Is the client always right?
A recent post about the perfect tech. supported me, on the one hand, inspired (I admire people who love their hard work as the author of that post), on the other hand - puzzled. Is it possible, following the logic of any client, to always and completely right to successfully organize the work of the technical department? support (and for many IT companies, effective support is the basis of business)?
Based on a modest (but my own) experience, I come to the conclusion that it is still impossible. Is that in your team all, as the author of the above post, selflessly love their work and think positively.
Further, I am going to identify some problems (but they can and should be solved), which, I think, almost everyone will face will not question the correctness of the client.
')
- And let me send you this database dump by mail, so that you can upload it, otherwise I have no time to deal with your web interface.
When you agree for the first time (“well, let's”) nothing terrible happens yet. Problems will begin, when thus it is necessary to flood the eighth dump in a day. First, you went to meet the client, and he will appreciate it. But he may be abusing it.
After all, if you are a little away from the rules in the direction of the client’s needs yesterday, then why not repeat such a noble step today? Yesterday you almost didn’t have any calls and there was a spring mood, and today a flurry of tickets? No, now it's too late for the customer to talk about it. You raised him to the top of comfort, if you drop him from there, he will be offended. It was easier once to teach him how to use the web interface and solve the problem on his own (or understand from the dialogue with the client what frightened his web interface so much, and if the client really tried to use it, but could not, then he would solve the objective problem with usability would be a client saying that now everything is “done as you suggested").
- Why are you talking to me in such a tired voice? Do you feel from a distance that my problem has happened again?
Sometimes customers have to refuse. More than that: sometimes you have to give up customers. In two hours of torment with one intractable client, one could solve a dozen other problems.
You probably know that in large companies there are restrictions on customer support (talking on the phone for no more than N minutes, on one ticket no more than M iterations with reopening, etc.). These barriers are needed not only to write out fines (and bonuses) to employees, they also reveal “particularly difficult” clients.
Servicing each customer is worth some money. This is the cost of services, it consists of the salaries of employees, the cost of maintaining and depreciating the infrastructure, communication costs and much more. A successful business involves having some positive difference between what the customer pays you and the amount you spend on fulfilling their needs. Clients who make you work in the negative - are not profitable. If you do not figure out how to reduce costs, you will have to raise the price or refuse such customers.
Although sometimes it happens that adequate customers extinguish their payments, the costs of servicing are not adequate. This is true? Is it not better to improve the quality of service for those who use it with pleasure?
- You have written in the fare that I can place the site on the Internet, right? So what are you telling me now about some "mayesqual" and "static pages"? What do you think people treat only those who buy the most expensive tariffs?
If 20 crab sticks cost 40 rubles, then no one will ask for the 21st as a gift at the supermarket checkout for the same price. Make sure that the customer who buys your support, its volume was as clear as the number of crab sticks in a package.
Could not achieve this? The client did not read the contract to the end or did not understand its technical details? If in such a situation you do not send the client to study the formal conditions of cooperation, he will constantly return “for bonuses”. The worst thing is that the client will be sure: you are not doing a favor, you simply owe him.
- Lech, hello. This is Seva. Well, we studied together, I barely found your number. Your office, they say, is now involved in Odenec? Make a discount on the old friendship, I need to teach 15 accountants.
A client who consciously asks for more than what he intends to pay for will not allow you to earn. And if you make an exception for one and others learn about it, then it will turn out ugly: no one wants to fall into disadvantageous conditions in comparison with a neighbor (and even more so with a competitor).
Make a discount to one - you will need to make a discount to everyone. Free of charge, fix the network to a former classmate and it turns out that half-schools need outsourcing support for SCS.
Of course, sometimes you want to help an adequate client “above the norm” in gratitude for his adequacy. But keep in mind that by doing so you can excite your inadequate customers even more.
- Everything seems to work for me, I have never called you and never wrote to you this month. What you billed me for those. support?
Sometimes it seems to me that clients who instigate such conversations, having insured a house, are going to burn it soon. It is not clear why they did not make a revolution when they were legally obliged to buy a CTP insurance policy for a car?
Seriously, the logic of such clients simply hides the wrong message. It is necessary to explain to them that they are paying for guarantees (prompt reaction to a problem, its solutions within a certain period of time, etc.), that the support service actually turns out to be constantly in the form of monitoring, control, updates. The result of the absence of problems is the high-quality preventive work of the support service, which has been insulated from surgical intervention. Again, it is better for the client to understand this before signing the contract, and not as a result of a certain period of support.
- Give me a manager, maybe he understands these technologies better than you.
If the manager decides that the client is always right, then the employee is guilty. Moreover, some managers are not ashamed to show such a position to customers. Write abuzu - vosporem guilty. More often, they are simply drawn in front of the client, but sometimes they are really punished.
Complaints, of course, need to take. But with each accepted complaint it is necessary to carefully consider. In order not to surprise customers - a detailed contract is being prepared, in order not to surprise employees - a detailed internal regulation. Sometimes it is useful to be safe and under the rules of an employee to demand a little more than promised to the client in the contract, but to put the phrase “client is always right” in any of these documents means to turn employees into hostages of the situation.
In an attempt to make all customers right, it’s very easy to drive their own employees.
I think, and I, and the author of “Five conditions of those awesome. support " could continue the list (welcome to the comments). Perhaps we will still deal with this, but for now I would like to sum up the interim results.
Yes , the client is always right, but under the following conditions: the client must understand for what he pays the money, what services and in what volume he will receive, support must understand what obligations she undertakes, to be able to perform them within the stipulated time frame. If the client is trying to leave the framework of the contractual relationship, then he is wrong. If you help him in this, then I am afraid that you are wrong.
As a result, as suggested in the comments, the client may be right (or, which also reflects the essence quite well: by default and initially the client is right, but then in each case you need to understand more).
PS Almost all customer quotes illustrating each of the cases are true :)
Based on a modest (but my own) experience, I come to the conclusion that it is still impossible. Is that in your team all, as the author of the above post, selflessly love their work and think positively.
Further, I am going to identify some problems (but they can and should be solved), which, I think, almost everyone will face will not question the correctness of the client.
')
1. Do it for me
- And let me send you this database dump by mail, so that you can upload it, otherwise I have no time to deal with your web interface.
When you agree for the first time (“well, let's”) nothing terrible happens yet. Problems will begin, when thus it is necessary to flood the eighth dump in a day. First, you went to meet the client, and he will appreciate it. But he may be abusing it.
After all, if you are a little away from the rules in the direction of the client’s needs yesterday, then why not repeat such a noble step today? Yesterday you almost didn’t have any calls and there was a spring mood, and today a flurry of tickets? No, now it's too late for the customer to talk about it. You raised him to the top of comfort, if you drop him from there, he will be offended. It was easier once to teach him how to use the web interface and solve the problem on his own (or understand from the dialogue with the client what frightened his web interface so much, and if the client really tried to use it, but could not, then he would solve the objective problem with usability would be a client saying that now everything is “done as you suggested").
2. Are all customers equally useful?
- Why are you talking to me in such a tired voice? Do you feel from a distance that my problem has happened again?
Sometimes customers have to refuse. More than that: sometimes you have to give up customers. In two hours of torment with one intractable client, one could solve a dozen other problems.
You probably know that in large companies there are restrictions on customer support (talking on the phone for no more than N minutes, on one ticket no more than M iterations with reopening, etc.). These barriers are needed not only to write out fines (and bonuses) to employees, they also reveal “particularly difficult” clients.
Servicing each customer is worth some money. This is the cost of services, it consists of the salaries of employees, the cost of maintaining and depreciating the infrastructure, communication costs and much more. A successful business involves having some positive difference between what the customer pays you and the amount you spend on fulfilling their needs. Clients who make you work in the negative - are not profitable. If you do not figure out how to reduce costs, you will have to raise the price or refuse such customers.
Although sometimes it happens that adequate customers extinguish their payments, the costs of servicing are not adequate. This is true? Is it not better to improve the quality of service for those who use it with pleasure?
3. Contracts, technical specifications and other specifications to the client is not necessary to read?
- You have written in the fare that I can place the site on the Internet, right? So what are you telling me now about some "mayesqual" and "static pages"? What do you think people treat only those who buy the most expensive tariffs?
If 20 crab sticks cost 40 rubles, then no one will ask for the 21st as a gift at the supermarket checkout for the same price. Make sure that the customer who buys your support, its volume was as clear as the number of crab sticks in a package.
Could not achieve this? The client did not read the contract to the end or did not understand its technical details? If in such a situation you do not send the client to study the formal conditions of cooperation, he will constantly return “for bonuses”. The worst thing is that the client will be sure: you are not doing a favor, you simply owe him.
4. Do not make exceptions.
- Lech, hello. This is Seva. Well, we studied together, I barely found your number. Your office, they say, is now involved in Odenec? Make a discount on the old friendship, I need to teach 15 accountants.
A client who consciously asks for more than what he intends to pay for will not allow you to earn. And if you make an exception for one and others learn about it, then it will turn out ugly: no one wants to fall into disadvantageous conditions in comparison with a neighbor (and even more so with a competitor).
Make a discount to one - you will need to make a discount to everyone. Free of charge, fix the network to a former classmate and it turns out that half-schools need outsourcing support for SCS.
Of course, sometimes you want to help an adequate client “above the norm” in gratitude for his adequacy. But keep in mind that by doing so you can excite your inadequate customers even more.
5. What the customer pays for when paying for those. support?
- Everything seems to work for me, I have never called you and never wrote to you this month. What you billed me for those. support?
Sometimes it seems to me that clients who instigate such conversations, having insured a house, are going to burn it soon. It is not clear why they did not make a revolution when they were legally obliged to buy a CTP insurance policy for a car?
Seriously, the logic of such clients simply hides the wrong message. It is necessary to explain to them that they are paying for guarantees (prompt reaction to a problem, its solutions within a certain period of time, etc.), that the support service actually turns out to be constantly in the form of monitoring, control, updates. The result of the absence of problems is the high-quality preventive work of the support service, which has been insulated from surgical intervention. Again, it is better for the client to understand this before signing the contract, and not as a result of a certain period of support.
6. If the customer is not satisfied, are the employees always to blame?
- Give me a manager, maybe he understands these technologies better than you.
If the manager decides that the client is always right, then the employee is guilty. Moreover, some managers are not ashamed to show such a position to customers. Write abuzu - vosporem guilty. More often, they are simply drawn in front of the client, but sometimes they are really punished.
Complaints, of course, need to take. But with each accepted complaint it is necessary to carefully consider. In order not to surprise customers - a detailed contract is being prepared, in order not to surprise employees - a detailed internal regulation. Sometimes it is useful to be safe and under the rules of an employee to demand a little more than promised to the client in the contract, but to put the phrase “client is always right” in any of these documents means to turn employees into hostages of the situation.
In an attempt to make all customers right, it’s very easy to drive their own employees.
Results
I think, and I, and the author of “Five conditions of those awesome. support " could continue the list (welcome to the comments). Perhaps we will still deal with this, but for now I would like to sum up the interim results.
Yes , the client is always right, but under the following conditions: the client must understand for what he pays the money, what services and in what volume he will receive, support must understand what obligations she undertakes, to be able to perform them within the stipulated time frame. If the client is trying to leave the framework of the contractual relationship, then he is wrong. If you help him in this, then I am afraid that you are wrong.
As a result, as suggested in the comments, the client may be right (or, which also reflects the essence quite well: by default and initially the client is right, but then in each case you need to understand more).
PS Almost all customer quotes illustrating each of the cases are true :)
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/54847/
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