The way you hear some business owners speak you’d think they hated their clients.
It’s all complaints about how clients don’t value the work the business does. They return products and ask for changes late in the game.
You’d think that the clients are purposely trying to make the life of the business owner miserable.
And that’s how some business owners treat their clients — as if they are out to bring misery to the business owner.
Where do you go?
Step back from your business for a second and think about where you go for your goods or services. Is it a place where you’re treated like an adversary? Like you’re there to be a thorn in their side just because they want to be compensated for their products/services?
Or do you go to the place that makes you feel like you’re a valuable asset to their business? Do you go to the place that processes returns quickly and keeps you advised of the status of returns? The place that treats you like a human being?
I’m betting you go to the second place.
Which kind of business do you run?
That’s the question today: Do you run a business where your customers feel like aliens, or do you run a business where they feel like they’ve been taken care of by someone who cares about them?
photo credit: clement127 cc
One response to “Clients Aren’t Aliens”
It’s a popular thing in the client services wing of the web industry to bemoan clients for what they “don’t do right”. Let that irony sink in for a moment.
People skills are a must if you want to succeed as a business owner.
I find that I gravitate towards other web people who have done other things in their careers, like yourself. I find a lot of humility and down-to-earth grounding present in people who have experienced a world outside of “tech culture”.
Customers/clients hire a business/product to do a job. Part of that is customer service. Some solo web professionals struggle with this, others embrace it.
Maybe this is why so many web professionals either want to join a product company or pivot to products. They like the “making” part, but they struggle with the “dealing with people” part.