Excessive design and structural tweaks from clients can be frustrating and time consuming for architectural designers. They can derail a project and make it less profitable. Find out 9 ways to reduce customer turnover and have a happier customer relationship.
Hello and thank you for watching. I’m Quan and in this article I’m going to give you a few ways to reduce the amount of revisions with client projects. Stay tuned to find out how you can say goodbye to the days of “Final – Final of final” files and end up with hundreds of revisions and a better customer relationship.
Excessive client edits can be frustrating and time consuming. They can really derail one project and even eat into another project’s schedule. Not only that, it can make that project less profitable or unprofitable depending on how you initially quote and its scope.
Receiving multiple revisions from a customer can have many reasons.
It may mean that the customer is not well oriented in the first place.
It may be that customers do not have a good interaction with you, they say one thing you do another.
Maybe they simply won’t have information about the design until you show it off.
It could simply be that they just don’t like your design
Maybe your design costs more than the client’s budget
Maybe it’s because your design has a feng shui error
On the other hand, it could be you. Maybe you didn’t lead the project well or at all. Maybe you didn’t do your job well, or maybe you need to improve your skills.
How to reduce customer revisions
Regardless of the cause, it may surprise you that there are a few things you can do to help prevent tons of modifications.
1. Ask and Ask
The first is to ask the right questions in advance. It also puts you in the initiative rather than being led by the customer. When you’re in that position, clients see you as an expert, not a painter for hire.
When a client cares about your architecture and design perspective — for example, the client asks you to make something like this, look like this or whatever, instead of letting you decide how to deal with it. Best of all—it’s usually a sign that you didn’t ask the right questions in advance, if you did ask them.
A lot of these requests are likely based on their personal opinions and preferences, rather than something objective, such as a creative brief.
But it can also be a sign that your design has missed the mark. When you ask the right questions ahead of time, you know who you’re designing for and why. If you don’t know what questions to ask, check out the 17 Questions You Must Ask During Design Consulting
2. Make the problem clear
Revisions are part of the design process and they cannot (and should not be) avoided. Instead, they should be done with purpose by limiting the goals of the project. Customers often want you to finish your work early, but sometimes they overlook your editing efforts. Let them know that.
For example, a customer can take a look at your design speaker and say that you want it like this, it is more suitable, I can help you fix it. But after you finished modifying, they said: well this is bad, I will go back to the old plan to help you. haha. Have you ever come across this situation? The reason is that the client has not paid enough attention to your work and considers this modification free. Make it clear to the Client that you only have 2 edits, then they will focus on their requests for you because they know it’s limited.
Knowing these boundaries, they should respect the process (you may need to remind them a few times along the way) and not take advantage of you by asking for multiple revisions based on their whims. – or worse, someone else.
You should say “I would like to send you the 3rd revision”. A light reminder that they have fixed it for the 3rd time, instead of: “I send you the edit”. an infinite modification, and it reduces the value of your labor
3. Limit the number of reviewers
Customers may have to ask others to review products and get advice from them. eg spouses – family members etc… but that doesn’t mean you want 5 or 10 neighbors to send you those edits. This is directly related to what I just mentioned above.
Customers don’t realize how important your edits are and ask to edit anything they hear from others or even a comment on social media, It doesn’t work. never ends well.
When you limit the number of people who comment or do ideas for them. on the other hand, limit them to edits, which will make the customer beware of any comments and consider carefully what is OK or not.
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4. Anticipate and prepare questions.
Another way you can reduce your customers’ revision requests is to anticipate their questions and prepare compelling answers. If you anticipate something that could be a problem, prepare a list and have ready evidence that it is plausible. instead of hum and bewilderment when customers ask questions: Wow, why is this place like this… When you are confident with your design, customers will be more willing to trust you
If you’re not sure about your design once, customers won’t be sure 10 times. and they may not say anything until the end of the process and then suddenly ask for a change at the last minute, leading to a host of other changes. You don’t want to go too deep in the wrong direction and then have to redo a lot of work later or go through unnecessarily lengthy edits.
5. Clearly defined and not hasty
Your client hired you because you are a professional. They may not know exactly what constitutes a “modification loop” – it might be a vague term for someone unfamiliar with design jargon. Take the time to explain to your client exactly what a revision round is, and include the specifics in your initial estimate and contract.
This is how we at N2Q define a revision round for our clients. After the design is presented, the client has a specific “number of days” to think about and deliver. After all their comments, ideas and questions need to be aggregated as a whole rather than in random, numerous, and unconnected revisions. Don’t jump into making edits right after the customer has made their initial comment. Usually people have an instant reaction after thinking and sometimes they change their mind.
Give the client enough time to form all their thinking into a cohesive body, and then review and validate the changes they are requesting. Then and only then, go back to working on it once. Following these clear steps in a round of revisions will structure and schedule the project in a way that is comfortable for the client and less stressful for you.
6. Inform the client about each stage of the design process
Most clients are unaware of the steps of a design process. Informing clients about each design phase helps to avoid misunderstandings about where you are in the overall process
For example, once we receive a customer’s first aggregated response, we’ll send them a confirmation email. We’ll use a title such as “lânbf modified first of three” and then reiterate what changes we plan to make based on their feedback. Taking the time to do this will help you remind the client to look back at the requirements they asked you to fix and it’s not simple, but most importantly, it will keep the client informed on the progress of the project. project.
7. Don’t forget to show innovation within limits
Hầu hết các khách hàng đều lo lắng về việc lựa chọn kiến trúc sư phù hợp, một người sẽ có tâm với dự án và nỗ lực hết mình để mang lại chất lượng công trình. Nếu khách hàng không thực sự tin tưởng bạn, dự án sẽ không diễn ra suôn sẻ và tệ hơn đó là bạn sẽ mang tiếng xấu. Công việc của bạn là thiết lập lòng tin và cho khách hàng thấy bạn làm việc chuyên nghiệp với tinh thần thiện chí.
Nếu bạn quá thúc đẩy thời gian và tính tiền quá chi li, khách hàng sẽ cảm thấy rằng mối quan tâm chính của bạn là kiếm tiền hơn là phục vụ họ. Vì vậy, hãy cẩn thận!
Hơn nữa, có thể lấy lòng họ bằng cách thực hiện một chút công việc không tính phí ở đây và ở đó bởi vì thiện chí còn có tác dụng lâu dài. Nó giúp củng cố mối quan hệ với khách hàng và củng cố lòng tin của họ sau đó.
Một lời cảnh báo: chỉ làm điều này nếu bạn không cảm thấy bực bội về nó. Hãy biến nó thành sự lựa chọn của bạn , “không phải thứ dĩ nhiên mà khách hàng có quyền yêu cầu bạn”. Nếu họ bắt đầu lợi dụng sự hào phóng của bạn, hãy nhắc nhở nhẹ lại hợp đồng và ước tính ban đầu của bạn. Họ sẽ tôn trọng bạn vì đã gắn bó với chính bạn!
8. Set stops when necessary
Most of the clients are worried about choosing the right architect, someone who will have a heart for the project and make every effort to deliver quality work. If the client doesn’t really trust you, the project won’t go smoothly and worse, you’ll get a bad reputation. Your job is to establish trust and show your clients that you work professionally in good faith.
If you push your time and charge too much, your customers will feel that your main concern is making money rather than serving them. So be careful!
Moreover, it is possible to win them over by doing a little free work here and there because goodwill has long-term effects. It helps strengthen the relationship with the customer and strengthens their trust afterwards.
A word of warning: only do this if you don’t feel resentful about it. Make it your choice , “not something the customer has the right to ask of you of course”. If they start to take advantage of your generosity, gently remind them of your original contract and estimate. They will respect you for sticking with yourself!
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