Customer Satisfaction

Customer is a key Stakeholder, if he is engaged throughout the project, Scope , deliverable are verified with him and you got final acceptance about it, why then he would be dissatisfied?

If for any reason, after such efforts he is still dissatisfied about the result/deliverables, then he is probably looking for a new output. he might need different thing and this would be a new requirement and as such, it should be a new project.

For a case where he didn't sign or agree to a final acceptance, then this would be a change and any new changes should be handled through Integrated change management control and change control board should accept/reject the change based on certain criteria.

Make sure that the objectives are clear and ensure that the customer/product owner respond to this objectives. Communicate face to face as much as possible and be 100% honest about performance, risks and everything. Involve the customer as much as possible so they feel it is a collaborative project – then it will be perfect:)

I would say give them an easy to use channel to express dissatisfaction (phone number, email) and as Kaare said be honest and involve them as much as possible. People get upset if they feel they are ignored so I would tell the customer if there might be a delay in reporting progress from time to time.

I usually include my client in the lessons learned. That's a good place to see if the client is truly satisfied with the results.

My suggestion is do the lessons learned with just the project team first, then do one with the client.

Communication Management and Stakeholder Engagement are the 2 pillars on which customer satisfaction can be built upon. Efficient and Effective communications at pre decided frequencies with respective stakeholders.Also engaging the positive stakeholders and dealing with negative stakeholder as per the Power-Influence Grid. Customer satisfaction survey at the end will help in understanding the weak areas, if any.

We usually assess the Customer Satisfaction continuously all along the different phases of the project or program. There are periodic sponsors/management meetings and Lessons Learned sessions at the end of the key steps of the project. We have implemented a "two-in-a-box" approach between our project team and the Customer teams where Project Managers and Team Leaders must meet during scheduled project meetings to discuss and agree about the project status including a Customer Satisfaction status. By this way all formal Project Status Reports show a weekly or monthly evaluation of the Customer Satisfaction. With this approach the Customer Satisfaction is checked periodically at different levels of the Project Governance (Executive, Management, Project). Trends can be then easily discussed and recovery action plans can be executed if necessary as soon as any dissatisfaction occurs.