An important condition for the effectiveness and success of a consulting company are positive recommendations from customers who were satisfied with the quality of your company’s services.
The assessment by the client is formed on the basis of a number of indicators. Before ordering a service, the client sets clear goals for himself, according to which he will evaluate the consulting company he has chosen.
The final condition for a level beyond the quality of the services provided is the assessment by the client himself, but it is subjective – at the level of “like or dislike”.
Nevertheless, the quality of providing consulting services has some peculiarities: the main criterion for evaluating the results is a satisfied client. It is important that consulting solutions meet these expectations. Emphasize a number of key elements that determine the quality of consulting services. Important criteria:
- – accessibility of the company;
- – competence of the consulting company;
- – the reliability of the services provided;
- – reliability of the company;
- – security of the services provided.
The level of quality of consulting services is significantly influenced by the personnel of the company. There are two ways to evaluate the work of consultants:
- economic effect from the work of consultants;
- positive changes in the client’s company.
Although it is difficult to appreciate the quality of consulting services, several factors can be distinguished in such an assessment:
Factor #1. General vision. To achieve the planned results, it is important to form a common vision of the problem and its solution between the client and the consultant.
Factor #2. Intensity of cooperation. This factor contributes to the reduction of conflicts of interest. In order to get a solution to existing project problems, consultants often require the participation of the client. Customer support is a prerequisite for the successful implementation of a consulting project.
Factor #3. Confidence. Mutual trust between the client and consultants is one of the key success factors for management consulting.
Factor #4. Project management. Responsible for coordinating work and monitoring the consulting project, the progress of its implementation, for example, through regular meetings of the project teams.
Factor #5. Consultant experience. This is one of the most important factors that has a positive impact on the result of a consulting project.
Factor #6. Provided resources. The result of a consulting project depends on the resources that the client who ordered the consulting can provide. These are both human resources and financial resources, which include not only a certain number of professional employees and money, but also their availability in the project.
Factor #7. Support from the top management of the company. The last important resource is management support for the consulting team. The level of support for a particular consulting project shows the extent to which top management trusts, promotes and motivates its participants.
The methodology for conducting an examination to evaluate consulting services and the effectiveness of their provision provides for a survey or a personal meeting of managers.
The problem of assessing the quality of consulting services, taking into account their multitude, diversity, and areas of use, is associated with a number of tasks that a consulting company must solve, including: determining separate sets of quality indicators for a set of services that correspond to a certain nature of their provision; determining the importance of certain indicators; development of methodological materials for conducting appraisal expertise and providing related information. As a result, it is required to link certain methodological recommendations to the specified nature of consulting services.