The Customer is Always Right- Aren’t They?
March 24, 2008 – 7:43 amAlexander Kjerulf has a great post over on his blog, “Chief Happiness Officer“. The post is entitled Top 5 Reasons Why the Customer Is Always Right Is Wrong, and it outlines some reasons why you should consider how you handle your customers.
The fact is, some customers simply do not fit your company’s product, brand or culture. Some customers have demands that will simply create a relationship that is not profitable for you and will drain resources away from your quality customers. Sometimes, the customer will simply not understand what is the best solution for their own needs and insist you do a poor job. There’s many reasons to think about your customer relationships carefully in regard to this credo.
So how does this apply to projects? In client-facing projects, many aspects of it are fairly obvious. The biggest place it applies in any project is the way you deal with your team members and your stakeholders. When your stakeholders start questioning the judgement of your subject matter experts, this is always a sign of trouble- sometimes, the SME is wrong; sometimes the stakeholder is wrong, but either way, you have problems. When in doubt, get a consensus of your SMEs or even get a third party involved to verify your direction. Once you are sure of your SME, though, stick to your team’s opinion. They’re called Subject Matter Experts for a reason. Failing to support them will show a lack of confidence in them, which in turn may be interpreted as a vote of no-confidence in your team, and it will all spiral downhill from there.
Standing up to clients, customers and stakeholders can be tough, no question, but in the end, do the right thing for the people you lead and the company you represent.
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