In AEC, responsiveness is part of the service, and firms that make clients wait are giving competitors an opening.
There’s a competitive advantage in the AEC business that costs almost nothing, requires no software, doesn’t need a strategic planning retreat, and can be implemented immediately: answer the damn phone. Or, if you can’t answer it, call the person back. And I don’t mean tomorrow, or “within 24 hours” (I’ve seen a lot of firms with that as their stated rule).
I think one hour should be the goal for returning a phone call. The same basic principle applies to texts and emails, although the urgency will vary. I know this sounds familiar from me, and it is ridiculously simple, but apparently it isn’t. I’m continually amazed by how many architects, engineers, and contractors seem to believe that responding to somebody within a reasonable amount of time is an optional activity, like changing the oil on their lawnmower, updating the CRM with all the business cards that accumulated in their wallet over the past two months, or waxing their company truck.
I’ve watched firms spend tens of thousands of dollars trying to improve their marketing while making prospective clients wait three days for a response to an email. I’ve seen principals complain that “the market is slow” while ignoring calls from people who actually want to hire them. I’ve seen PMs fail to respond to clients because they’re “swamped,” apparently forgetting that the client is the reason they’re swamped in the first place. And I’ve watched people look at a ringing phone, check out the caller ID, and decide that whatever is happening on the other end can’t possibly be as important as what they’re doing on their computer. That’s a mistake.
In the AEC business, responsiveness is part of the product (or service). Clients don’t just buy drawings, calculations, construction management, planning, or project management. They’re buying confidence that somebody is paying attention to them. When a client calls and nobody answers, or sends an email and hears nothing for two days, they don’t necessarily think, “Wow, these people must be incredibly busy because they’re so good.” But they may be thinking, “I wonder if these people are going to screw up my project” – not the impression you want to create.
Now, I understand that everyone has times they can’t take a call. Nobody expects you to drop everything every time your phone rings. But there’s a big difference between being constantly available and being reliably responsive.
If you’re in a meeting when an important client calls, have someone acknowledge the call. If you’re on a job site, send a quick text saying you saw the call and will get back to them. If you’re otherwise detained, have somebody else handle it if they can. The objective isn’t to create a culture where everyone is chained to their phone 24 hours a day. The objective is to make sure people aren’t left wondering whether anybody cares. One hour is a pretty good test.
If you were trying to hire an architect for a $15 million building project and called three firms, how long would you wait before wondering why one of them hadn’t called you back? Would you really sit there for three days thinking, “They must be really good because apparently they’re too busy to talk to me”? Probably not. You’d call somebody else.
The client doesn’t owe you the opportunity. There are probably other firms that would be delighted to have the project. If someone takes the trouble to call you, there’s already some level of interest. Why would you make them work to get your attention?
Speed also communicates enthusiasm. If somebody calls about a major project and you call them back 10 minutes later, they notice. If they email you Monday morning and hear from you Friday afternoon with, “Sorry for the delay,” they notice that, too. People like doing business with people who seem interested in doing business with them.
The same thing applies to recruiting. AEC firms spend enormous amounts of time complaining about how hard it is to find good people, then take a week to respond to a candidate who’s already interviewing with three other firms. By the time you finally call, that person may have accepted another job. Your competitor may not have offered more money. They may not have better projects. They may have simply called back first.
There’s also an internal benefit to being responsive. When an employee sends you a question and you don’t answer for four days, you haven’t eliminated the problem. You’ve just made that employee sit there wondering what to do. Eventually, they’ll make a decision without you, send another email, walk into your office, or stop asking you altogether. Or maybe even quit.
I’d make responsiveness an explicit expectation in every AEC firm. Calls should be returned within an hour whenever reasonably possible. Important texts should get a timely acknowledgment. Client emails shouldn’t disappear into somebody’s inbox for three days. If a principal or project manager is unavailable, there should be another human being who can respond.
If you’re too busy to return a client’s phone call within an hour, you may have a staffing problem, a delegation problem, a systems problem, or simply a cultural problem. Speed of response is not valued in your firm. Whatever the cause, ignoring the phone isn’t a strategy.
The firms that win aren’t always the ones with the best designers, the lowest fees, the biggest marketing budgets, or the fanciest offices. Sometimes they’re the ones that simply make it easy to do business with them.
That’s why I’d put this on the wall in every AEC firm: “When somebody calls, call them back within an hour.”
It’s not complicated. It doesn’t require a consultant. It doesn’t require an app. It doesn’t require AI’s assistance. It just requires that somebody actually gets it and does it.
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Mark Zweig is Zweig Group’s chairman and founder. Contact him at mzweig@zweiggroup.com. |
