Project performance measurement to keep you focused on managing and meeting your customers expectations

The ACE System has three elements to it.

'KPI-online is the on-line system for measuring how satisfied your customers are with your service, leaving you to spend your time improving it.

The whole system is cost effective because we simply rent the system to you, and provide you with training and support.

Project managers, contractors and others in and out of the construction industry are all using the ACE System & KPI-online.

The web enabled measurement service automatically sends e-mail reminders to your customers asking them to fill in a questionnaire. This can happen at intervals of your choice during the project or contract. Consequently you can identify any issues that emerge from the scoring early enough to put them right.

The questions ask for both your customers expectation and perception, so you can focus on the biggest performance gaps in the most important areas. It focuses on moments of truth those points of contact when things can go wrong to establish which areas your company should be working on to meet your customers needs better. It also allows for comments on each moment of truth so that your customer can explain what lies behind low or good scores.

But the most important element is the Guidance sheet which you devise during a workshop with your whole team, including the end-user. This communicates to everyone what is important to the end-user on the project, so that it is clear to everyone what they need to do to make the project successful.

Any issues can be logged as needing attention by your team, and allocated to a specific person to be responsible for making sure it is dealt with effectively. The final solution can then be signed off and recorded as best practice so that others in the company can benefit from the lessons learned. This is the third element, and is a called the Performance Improvement Note (PIN) system.

Case Study Hertfordshire Schools Contract with Mace

Mace, the project managers for the Hertfordshire schools contract has made the ACE System a core tool for making sure they meet their customers needs effectively on the contract.

Mace does this for each project on the contract, where they invite all the key people involved including the fund-holder, the architect and contractor to an up-front workshop.

During one such workshop the clients were asked what things were the most important to them. After the expected issues like safety and the level of interference had been discussed, one client mentioned the wildlife. She was concerned that the hedgehogs would be disturbed in their natural habitat and wanted this to be taken into account during the building work.

At first there was a silence as everyone wondered about how they were going to manage it and the cost. No-one even knew where the hedgehogs were.

However, the fund-holder then came up with an idea. She said that as they would be carrying out an environmental audit anyway, she would add this to the brief and they would be able to manage it from there. There was a sigh of relief as everyone realised that a potential issue could be averted and without any costs.

By sitting down with the client before the project had even begun, the project team understood what was important to the client including the unexpected.

What our users have said when using the ACE System:

• "Our project managers are taking the questionnaires completed by our Network Rail clients, and they are going through the action points raised by them in a face to face discussion. Network Rail have been impressed with this response, and the fact that the issues they raise are being tackled and resolved quickly."
  Nick Reilly, Commercial Manager for McGinley
  
• "We needed to introduce a more formal method of gathering customer feedback to directly drive business improvement. Using the ACE system will help us manage the whole process, which in turn will deliver greater customer satisfaction."
  Bruno Speed, Technical Support Director for Morgan=Est
  

You can also view the customised web-sites of some our current ACE System users. These companies chose to brand the site with their own logos and colours, and have given it a unique name that is recognised and used regularly by their employees and clients.

McGinley Recruitment Services Labour suppliers to the Rail industry: www.mrsfocus.co.uk

Morgan Est Infrastructure services company: www.mequest.com

You can find out more by going to www.kpi-online.co.uk, or you can download a range of documents on the topic of measuring customer service.

If you'd like to see how the measurement element of the system works in practice, please email us for access to the demo site, at

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