The Customer is Always Right

(originally posted in my company's blog)

Yesterday I met a new client. She came to us because she'd had a bad experience with another business card printer. She was quite frustrated and made a point in showing me an old business card and the one she had made a few months ago.

She had designed the whole card herself, including her own logo - which I think is awesome. I really admire someone who has the ability to understand themselves, their identity and their market, and comes up with a logo that sums all that up, and then builds a successful business based on that.

But this post is not about logo designing. This post is about understanding where the client is in their branding journey, and most importantly, respecting their decisions.

She put both business cards side by side on the table to show me the difference.
The printer who made her newer business card had completely changed the shade of all her colours - and had even edited her logo!

She is a real estate agent, so having words in gold - that actually look like gold - is important. People who are both buying and selling properties want to make money. So having gold on her business card hints to her clients that they will make (hopefully a lot of) money from the transaction. I got that right away.
But it seems to me like the printer she used didn't. The newer card had an ugly burnt yellow colour that looked nothing like gold. The printer had ruined her design!

Then she brought my attention to her logo. One part of it is a star. In the older card, it was shaded and made the star look like a 3D object. In the newer card, the printer had removed the shade and now the star looked flat, like a 2D object. She had designed the logo herself, so she was upset that the printer had changed it and ruined her design.

I explained my money back or rework guarantee: if the client is not satisfied with the printing job, we can refund the money or re-do the job. I asked if she had complained to the printer. She said she did and he gave her some explanation that she didn't even remember anymore.

Why am I telling this long story?

Because this is a great example of the client being always right.

She knew what she wanted: she had chosen the right colours and had a well designed logo. When the printer changed the design because he thought he knew better, she became upset - and he lost a customer.

Even if we think there is something to be improved in the customer's design, we would never edit it ourselves. We take the time to contact the customer and make a polite suggestion to change it. If they want to keep the original design, we print it that way.

If there's one thing I learned in my 15 years of software development and quality assurance is that we are working for the client. We need to give the client what they want. Not what we think is better.
As tempting as it is to give them what we think is better, they will be happier if they get what they wanted.
Of course there is the question of surprising the client by giving them more than what they asked for, but that is a conversation for another post.