AEC firms win when purpose, not profit, drives client experience.
Chances are, if you’ve made an online purchase, had food delivered via an app on your phone, or taken a ride share trip home from the airport, you’ve been asked to complete a quick survey with one very prominent question: “How likely are you to recommend [company you just purchased from] to a friend or colleague?” That question was the brainchild of Fred Reichheld, Fellow at Bain & Company and founder of their Loyalty Practice.
Reichheld used that question as the basis for creating the Net Promoter Score (NPS), which weighs "promoters" against "detractors" to identify companies that outperform their peers and create sustainable growth. NPS measurement has become ubiquitous in the years since (for better and worse). We are typically exposed to NPS through our interactions with direct-to-consumer brands, but there are lessons that can also apply to professional services firms, such as architecture and engineering as well. NPS was never meant to be just a score. It was meant to be a discipline — and ultimately, a statement of purpose.
A noble purpose that works
One of Reichheld’s most provocative assertions in his book Winning on Purpose is that the most resilient and successful organizations choose a single primary purpose: to enrich the lives of their customers. Not to maximize profit or shareholder value, but to measurably improve the well-being of the people they serve. That kind of purpose turns out to be unusually powerful for three key reasons:
- It keeps staff engaged. People don’t find long-term meaning in timesheets, fee multipliers, or org charts. They find meaning in doing work that makes a positive difference in the lives of other people. When employees understand that their job is to make clients more successful – safer buildings, more efficient campuses, smoother projects – they are far more likely to feel valued, motivated, and inspired.
- It keeps customers loyal. In professional services, loyalty is everything. Repeat clients, referrals, and long-term relationships are the real flywheel of growth. When clients feel genuinely cared for – not just competently served – they come back. And they bring others with them.
- It drives sustainable business success. Reichheld makes a critical distinction: profits are necessary, but they are not inspiring. Profits measure what the firm takes out of the relationship. Purpose measures what the firm puts into it. Firms that win over time focus on value creation first, trusting that profits will follow – and they usually do.
Customer capitalism vs. revenue obsession
Reichheld calls this philosophy “customer capitalism.” The idea is simple but radical: instead of treating top-line revenue growth as the primary scoreboard, treat customer advocacy as the goal. When firms focus obsessively on short-term financial results, they often create systems that subtly discourage doing the right thing for clients — cutting scope defensively, avoiding difficult conversations, or optimizing internal efficiency at the expense of client experience. Over time, behaviors incentivized by short-term rewards erode trust and loyalty.
By prioritizing long-term customer relationships and genuine satisfaction, customer capitalism fosters a foundation of trust with clients, which in turn drives sustained revenue growth over time. This requires a more demanding standard than “satisfaction.” Satisfaction implies adequacy. Reichheld argues that firms must aim to be remarkable – to deliver experiences so thoughtful and caring that clients feel compelled to share them with their friends and colleagues (in other words, become promoters of your brand).
That’s where love becomes useful in a business context, which Reichheld defines as “the state of caring so much for another person that most of your own happiness from the relationship comes from increasing that person’s happiness and well-being.” We don’t typically bring up “love” in a business context, but imagine how powerful it would be if your customers felt this level of care from your team? Applied correctly, this isn’t soft or naïve. It’s demanding. It means designing systems, incentives, and leadership behaviors that make it easier to do what’s right for the client even when it’s uncomfortable.
What this means for architecture and engineering firms
So how does this translate to architecture and engineering firms, where projects are complex, contracts are rigid, and margins are often thin? It starts by looking honestly at the client experience across the full lifecycle, not just technical deliverables. The product we sell is much, much more than the drawings and specifications we produce, and our customers engage with our firm across many different points of the project life cycle, including:
- Onboarding and proposals. Are your proposals clear and easy to understand? Are your accounting practices easy for the client to navigate – or optimized for internal efficiency? Do kickoff meetings establish trust and clarity? First impressions matter more than we like to admit.
- Project execution. How predictable is communication? Do clients feel informed, or surprised? Are issues surfaced early with solutions, or late with excuses? Promoters are created when clients feel protected, not managed.
- Construction administration. Construction administration is often where loyalty is won or lost. This is when stress is highest and stakes are real. Firms that show up consistently, communicate clearly, and advocate for client outcomes during construction earn disproportionate trust.
Reichheld is clear: there is no way to sustainably delight customers without inspired and capable frontline employees. In A/E firms, that means project managers, project engineers, and discipline leads need to be trained in delivering exceptional customer experience. Provide clear expectations, train them in communication and soft skills, and empower them to do the right thing for your clients. If client experience lives only in marketing language or leadership speeches, it won’t survive first contact with a difficult project.
Winning the right way
Architecture and engineering firms don’t need to choose between purpose and performance. In Winning on Purpose, Reichheld argues that the best firms win through purpose. When leaders commit to enriching the lives of their clients, they give employees something worth caring about. When employees are inspired, clients feel it. When clients feel it, loyalty follows. And when loyalty compounds, sustainable growth becomes the natural outcome. The Net Promoter Score is just a metric. Winning on Purpose is a philosophy. For firms willing to embrace it, it offers a clearer, more human, and ultimately more profitable way to lead.
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Morgan Stinson is chief operating officer at EEA Consulting Engineers. Contact him at morganstinson@eeace.com. |