When he was mayor of New York City, Ed Koch would roam the streets asking passersby “How’m I doin’?” The brash mayor often got some equally brash responses, but he knew that asking for customer feedback is important. However, most business valuation firms and practices do not do this. According to the BVR Benchmarking Survey, 82% of respondents do not ask clients or referral sources for feedback for quality control purposes.

Consider it: In prior surveys, respondents told us that a focus on quality control and the improvement of work product output were among the most successful new management practices they implemented. If your firm is not reaching out for customer feedback, we would urge you to consider it. At a valuation conference a few years ago, a presentation on quality control discussed several market research techniques and metrics, such as a net promoter score (NPS), one of the leading metrics that measures customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Almost 200 business valuation firms and practices responded to the survey, and we are analyzing the results, which will be made available as soon as possible.