Making Sure Customers Love Their New Spaces – The Design-Build Experience

by Mary | Aug 17, 2015 | Design News, Interior Design, Project Management

GVSU Marketplace Designers and Owners

r.o.i. Design knows that the customers experience of the design-build process will predict whether or not they will love their new space. It is so much more than having the perfect design or the “expert consultant” on the job.

When there is a great design-build team the outcome has a much greater chance of meeting and exceeding customer expectation of the finished product. There aren’t layers of concern and stress laid on top of the customer-team relationship, making the customer suspect and wary if they are going to get what was promised them or not.

A great design team also means efficiency which saves everyone budget dollars.

• When there is trust between team members it accelerates the customer’s confidence in all recommendations where ever they come from.
• When simple oversights are managed before they become a crisis or trigger change orders, customers are saved the awkward experience of finger pointing between team members.
• Real time communication is ongoing and a shared responsibility between owners, designers and contractors that is supported by protocol documentation verses solely relying on “the system”.
• Trust creates an attitude of flexibility in the process which allows great ideas and solutions to surface anytime in the process. When a design criteria is well understood and all parties buy in, it is only ego that keeps good ideas from being executed.

r.o.i. Design strives to be part of great design-build teams. For us that has happened when:

• Jobs we share could have started with any one of the groups, whether it is the contractor’s customer, the architect’s customer or our customer, we communicate to the customer early in the process who the team is and how we would like to work with them.
• Roles on a job are defined and respected, even when the customer challenges the structure, we represent the team.
• Building and maintaining relationships is everyone’s priority.

This week a manufacturing customer, remodeling a floor in their facility to create an innovation center commented to r.o.i. Design, “So you guys actually get along with this construction company. Our last remodeling project was a nightmare – the designer, architect and contractor kept blaming each other. They won’t ever be back.”