How Project Management Tools Enable Improved Customer Experiences and Relationships

Customer Experience (CX) & relationship are crucial business drivers. Also, they are the most significant stakeholders of your project management initiatives.

On the other hand, internal team management is equally important. And as a business owner you will often find yourself pulled in opposite directions.

Striking balance between your customers and delivery teams (PMs, dev & engg. teams, vendors, service providers, contractors etc.) is a tough job.

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One that requires significant collaboration and transparent communication with equal attention.

A common mistake by most agencies is not focusing enough on their customer engagement and relationship management.

“Once the project is signed off, they tend overly inwards. They focus on delivering without relevant touchpoints with the client. And most of the communication is until at the end of the project or till something goes south!”

This is exactly what you should NOT do. Ever!

Smart teams and successful agencies use project management & collaboration tools to bring both their clients and teams together on one platform.

The intent is clear:

• Absolute transparency
• Better alignment with client goals
• Higher customer engagement
• Improved collaboration at both ends

Here is what you should know about the use of project management tools for improved customer relationship management.

Understand Client Expectations & Clarify Scope

Having a robust scope and preventing scope creep is the most critical success factor for your projects.

Project Management Institute’s “2018 Pulse of the Profession Survey”, 52% of projects were impacted by scope creep.

Scope Creep occurs when there is lack of customer engagement as well as limited to none feedback mechanism.

This is where a project management software can help. Well defined, “Requirements Gathering” tasks can be created and assigned to the customer for feedback.

“You can post comments, seek clarification and obtain final sign-off with all communication and responses tracked transparently within tasks and subtasks.”

There is reduced risk of stuff getting lost in emails, Whatsapp and Skype chats or meetings. Everything is duly recorded, reviewed and accepted as they should be.

The benefit is you are able to demonstrate utmost professionalism, stay well organized with real attention to detail.

All of which are key requirements for clients when they look for technology partners.

You also generate confidence that adds to the autonomy in leading and delivering the project successfully.

Internally, your teams are happy because they have their jobs cut-out with clear requirements, you reduce guesstimates and have the required ammo to deliver with quality.

From a business standpoint, there is no ambiguity in terms of the engagement, pricing and the end objective.

Win-Win for all involved!

Collaborate and communicate seamlessly using Project Management tools

The whole concept of digitization is the need for total collaboration for timely execution. We must always aim to achieve this.

“The USP of project and task management tools is to enable hassle free communication and collaboration. They bring the entire team on a centralized platform thereby reducing the need to use multiple apps. Thus, less friction, less chaos, more focus and optimized execution.”

Options, like “Notify via Email”, auto alerts and instant notifications enable real time communication. Add to it, in-built chats. Hence, all communication & information thereof stay in one place.

Easy to refer, track and make quick decisions.

Continuous action keeps the clients well-informed of the progress and interested in the success of the endeavour.

You can obtain timely customer feedback, course-correct easily and manage stakeholder expectations in a comprehensive manner.

As a result, roadblocks if any are identified early on, stakeholders can be notified and the required help & attention can be obtained timely to prevent unwanted conflicts and delays.

The centralized communication stream ensures a single source of truth for the entire project team with minimal scope of human errors.

Plus the added advantage of greater control over project execution and delivery!

Improve Customer Satisfaction Score with Project Collaboration Tools

Having streamlined the project scope and communication channel goes a long way in improving customer relationships.

Typically a good CSAT score is the default metric to measure your customer experience and happiness.

Project Management tools come in handy to provide prompt answers to some of the key customer questions:

• What is the current status of my project?
• Is my project on schedule and within budget?
• What are the identified risks?
• Are there any foreseen delays?
• What are the open or high priority issues?

Detailed reports and analytics are an essential part of a robust project and task collaboration software.

Real time and instant reports provide high-level as well as granular details of the project. Customers and PMO can conduct efficient review meetings with crucial data around

• Resource utilization – Planned vs Actual spent hrs.
• Resource Availability – how many resources, for how long, are they overloaded?
• Resource Allocation – do all resources have tasks rightly allocated?
• Billable vs Non-Billable hours
• Project Overview – end to end status of tasks, resources and time.

A common problems that project managers & delivery managers often face is the lack of sharing timely reports and status updates. And this leads to a lot of questions and repeated status update requests. Thus taking away focus from the core tasks.

Project Management reports resolve this problem entirely. The stakeholders can have access and review progress at their own convenience. Giving the customers a very high degree of transparency and visibility of the true state of affairs.

The consistency in the updates, enhanced collaboration and access to real time data significantly boosts customer confidence and trust.

Both of which are leading factors for improved customer relations and CSAT ratings.

Summary

Project Management tools are instrumental in keeping remote teams and customers in sync.

Maintaining the same understanding within a project team with members spread across different locations and time zones is an uphill task.

No matter how much you try, stuff will fall through the cracks and information will find its way to slip out.

Invest and utilize a robust project collaboration software to

• achieve greater control over your operations
• provide clarity to your teams
• enable real time collaboration between teams
• reduce execution hassles & chaos
• offer your customers quality deliverables
• boost customer confidence
• improve overall customer engagement and relationship

Which project management tool have you used for end to end customer & delivery management? Signup Now