The Client is NOT Always Right

The most prominent issue of concern in any service firm is how to assure client satisfaction. The prime blockade on this road usually is that amateurish clients tend to insist on implementation of their incompetent suggestions, which lands the service providers in a sticky situation where both acceptance and denial of client ideas appear to be equally detrimental.

The path that the decision makers choose depends solely on their “ideals”. One person might value his design etiquettes above everything and would not listen to any crappy suggestions from the clients. Doing this might assure a perfect product but the client would get an impression that the service provider is adamant and rude. This would be dangerous for the firm’s reputation and might lead to market contraction for them. Those who realize this, follow the flipside approach of agreeing to all that the client says. They just keep doing things as he wants them to be done. After all, it is he who is going to suffer if the product is delivered with loopholes he himself contributed. Why risk displeasing the client when we can compromise on our principles to suit his needs. This approach, I guess, might appear healthier to many although it is as erroneous as the former.

The drawbacks of both approaches need to be understood before arriving at a decision. One can not simply follow what the client expects as this would lead to a compromise on quality, which such a client would fail to realize. This not only leads to substandard deliveries to the clients, it also has an adverse effect on the service provider’s reputation, when these projects are appended to the company portfolio. The other alternative of not following the client, will obviously lead to instant dissatisfaction as the client would feel that his propositions are not being addressed the way they should be, and that his “feedback” is being ignored by the company. This might drive the client away with a negative impression of the firm’s hospitality.

A very interesting and innovative illustration of the outcomes of the acceptance of inept client suggestions can be found here. It also highlights how this approach leads to the designer getting a feeling of being agonized by the client. Those who are in this business would easily relate to this. We also worked on this comic strip to establish the consequences of following the “client is always right” approach. Click on it to enlarge.

Having criticized the “client is always right” principle, I do not imply a “client is always wrong” theory either. What I am trying to suggest is a midway proposition with a very important realization that if any relation is messed up, there has been due contribution from both sides. We at Cheese believe in “The Client is NOT always right and neither are WE.” This is why we follow an iterative working scheme giving due concern to client feedback at each iteration. In the past, we have found most client suggestions constructive and reasonable, and have always implemented them with a supplementation of our own creativity. We too have, at times, received not-so-good kind of ideas from clients, which we try to work out with them so as to employ them in a way that suits both of us. I would like to emphasize one point concerning the client attitude that, Feedback is never bad or wrong; it is the Childish Insistences that are.

To conclude, I feel that issues on client feedback are most often exaggerated for the sake of hilarity, and such humor is, in most cases, compiled by service firms themselves. I hope any such jokes should be received in good taste as they are not intended to displease anyone nor compromise on professionalism. The important point is that both sides should give due respect to each other’s suggestions, and communication should be ample in terms of both, clarity and quantity, so as to assure a healthy exchange of ideas to deliver perfection.