Great question @KimberleyFrancis! I’d dig into what feedback they’re getting from the customer. Are they not marking it as done because they forget or because it’s too complex?
Either way I recommend this to everyone (in case you haven’t already):
Every time the PM jumps on a call, spend the first 5-10 minutes sharing your screen and updating the project plan (aka marking your tasks AND their tasks as done). This serves as a way to train them on why marking tasks is important.
Sometimes all a customer needs is a screenshare to change their behavior! Customers aren’t used to having an awesome onboarding experience with this much accountability so it’s totally normal to run into this, but I’m confident that doing the exercise outlined above will help them see the light!
I am sure there will be many great replies here! One idea I’ve seen is to use a points system for gamification or rewarding customers by doing so. Also, it may be helpful to take a few moments at the beginning of the project (like the Experience Overview in GUIDEcx) or on the Kick Off call, to demonstrate the “Why” and the “How” for customers to update their task statuses. Demonstrating the value they will see by doing so, and how that action helps them achieve their outcomes.
Great question!
Every time the PM jumps on a call, spend the first 5-10 minutes sharing your screen and updating the project plan (aka marking your tasks AND their tasks as done). This serves as a way to train them on why marking tasks is important.
Sometimes all a customer needs is a screenshare to change their behavior! Customers aren’t used to having an awesome onboarding experience with this much accountability so it’s totally normal to run into this, but I’m confident that doing the exercise outlined above will help them see the light!
I definitely like this idea! We seem to have customers who are ALL IN and use the system heavily, or they simply wait til the next meeting to tell our PM what updates should be made. no one in between LOL
I definitely like this idea! We seem to have customers who are ALL IN and use the system heavily, or they simply wait til the next meeting to tell our PM what updates should be made. no one in between LOL
That’s great that customers are ALL IN or at least aware of the tasks at hand enough to let the PM know what updates need to be made!
Give the 5-10 min recap idea a go for the next couple weeks and see how much that makes a world of difference @Casey Wilt!
Spending time with the customers and showing them how easy and important it is to update their tasks is a great idea and one that I practice as well. I also find that entering “notes” in the tasks and @mentioning the customer helps remind them that tasks are coming due. It keeps them engaged throughout the project.
We have weekly meetings with our new customers during the onboarding process so we have another opportunity to review the project tasks and reiterate how important it is to keep them engaged and making sure their timelines are met.
In our welcome call with the client we go through GuideCx and stress the importance of marking tasks done so that dependencies are kicked off. I find that sending notes is very helpful for both clients and internal stakeholders to help keep tasks getting marked done.
