The customer is always right…well yeah, okay, maybe just sometimes. We have always gone to great lengths to provide the best service possible. Due to this we often go beyond the scope of project for many of our clients. A simple subscription system ends up being a advanced invoicing system. This isn’t something the client intends in the beginning phases of a project, but things tend to morph and adapt as the process moves along. For the most part we can accommodate our clients to a certain extent. Usually the extra development time will be taken from another aspect or we convince them that it would be best to wait on these new features until we do version 2.0 of their website. Sometimes we just bite the bullet and do it anyway if we feel it was something we missed in quoting the project and it is necessary to have a truly effective website that accomplishes our clients needs. Usually we can work something out so that the client is happy and we haven’t worked for free at the same time. Case in point, SubSmartRegistry.com. Towards the end of the project, it became obviously aware that a calendar of open and fulfilled dates was needed to really polish the site. We simply did it. It was something we should have thought about before quoting the project so we ate the cost.
Anyway, recently we had a previous client call who we had developed their site over 3 years ago. At the time, we designed a fixed width site based on links they provided us of other sites they liked. The site looked great and the template was user friendly and attractive at the same time. During this recent phone call, the client asked if we would upgrade his template. He had recently purchased a really big monitor and didn’t like how it looked with his new resolution. He wanted a fluid site that stretched the entire width of the browser. Totally understandable. So I began to tell him about our current template prices he stopped me in mid-sentence in order to inform me he wasn’t going to pay for anything. He said we gave him an “unprofessional” template and that no one else had a site that behaved like his. Even after showing him examples of other sites that were fixed width I was told it was still unprofessional. He fully expected a new layout for free 3 years after he approved his current template. When it was all said and done, he was pretty furious. To some extent I can understand. It’s like the new Lexus you bought 3 years ago and now the new body style is out. You want the most current up-to-date things you can get. So yeah, in 3 years trends have changed and monitors are bigger and cheaper.
But here lies the problem. For years, the average consumer has been bombarded with news and commercials telling them just how easy their life will be when they embrace technology. They think becuase we, as graphic designers and developers, know more about computers than the average Joe, that our jobs are easy and these things are pretty quick. That’s simple not true. We are more like carpenters. The higher the quality of craftsmanship, the longer it takes. You wouldn’t build a house and 3 years later decide you want to knock down a wall in the kitchen only to contact the cabinet maker and demand new cabinets for free because the old ones don’t look right with the wall missing.
So in this case, the old adage about the customer always being right simply doesn’t apply. Actually the inverse is true.
