Consulting Journal: Techniques

Techniques: Delivering 110%

by David Blakey

Should you deliver 110% of what your clients expect?

[Monday 1 February 2010]

I recently heard about a sales course on which people were urged to give 110% to their customers. In other words, they should always exceed their customer's expectations by 10%. Let's examine this proposition.

What are the customers' expectations?

When we are on consulting assignments, the major way in which we know what our clients expect is the contracts or the letters of agreement that we have with those clients. Usually, these documents will describe those expectations in terms of the delivery of outputs or outcomes. The documents will not often describe other, less tangible expectations. They are unlikely to state that customers expect us to arrive promptly for meetings, to be suitably prepared to answer questions, to behave honestly and ethically, and to show respect for others' opinions while being able to argue against them. It is likely that customers will expect all of these and more. It is probable that you will not know what your clients' expectations really are unless you have asked them.

Even if you do ask your clients what their expectations are, they might not give you a complete list. They may not include honest and ethical behaviour as an expectation because they view that as a given. If you have distinguished yourself with your clients because of your sense of humour, they may now expect this of you, but they may not list it as an expectation.

So your clients may expect:

identified, formally agreed outputs or outcomes;
identified, informally agreed behaviours;
identified but undescribed behaviours; and
unidentified behaviours, usually the continuation of previous behaviours.

What is 100%?

For the identified, formally agreed outputs or outcomes, it is easy to define 100% of those expectations. It is defined by the contract. The aim of any consultant is to deliver 100% of clients' expectations. A report must be complete and cover all the items that were described in the terms of reference for that report. A process must be implemented completely and satisfactorily.

In these areas, it is the consultant's responsibility to deliver exactly 100% of the expectations.

Again, for those behavious that have been identified and informally agreed, the consultant must deliver 100%.

For the unidentified behavious, it is also surprisingly easy to define 100%. If a client likes you because of your sense of humour, you should continue to display it, to exactly the same degree as previously. For each new assignment, 100% is the same level as on your previous assignment. You may not enjoy the new assignment as much as you enjoyed the previous one, but you should keep your sense of humour at the same level.

It is essential that you do not try to give more than 100% in this area. If your client liked your sense of humour on your previous assignment, do not try to step it up on your next one. Again, as with the identified outcomes, you should aim for exactly 100%.

What is 110%?

There seems to be no room for that extra 10%, then. Actually, there is, and it is given in the sales process, rather than in the consulting process.

You may talk to a client about documenting work flow in some part of their business. The client may be talking to others consultants, too, trying to get the best result for the best price. The client will have expectations of what they expect from the work flow model. This is where you can add to those expectations. You might be able to do this by using accepted standards for your model, so that it can be imported into other software tools. You might be able to allow your client to make changes to the model, so that they can observe the effects of incremental change. There may be all kinds of additional services that you can offer, which you can provide at no additional cost.

For the same fee, you may be able to offer clients 110% of what they initially expect.

Once your clients agree to engage you to do their work flow modelling, their expectations have increased. So, when you prepare the documents for the identified, formally agreed outputs or outcomes, the 110% of their original expectations will now form 100% of those agreed outcomes. We are back to my proposal that you should deliver exactly 100% of those outcomes.

Dangers of 110%

It is dangerous to try to offer 110% of the agreed outcomes of a consulting assignment.

First, your clients may not need or want the additional 10%. If they had needed the additional 10%, then it should have been included in the scope of the assignment.

Second, you might be giving the 10% at additional cost to you, without additional cost to your client. That is no way to run a consulting business.

These two dangers usually go together: clients will never use the additional 10% that their consultants have provided for free.

Third, your clients may come to expect it. In the worst case, they may start to take work out of the scope of your assignmenst, in the hope that you will later do it for them for free. If they drop the scope to 90% of what they need, then they might get close to 100% of what they need if you provide 110% of the scope.

Summary

You can show that you can deliver 110% of what your clients expect, during the sales process. Get that 110% of expectation to form 100% of the scope during the definition process. Set an appropriate fee. During the assignment, deliver exactly 100% of the scope.

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