Improving client project delivery in professional services firms

As market trends shift and client demands evolve, the old ways of managing and delivering professional services just don’t cut it anymore. The ability to adapt your project delivery approach is key to not only meeting client needs but also securing future business.

Clients who see you as a strategic partner—one who understands their challenges, aligns with their objectives, and proactively drives results—are far more likely to stay and bring more business your way.

We recently caught up with Preethie Vimalan, Manager of Professional Services at Freshworks, and Mark Sloan, Managing Director at Aseph Advisors, to get their insights on how professional services firms can elevate their client-facing project delivery.

Read on for a quick summary of the conversation. 

Trends driving the need for more standardized and productized offerings in PS

While speed has always been important in professional services, it's never been more important. Gone are the days of elaborating scoping exercises. Today, prospective clients need quick, clear answers on costs and timelines.  If you can provide fast, accurate estimates, you have the edge. Additionally, the increasing similarity between products has made customers rely more on the clarity and transparency of service offerings. 

The key is to adopt a "services as a product" mindset and offer services as standardized, productized packages, making scoping much simpler and faster. 

This approach allows your customers to understand better what they will receive, the expected outcomes, and how long it will take. By taking a prescriptive approach and offering service packages, you position yourself as an expert, and help customers easily decide which one best suits their needs. Plus, you instill confidence in customers, improve delivery repeatability, and ultimately lower costs.

Common barriers to productizing services and how to overcome them

Legacy mindsets

One of the core challenges in productizing services lies in shifting the traditional mindset of  a professional services team. Historically, these teams are accustomed to custom solutions, often taking a "scoping-first" approach, where extensive discovery is done before any pricing conversations. Even legacy consulting methods often discourage early pricing commitments, instead preferring a detailed review of each project before determining costs.

There’s also the issue of organizational adaptation. For instance, finance teams typically review and approve customized service deals, but productizing services requires them to adopt a more hands-off approach. To make this mindset shift, you need to: 

1. Ensure top-down commitment: Successful transitions toward a prescriptive approach often begin with strong leadership support. If leadership doesn’t advocate for the change, any mindset change within teams may struggle to gain traction. Leaders need to communicate the vision and encourage a culture of innovation.
2. Leverage early movers and enthusiastic team members: In any team, you’ll find a mix of attitudes toward change. Identifying early adopters—those excited about trying new approaches—can be instrumental. These individuals can pilot new initiatives, provide timely feedback, and showcase successes to their peers. 

Customer concerns

Customers used to custom solutions may worry that productized services lack flexibility. The key is to create service packages for common scenarios and offer flexibility to address specific needs. This begins by identifying recurring projects. By analyzing historical data, you can create packages that cover the most common use cases, for instance, a standard scope could mean two integrations and fixed training sessions. This speeds up projects by having much of the groundwork already covered, ensuring faster, more efficient execution.

You need to communicate what’s included in the standardized scope and engage the customer early in the process to address potential needs. This upfront clarity is about establishing that standardization doesn’t mean inflexibility, but rather a structured approach to customization.

Here are a few key things to focus on: 

1. A prescriptive ‘thought leadership’ stance: Customers today look to you for direction. Your services team must take the initiative to lead customers in their implementation journeys. This includes communicating what has worked for others and what hasn’t, thus providing a more guided and assured experience.
2. Collaboration with product teams: Work closely with product teams to understand the intended use cases and identify gaps. By packaging services that address these gaps, you can enhance their offerings and provide additional value that might not be included in the core product roadmap.
3. Accountability to initial visions: Especially with enterprise customers planning for expansion, the use-it-or-lose-it model for packaged hours encourages accountability. Make sure to remind customers of their initial plans and periodically nudge them towards greater utilization of the available services.

Scope creep and change requests

Scope creep can disrupt even standardized projects. A well-defined statement of work (SOW) and clear communication at project inception are essential. Flag new requests when they arise, and make sure to handle them via formal change requests, trade-offs, or deferred to future phases.  

The key is to ask questions like, “What can we deprioritize to accommodate this?”.This ensures that customers understand that these changes come at a cost – to them and you. 

Reimplementations

Reimplementations happen for various reasons—whether due to changes in customer priorities or mistakes by your services team. If the reimplementation is due to changes ar your end, it’s fair to waive the fee. However, if driven by customer changes, charging for the new scope is appropriate, as it reflects the value of the added work. 

However, choosing to waive reimplementation fees can also strengthen relationships, potentially leading to upsell opportunities or securing customer references, balancing short-term cost with long-term value.

Best practices for charging for recurring services

When it comes to charging for recurring services, one popular approach involves providing ongoing administrative support for customers who prefer not to dedicate internal resources to manage a product. These customers might rely on an external team for everything—from system maintenance and basic housekeeping to enhancing product functionality, configuring new features, and handling updates. In this case, packaging these services into a monthly offering with a set number of guaranteed hours, combined with 24/7 support and access to a customer success manager, is a convenient and predictable solution.

Other approaches include:

• A "bucket of hours" model: Here clients pay for a set number of hours each month that can be used for ad hoc needs like minor changes or enhancements. This approach eliminates the need for drafting new statements of work for every small request and streamlines the process. It also benefits your service teams by generating predictable monthly revenue, allowing them to plan staffing and resource allocation efficiently. 
• Adding additional roles: Recurring service packages don’t need to be limited to hours alone. Adding roles such as technical consultants or customer success managers can create more value for customers, especially smaller ones who may not have the budget for dedicated internal resources. Including these roles in service packages, rather than relying purely on hourly rates, shifts the conversation away from negotiations over consulting fees and emphasizes the broader value of the support provided. 
• Flexible support for evolving needs: You can also ensure that recurring services are flexible to accommodate the shifting needs of customers. For example, in one month, the customer might need assistance with reporting adjustments, while the next month may require technical support for more complex changes. By offering recurring packages, you can build long-term relationships and ensure that their team’s expertise is readily available to address any issue, while customers have a clear budget and plan for ongoing improvements.
• Tying into expansion plans:  For larger enterprise customers, recurring services often tie into expansion plans. Customers may start with a pilot project and gradually scale their product usage across different teams over a few years. The "use it or lose it" model can help keep customers accountable to their growth plans, encouraging continued product adoption. Regular check-ins and support from the services team also ensure that the customer receives value throughout the expansion, and that any potential challenges can be addressed proactively. 
• Integrating recurring services with partner strategies: Recurring services also fit well with partner strategies, especially when dealing with customized implementations that require ongoing support. By incorporating recurring services into partner ecosystems, companies can ensure their software is implemented correctly and supported continuously. These services typically include a roadmap for success, from 60- to 90-day milestones to six- and nine-month checkpoints, ensuring customers stay on track and receive the necessary assistance to fully realize the product’s value.

Cross-functional collaboration for successful project delivery

Effective cross-functional collaboration is critical for delivering successful projects and ensuring customer satisfaction. 

In addition to clear communication between teams, regular check-ins, and defined handover processes, here are some key elements for fostering this collaboration:

1. Customer-centric focus: Cultivate a culture where the client is viewed as the primary focus. Team members should prioritize client needs over internal hierarchies, emphasizing collaboration over competition.

All teams—marketing, sales, project delivery, and customer success—must align around the customer's KPIs and ROI metrics. This shared responsibility ensures a cohesive approach to customer success.

An effective approach is integrating combined solutions that involve cross-functional teams. By bundling services—such as consulting, professional services, training, and customer success—into a comprehensive solution, you can foster a unified focus on the customer’s overall experience and success. 

Proactively design solutions that involve all relevant teams, with clear measures and expectations for each group's contribution. This proactive approach aligns everyone toward a shared goal or "North Star," creating synergy across departments.

1. Aligned KPIs and complementary objectives: Establish shared KPIs to encourage teamwork. For instance, if customer satisfaction (CSAT) is a priority, all relevant teams should collaborate to achieve it, avoiding competing goals that create silos.
   
   
2. Data accessibility: Equip teams with the right data and tools. Sales teams need customer insights, while project teams should have access to expectations and success criteria. This empowers teams to make informed decisions.

Aligning project delivery with customer-defined metrics

To create mutual success metrics with your customers and internal teams, focus on aligning project delivery with customer-defined success metrics. This helps avoid competing KPIs or OKRs and fosters a unified vision across teams.

Here are some strategies to create mutual success metrics with customers and internal teams:

• Understanding objectives: While traditional project management metrics – such as schedule performance index (SPI) and cost performance index (CPI) – focus on the "what" and "when," emphasize the "why." Understanding the financial, operational, and technical objectives behind a project ensures that the team remains aligned with the customer’s ultimate goals.
• Establishing clear project completion criteria: It’s unrealistic to expect customers to realize their vision or ROI immediately after project go-live; adoption typically takes two to three months. Establish clear metrics for what defines project success. This involves determining both the criteria for project completion and the measures of product success..
• Mapping metrics: Align strategic success metrics with the implementation processes while also tracking tactical metrics to ensure the project remains on track. This includes monitoring milestones and confirming that the customer can go live within the defined timeline and scope.
• Providing regular updates: Maintain transparent communication through consistent project reporting. Provide updates on progress, scope adherence, and any changes to the project plan. Regular check-ins— through steering committee meetings or weekly status reports—keep all stakeholders informed and aligned.
• Conducting value engineering exercises: Conduct value engineering sessions before the project begins and three to six months post-implementation. Identify areas where customers can save money or time. At the start, focus on where resources are being wasted; later, quantify the savings attributed to the implemented solutions. This demonstrates the value of the product and reinforces customer confidence in the service team, driving further product adoption. Check out our post on Value realization for SaaS businesses: Framework and tools for some inspiration. 

‍