication of your project manager?
Communication is the hardest part of any project across industries. Every human is unique, likes to receive information in different ways, and processes written content with differing biases. I know I have received emails in the past, have implied a “tone of voice” onto the email, and immediately assumed that someone was grumpy when they really weren’t.
That’s why our team starts by asking about communication. It’s the backbone of the entire project. If one piece of communication is missed (or taken out of context) it could turn into the snowflake that caused the avalanche. Our team wants to make sure that we’re squashing communication problems as soon as they come up. Because of this, we institute weekly email updates and bi-weekly calls for each of our digital marketing clients to make sure they know what is happening and what questions our team has.
Quality of Work
Are you satisfied with the quality of work you are receiving?
Once we smooth over any communication issues, the next area we focus on is the actual deliverable we are providing. We know that our clients are entrusting us with their money that they could be spending elsewhere to grow their business – and that’s not something we take lightly. Therefore, we want to make sure the work we have completed exceeded the expectations they had when our work began.
Timeliness
Are you satisfied with the timeliness of our team’s meetings and communication?
This seems a bit repetitious in comparison to the Communication question where we began. However, we take a slightly different angle with this request to ensure that our team is:
- Showing up to meetings on time
- Respecting the time slot for the meeting and not running over
- When questions are asked, timely responses are given
Even though this question does have some overlap with Communication, that’s OK with us, as we know that Communication is an area that can make or break a relationship.
Conclusion
When is the last time you’ve taken an internal audit of how your relationship with a partner is going? I’d recommend taking a moment, asking yourself:
- How is the communication with our team?
- Is the work quality what we were expecting?
- Are tasks handled in a timely manner?
If the answer to any of those is towards the “negative” end of the spectrum, let someone know and have an honest conversation about it. Look to figure out the source of the issue, and make some action steps to resolve it.
Chris LaFay