Satisfying IT customers may be a bad idea
One of the most intriguing points made in this article (Satisfying IT customers may be a bad idea) is the difference between clients and customers.
A customer is looking to make a single purchase, like buying a camcorder at a local electronics store. A client is more like an ongoing partnership, and the experience of the relationship is more important than the quality of the product. I would be cautious about misinterpreting that the quality doesn't matter, it absolutely does. But I think that in a client relationship there is a certain trust that the deliverer is the expert.
The value of a client relationship is based on the two parties knowing different things and trusting each other's advice. If you want to turn customers into clients, don't just tell the client what they want to hear. You have to have confidence enough in your convictions to know when you are the expert and you know more about what they really want than they do.
As the saying goes, you don't know what you don't know.
A customer is looking to make a single purchase, like buying a camcorder at a local electronics store. A client is more like an ongoing partnership, and the experience of the relationship is more important than the quality of the product. I would be cautious about misinterpreting that the quality doesn't matter, it absolutely does. But I think that in a client relationship there is a certain trust that the deliverer is the expert.
The value of a client relationship is based on the two parties knowing different things and trusting each other's advice. If you want to turn customers into clients, don't just tell the client what they want to hear. You have to have confidence enough in your convictions to know when you are the expert and you know more about what they really want than they do.
As the saying goes, you don't know what you don't know.
