Importance of Buyer Feedback in Office Fit-Out Procurement Decisions

The focus of construction project management is entirely on meeting technical specifications, schedules and budgets. Service quality is generally ignored. The process of considering feedback from the buyer side requires a major transition from the contractor’s end by continuously striving for feedback from the owner throughout the construction process.

Transition to Customer Centricity Approach

Construction companies use various forms of buyer feedback or customer satisfaction approaches to improve and monitor their services in order to take customer relationships to the next level. Few of the benefits of measurement of customer satisfaction in terms of their feedback are:

1. Improvement in communication between parties and enable mutual agreement
2. Recognition of demand of improvement in the process
3. Better understanding of problems
4. Evaluation of progress towards the objective
5. Monitoring and reporting accomplished results/ changes

The real estate/ construction management industry has evolved a long way from being a task-oriented industry to a strategy-focused market, where the emphasis on buyer feedback for the successful handover of a project is strong. The table below highlights the evolution of various factors that contribute to the process of service delivery and buyer–vendor relations:

Category	1st Generation (Taskmasters)	2nd Generation (Controllers)	3rd Generation (Dealmakers)	4th Generation (Entrepreneurs)	5th Generation (Business Strategies)
Vision	None	Initial productivity and visibility	Function or channel effectiveness	Intra-company integration	Value network enabled
Strategy	None	Initiated projects, initiated from bottom up	More ‘joined up’ thinking but silo oriented	Company level CRM program	Value based collaboration for mutual benefit
Customer Experience	Unknown concept, Designs itself	Unknown concept, Designs itself	Understanding and focus at silo level.	Understanding and focus across the business lines	Understanding wider scope, collaboration
Organizational Collaboration	Inward focus, silostructure	First structure of customer centricity, silostructure	Changing culture and effectiveness, silos	Customer-centric, recognized by segment	Shared customer centricity, goal alignment
Process	Inward focus, Silo-oriented	Start optimizing for efficiencies, silo-oriented	Optimization at silo-level for cost and value reasons	Company level optimization for cost and value	End-to-end process optimization
Information	Basic and fragmented	Team based, fragmented, minimal insight	Shared information at silo level, inside developing	Shared information and insight across the company	Shared information and insight beyond the company
Technology	Very fragmented and functionality	Fragmented, limited functionality and focus	Strong functionality within silos	Strong functionality within company level, integration	Strong functionality, integrated beyond the company
Metrics	Few metrics, Inward Focus	Fragmented and limited metrics, operational focus	Focus on silo efficiency, lacks customer focus	Company and customer focused hierarchy	Shared objectives and balanced metrics, aligned

Few of the metrics used for indicating the implication of customer feedback reflect the satisfaction levels of the customer with respect to the ongoing projects. Some of the key metrics used in this industry are:

1. Schedule performance—This is indicative of how often projects are delivered on/ ahead of schedule
2. Cost Performance—This is indicative of how often projects are delivered on/ ahead of budget
3. Safety performance—OSHA recordable incidence rate
4. Customer Satisfaction—This is indicative of the percentage of customers that come back for repeat business with the contractor firm
5. Profit—Net profit after tax as a percentage of total sales for the previous fiscal year

New Roles and Functions within Real Estate/ Project Management Teams

The next generation of management responsible for maintaining customer relationships that deal with customer feedback is focused on designating a primary point of contact between corporate real estate and key business leaders. Earlier, and until now, this has been more of a tactical role. The skills and effectiveness of individual client relationship managers are upgraded, while equipping the team with the tools, and rebuilding a more robust program.

The new generation client feedback program encompasses the following refinements to the existing approach:

1. Driving consistent program implementation across all business units
2. Increasing analysis and reporting to speed up the path from solution identification, realized savings, and value add
3. Improving the client relationship managers’ ability to facilitate a strong dialogue with business leaders
4. Empowering ongoing business leader dialogue that drives advanced understanding of emerging requirements and more accurate insight into demand/ supply modeling
5. Facilitating a collaborative model for the working relationship between the client relationship managers, the strategic planning function and the delivery resources

Issues within Real-Estate Selection and Solutions

Issue	Cause	Solutions and Instruments
Adversity in selection of real estate	Agent not being transparent	Use of guarantees and reputation during negotiation
Adverse selection hold-up	The principal depends on the real estate agent	Use of replacement clauses, handover guarantees and set-off clauses
Shirking consumption on the job	Supervision costs and possibilities, limited resources	Profit sharing, penalty clauses, monitoring and reporting
Fringe Benefits	Agents’ own interests	Signaling, screening, self-selection through certificates, monitoring and reporting

From the perspective of strategy, it is essential to facilitate quarterly workshops that address strategic planning, scenario development and risk management. This is done through deployment of best practices in the area of scheduling, planning and facilitation, which in turn, ensures that the business requirement is met.

From a governance perspective, continuous review of the governance process is a requisite. The link between client relationship management output and operations has to be cleared. Moreover, an annual cycle of meetings need to be set in place to support the governance process.

From a skill development perspective, firms must improve and facilitate skill-building workshops. This will lead to improved client relationship management skills in real estate, finance, strategic planning, business diagnostics, account management and relationship development.