Construction Trailblazers: Paving The Way to Excellence

Samantha: What's the one thing that you should be
tracking in your handoff meetings, but probably aren't?

There's one detail in particular that, if you start tracking, will significantly
increase the chance of an awesome project outcome and a super happy customer.

It's not a timeline, budget item, or other logistical thing.

It's something way more personal.

So today we're diving into how, if you could start tracking this, you could take your
handoff meetings, your projects, and your customer satisfaction to the next level.

Welcome to construction trailblazers, paving the way to excellence.

The podcast where we cut the noise and dive into what truly drives success in the building industry.

I'm Samantha C. Prestidge, your guide in simplifying
operations and turning dynamic teams into industry leaders.

We're all about embracing a people focused, tech forward, and lean practice that reshapes the
trajectory of a company so you can boost revenue and free yourself from the daily firefighting.

So if you're ready to have a team that consistently
delivers success, then you're in the right place.

Discover more about us and catch up on past episodes at ConstructionTrailBlazers.

com All right, let's dive in.

So I know that talking about handoff meetings can be a bit sensitive or a bit cringy
for some teams because handoff meetings can so easily lead a project sideways.

If you don't have a good process in place, you don't have good tech
to track a lot of these notes, um, and if you don't have good team
communication, then oftentimes you can track certain errors in a project.

back to a particular meeting.

So yes, I absolutely want you to encourage you to have your processes in place for this,
have those logistical things in order for a very structured handoff meeting, but there's
also something way more important that I also want you to focus on in this checklist because
you can have Everything documented exceptionally well, all the logistical things and still
have a dissatisfied customer or a customer that is just disappointed throughout the project.

And that happens because you're missing your customer's voice in that handoff.

When your customer feels understood and heard throughout
a project, they are way more likely to forgive you.

If something goes wrong, they're more likely to either be a repeat
customer, refer you, or do something that benefits your reputation.

And that's definitely worth the effort to reinvent your handoff meetings here and reinvent your,
your sales or pre cons processes and your overall project management and project delivery approach.

So your voice of the customer, your customer's voice is one of those Lean
Six Sigma terms that might feel a little bit technical to some, but in
my opinion, it's one of those concepts that will never lose its edge.

It is fundamental to success.

It's not just a textbook principle that has no place in the real world.

It is a textbook principle that holds a lot of value.

It can make or break a company or project or just the trust that you're building with a customer.

I will say most of the time you have some of this information in your sales
process, or if you have invested with a marketing person that's done your website
or has helped with social media stuff, then they have a lot of this information.

But oftentimes the voice of the customer stuff and all those details sit
with sales and marketing and it doesn't find its way Into operations.

And that's what really looking at what you're talking about in handoff meetings.

This is where we're going to see a pivotal point here to bridge this connection.

So where you're really missing the mark is during your sales process or
your precon meetings or anything your business development team is doing.

They're usually getting to know your customer pretty well.

They're getting to pick up on their personality on their preferences.

And all these little things that the customer is saying or that the customer
might care about, things beyond the project that speak to this person's values.

And they're not writing it down.

A lot of times salespeople will just rely on their
ability to switch on the charm at a certain moment.

to meet that customer or that prospect where they're at,
and you start to be charming and persuasive to close a deal.

And they don't think to capture some of these details that are sitting in their brain.

They don't think to capture these details to then help the next
team be set up for success, like your project management team.

So really, what are these details that they should be looking at?

When it comes to Voice of the Customer, we are talking about deeply understanding
what makes this customer happy, what makes them tick, and what would make them
feel like giving you their money is the best decision that they've ever made.

And so these are details like a phrase that a customer
keeps saying that gives you insight into their mindset.

Maybe it's something around family, or it's something
around like a big career lesson they learned in their youth.

A lot of times people have these little subtle remarks in a conversation that really
speak to their values and really speak to what makes them happy working with someone.

It could also just be little preferences, things like, Oh, this person likes updates at 9am
or they keep talking about this freaking type of donut at the next meeting you have with them.

bring a dozen doughnuts, right?

There are certain things that you do in a sales process that if you just
did in your project delivery, project management process as well, would
make a customer feel like, oh my gosh, they are paying attention to me.

I'm not just a checklist for them.

And sometimes that's as simple as.

But also important here is to really understand what success looks like for them.

How does a partnership with you look successful for them?

So, we all know the basics, like, yep, a successful
project is one that's done on time and in budget.

But, if we're being real, often times, where that does not go according to plan, We're
not going to be on time or we're not going to be in budget or something's going to change.

There's going to be some curveball and we need to make sure that we have the
relationship and the rapport built up with this customer to navigate that.

And that comes down to bringing in that voice of the customer
in every stage of their journey and their experience with you.

So understanding what will make this project feel like a win for them beyond.

Being on time and in budget.

What really matters to them beyond the technical and logistical things?

Is it minimizing disruptions to their family or to their team?

Is it ensuring that they feel involved in the loop without
being overwhelmed and they're always freaking talking to you?

Is it just a smooth, seamless experience from start to finish?

What is it that makes them feel like you are the best person to give
their money to and they have no regrets when they pay your invoices?

So for example, part of another business that I run is a virtual assistant team.

We have U. S. based assistants from that basic admin and office manager level
to a higher level at the executive assistant and operations assistant level.

And so we were working with a CEO who was still kind of getting used to delegating.

We had a VA on his team and he was just one of those.

typical visionary big picture leaders.

He really thrived when he could focus on strategy and creative problem solving and just shut
down when there was a lot of details or when there were too many meetings on his calendar.

It's not that he didn't see the value in his input and his decisions in some of these meetings.

It just was not what made him feel really good about his business.

So one thing we picked up on right away was how much he did not like structured meetings.

Which is one of our go to things whenever you're working with an assistant,
you have to have some structured meetings so that you consistently have
that face time, that communication, and that trust continues to build up.

But that was just something that we noticed was not going to work well with him
and could actually damage our relationship with him instead of building that trust.

So he would say things very casually like meetings kill my
creativity or oh my gosh another check in on my calendar.

Even if it was just 15 minutes with a team member, he would say
some of these things during our sales and onboarding process.

And so instead of forcing him into a process that was not going to work for him, we
restructured how we would keep him updated and how his assistant would collaborate with him.

So instead of our typical weekly check ins or weekly syncs,
we shifted everything to kind of asynchronous updates.

So it really required that his assistant be adaptable and flexible.

And the assistant would send him a morning recap and an afternoon recap.

So morning stuff of like, this is what you've got going on today.

Here's the decisions that we need.

And then an afternoon text of here's what's still kind of the open ended still needs
your decision on, Here's what you've got going on tomorrow, things like that, or just
bite sized updates where he did not have to sit down at his computer for a meeting.

He did not have to get on a phone call, but he could
really quickly see what was going on and feel prepared.

And so by the end of the first month working with him, he was like, this is exactly what I needed.

I feel like I'm in the loop without.

I'm being changed to a schedule.

And it wasn't a huge overall of what we already do.

It was just an intentional shift of how we worked with him based on knowing him the best.

And it made all the difference in the success of working with him.

And so these are the details that could take your handoff meetings from good.

to great when you can really understand your customer and really adjust how
you do things, not saying wipe away your whole project process, but just
tweak and adapt how you do something to work better with your customers.

They don't just feel like a checklist for you.

That's going to build trust.

It's going to encourage a collaborative.

approach when issues come up because they know that you care.

And when you take the time to really understand that customer, you're way more likely to
prevent issues on a project because the team now understands the uniqueness of a project.

It's not just the same old, Oh yeah, we got to get on time.

We've got to get on budget.

It's not that same old.

Now there's a unique measure of success for this project that they can buy into.

You're also way more likely to have your customers understanding and respect when you
have to talk to them about issues that we know are likely to come up on a project, right?

Very rarely you have a project with no issues.

And you're more likely to overall win bids in your sales process
because you're now competing on value and not just on the lowest price.

So part of how we're able to do this, both in our main company of OXO, where
we do process improvement and management coaching, and then also the virtual
assistant business, how we're able to do this is just being very intentional
with the questions we ask in our sales process and our onboarding process.

So it's not just about the tasks that need to get done or what the priorities are.

Obviously those are the logistical things that we want to understand,
but it's about really understanding the person that we're working with.

So for construction, for field service teams, the same principle applies.

You want to dig deeper than those technical details and ask questions
like what's most important to your customer beyond on time and on budget?

How do they prefer to communicate?

Is it quick text updates?

Is it weekly calls?

Is it something else?

What stresses them out most during a project and how can you address that up front?

You can ask questions like Tell us about a bad experience you had on a project before,
or someone else that you were working with that you just didn't get along with.

You can ask questions like that to kind of get some of these answers.

And also, what does a successful project look like to them, not just
on paper, but really in their eyes, what does success look like?

These are the things that are going to build trust and reduce friction and
leave your customer walking away with yeah that's the best experience and best
project I've ever had even if there's a whole bunch of delays that come up on
this project and By layering this deeper understanding into your processes.

You're not just meeting expectations You are exceeding them in a way that feels
personal and thoughtful So figure out what are the questions that are best going
to help you understand your customer and then make sure your team is asking
those questions and documenting them in your CRM or some kind of document.

You can honestly just have a Word or Google Doc here in a project file that's labeled Client Info
and Preferences and just have a running list of notes that you can refer to and act on later.

Really, the key here is just to make sure that that information is accessible and actionable.

So it might initially feel like this is just another thing to do that
you don't have time for, but it doesn't have to be time intensive.

You're already having a lot of these meetings with your customers.

A lot of times your pre con team, your sales team is
already kind of picking up on some of this information.

Now we're just going to make sure that they are doing it consistently
with all of your customers, all of your projects, and that they're
documenting it so that we can include that in our handoff meeting.

So that when we're reviewing the logistical things, we can also say, Hey, the customer
likes this, or Hey, when you have your next project meeting with the customer,
say this or do this, that'll make sure that they feel like they can trust you.

Things like that.

We're including those conversations in that handoff meeting.

So now our project management team can meet the level of
awesomeness and success that your pre con and sales team have sold.

I'd encourage you to think about the last project you had and what's one piece of information about
your customer that if you knew that you could have really improved the experience of this project.

And how could capturing that as a standard part of your process
really transform future projects and future team performance?

Alright, thanks for listening to this episode of Construction Trailblazers.

If you have your own story about going above and
beyond with a customer, then I would love to hear it.

Reach out to me directly on LinkedIn or email me at hello at constructiontrailblazers.

com.

And we'll see you next time.