We’ve all experienced a situation where a friend, a colleague or even a family member has worked on a project and we’re not happy with the results. It’s an inevitable part of life. At Consult O'clock through listening to feedback and enhancing our security we are trying to ensure our community avoids situations such as these.

In the meantime, here are some tips that may help if you’re faced with a similar situation:

Everyone’s Different

Many consultants on Consult O'clock offer excellent consulting services, from management & strategy, to information technology and so on. These areas are subjective as the results can depend on taste. For instance you may adore a deliverable one consultant produces while your best friend may detest their approach and deliverable.

With so many consultants ready to work for you on Consult O'clock, you can easily find one to suit you.

Prevention is Better than the Cure

If you are hiring a consultant, take time to have a look at their portfolio of work on their profile first. Ask for links to projects they have worked on or other companies that use their work, or ask for samples. You should be able to gain a good understanding of their style and will know if it suits your business.

If you are hiring a consultant without a portfolio, view their profile, see what feedback and endorsements they have, ask for references and links to businesses they’ve worked with.

Crystal Clear Briefing

It also helps if you make sure your Consultant understands exactly what you are looking for. Go into detail, send examples of businesses you think have got it right, let them know when you expect to receive the finished product.

Second Time Around

If you don’t like the work that’s been offered, you can suggest changes. The more feedback you give the better chance your consultant has of getting it right the second time around. Ensure you keep the communication channels open at all times, and see if you can describe the brief more clearly so your consultant understands your vision. Let them know what results you expect and when. Feedback is important and once a consultant gets to know you, you can use them for follow on work.

When it’s Just Not Good Enough

Of course buying a service isn’t simply about the work you receive it’s about your experience too. Are you unhappy because it was delivered late? Was the consultant rude to you? Or did you simply detest the work produced?

Remember that Consult O'clock is a community of professionals just like you, so try not to become angry or insulting. Instead clearly state why the work or service wasn’t up to your standard and give the consultant a chance to rectify the situation.

Sometimes it can simply be a case of miscommunication, or a lack of cooperation between the Client and Consultant. Remember a Consultant also leaves feedback for you and the most common reasons a Client receives bad feedback are a poor brief (not enough information given), or a lack of cooperation.

These are all facts to consider if you go on to leave feedback.

Leaving Feedback

At Consult O'clock we encourage honest feedback as we believe all Clients should have a clear view of the consultant they’re about to hire. When leaving feedback, anything below 4 stars will negatively impact on a consultant's ranking so take time to consider the entire experience before you affect a consultant ranking.

The feedback is not based entirely on the work, in fact the majority of people who do leave bad feedback do so because of lack of communication, so consider the following:

• Did your consultant communicate well?
• Did your consultant deliver on time?
• Did your consultant follow your brief?
• Was your consultant friendly and approachable?
• Did your consultant offer to make changes?

These are all points to consider when leaving your feedback, as if your consultant has tried to rectify the problem, communicated well and understood your frustration then you have received a good service with albeit a faulty product.

It’s Good to Talk

Remember too that your Seller can also leave feedback for you, if they don’t feel they were briefed properly or if they don’t believe you cooperated well, they can mark you down. Sometimes both consultants and clients are completely surprised about bad feedback because until it was left they had no idea that the other party was unhappy. Just as you can give a second chance to the consultant, they can do the same for you by giving you another opportunity to explain the brief and the work before leaving feedback which can all be done via the project management tool.

Above all with hundreds of consultants at your disposal, profiles that show work done, feedback and references, if you take a little time to research your consultant first you’ll be sure to find a perfect fit.

If you have any questions at all please don’t hesitate to contact us at info@consultoclock.com.