Delighting Clients, Winning the "Kitchen Sync"

We ran a little contest last week on d5R, asking remodelers to share how they deliver on what are arguably the three top priorities held by most remodeling clients:

• good communication
• a clean jobsite
• an on-time schedule

The remodeler with the best answer would win a copy of Kelly's Kitchen Sync, just published by kitchen designer and remodeling blogger extraordinaire Kelly Morisseau. (Here's my interview with Kelly from early June.)

Kelly reviewed all the answers last night and selected her favorite. Correction: her favorites. From her email to me:

Everyone had such great answers and all come from such positions of strength in their companies that it was tough! I loved that everyone stressed the importance of a clean jobsite, and how some followed up after the projects were over, which is important. I liked the personal touch with the owners thanking clients for their business and staying in touch. 

I eventually narrowed it down to two of the comments, so they will each get a copy of the book: 

CA309 Jane Regan with this line: "We have one point of contact to support the client in the office, and one point of contact on the job." 

If the line of communication is not clearly set out, then the client might mention something important to a trade or a crew member which could be missed, or worse, the message could become garbled as it is passed through the multiple chains of command. I've found that clients feel better knowing that the message they're passing along is in the hands of those overseeing the project, rather than those who don't have the same overview. 

CA1452 Phil Vanderloo - "...regular meetings throughout the project to address any concerns, and most important of all-LISTEN!" 

Even though we're all good at maintaining clearly defined scopes of work that all of our trades and company are set up for, sometimes clients have concerns that might not even need to actually be addressed. They do, however, need to be HEARD and sometimes simply truly listening, and/or responding (sometimes not always necessary) can go a long way.

Click here to read the full discussion, including the rest of the answers from Jane, Phil and others. Thanks, everyone -- and enjoy your books, Jane and Phil!