How do I get honest feedback from a consulting client?

Question

I am working for a consultancy firm. I have been employed at the client location as a consultant on contract basis. I report directly to a client manager and we don’t have any other reporting manager from my employer's side. Client feedback and client satisfaction is the only factor affecting extensions to our contract and decides promotions and salary hikes etc.

I would like to get true and real feedback from the client manager about my performance, how satisfied they are, what are the things that I have done well and things they would like me to improve.

My intention here is

• To meet the client expectations
• Get feedback directly from client instead of via my employer.
• Get the feedback before it influences the employer and client decisions about my next assignments and contract extensions.

How should I go about that?

In my experience some clients try to be nice and don’t want to give negative feedback directly. However the same feedback will be conveyed to my employer. I want to get that feedback early enough to work upon it.

Answer 1

All you can do is ask.

Most managers are willing to give honest feedback if they're asked directly. Schedule a short meeting with your manager and ask "How am I doing? What can I improve on?" Most managers will be more than happy to provide reasonably candid feedback.

Of course, some people aren't comfortable managing and aren't going to be comfortable having a potentially uncomfortable conversation about what someone isn't doing well. You can't do too much in those cases to get feedback-- if your client doesn't want to give you feedback, you're not going to convince them to give it to you. You can obviously be aware of whatever feedback you are getting-- emails, nonverbal communication, etc. but if the client isn't comfortable managing (and giving feedback is a pretty key task for a manager), you aren't going to change that.