Update: An eleventh hour reprieve means that reports of Listenback’s demise are exaggerated! Watch this space. Two and a half years ago I set up Listenback, a totally free online tool to help architects to gather feedback from their clients. All based around an unchanging questionnaire asking about the factors that we know from research …
The future: how information and biases sway business planning
Unconscious biases can skew predictions when it comes to collecting business intelligence, assessing risks, and drawing up a strategy for your architectural practice. Fortunately, there are ways of overcoming them, including by using Listenback(i), the client feedback tool for architects. Business strategy and planning is the art of predicting the future political, social and economic …
Continue reading “The future: how information and biases sway business planning”
Ten things I’d wish for if I were a construction client…
If I were a UK construction client, I’d have to be rich, and have a pretty pressing need. One does not commission developments lightly, that’s for sure. I’d be excited at the prospect no matter the job or what kind of client I was. Dream home, cool new museum, office block, social housing, or …
Continue reading “Ten things I’d wish for if I were a construction client…”
The Secrets of Effective Client Feedback for Architects
If you ask the right people the right feedback questions in the right way at the right times, then you have the key to a big fat world of market intelligence. Involve the right people Who to ask? Well, it’s not the junior factotum with no knowledge of the ups and downs of the …
Continue reading “The Secrets of Effective Client Feedback for Architects”
Dispelling the bogey of dispensability: evidencing the value of architects [BOOK REVIEW]
Listenback is always hungry for evidence to improve its underlying rationale. Our last blog mentioned a new book that falls into this category, and it’s fascinating. Here’s our review… Why Architects Matter: Evidencing and Communicating the Value of Architects is a polemic calling for architects to buck up their ideas. Written by architect and …
Turbo-charged business development: most architects are missing a trick
The Listenback system of feedback takes the well-established business development model and turbo-charges it for growth. With minimum disruption and very little extra resource, it exploits opportunities along the client journey, allowing you to learn where value can be added to improve the overall client experience. At its heart is a simple feedback tool …
Continue reading “Turbo-charged business development: most architects are missing a trick”
Relaying quality in the construction industry: context and process
Not all buildings have to be capital A Architecture or turn a capital P Profit. After all, sometimes it makes perfect sense to build something imperfectly and at a financial loss, provided your reasons are strong enough. It’s all about the context: industrial sheds, for example, need not be anything other than safe and …
Continue reading “Relaying quality in the construction industry: context and process”
Effortlessness – not delight – drives profitable client relationships
The Listenback system of client feedback is all about architects collecting data that can be used to increase the chances of repeat business, bigger spends, and positive referrals. This is known as improving client loyalty, and it’s the way to a thriving practice. The received wisdom in business generally is that to win this loyalty …
Continue reading “Effortlessness – not delight – drives profitable client relationships”
Client experience: the simple business development metric for architects
If your work pipeline is flowing, and you’re earning a fair profit from it, and some clients keep coming back, it’s tempting to think that you’ve cracked the code to business success. And you have, up to a point. But business development is a never-ending responsibility. Even if you’re not going for world domination, …
Continue reading “Client experience: the simple business development metric for architects”
Embrace change: the secret to better client relationships
Evidence suggests that the relationship between architects and their clients is not consistently respectful. As mutual misunderstanding hardens into unreasonable positions, tensions are rising. In some quarters, the ominous and unhelpful sound of axes being ground can be heard. Since they stand to suffer more in any fight and as the professional party, the onus …
Continue reading “Embrace change: the secret to better client relationships”