Why the ideal customer is not ideal
I was listening to a podcast the other day where one of the guests was a somewhat-known competitor of ours.
At one point in the conversation, case studies were discussed.
Another guest recounted a case with a customer who had no, absolutely no idea how his website worked.
He didn’t even care, he absolutely left everything to them and didn’t give a thought to the matter.
At this point, our somewhat-known competitor flippantly remarked that such was the ideal client.
This shocked me and my mind started racing.
As the story continued it, of course, turned out how much trouble this client had become.
He wanted something that he thought would have been a small tweak, but which would have required a fundamental rebuild of his system.
As the client had no idea how the site worked, he refused to accept the solutions offered (let alone the budget) and started accusing the service provider of all sorts of fraud.
Needless to say, the relationship got terminated.
That’s not the ideal customer, is it?
Your customer should not be oblivious to the basic working of their website.
By the way, the narrator is mainly to blame for this situation. They should have started to “bring the client into the picture” when they started working together.
We, for example, talk through the basics with all our clients, give them a broad outline of how WordPress works, explain what’s related to what.
It’s like a crash course, really just the basics.
But it’s essential that the client has some understanding of how their site works, otherwise they won’t be able to tell if a change is big or small.
What it takes to implement an idea of development.
Therefore, we start educating our clients well before they are even clients.
That’s what the report “Is your website fast enough? Find out without the help of an IT specialist” is about.
Let everyone check the speed for themselves. You will understand the factors determining the load speed of your website and learn a lot from it.
The better the customer understands the ways their website works, the easier it will be for us to collaborate. The better for us and for them.
The other problem with the comment from this somewhat-known competitor is that he doesn’t seem to respect the customer.
This is not only a serious mistake, but unfortunately it is becoming a mindset.
Long lasting relationship can not be built withour respect.
Neither in private life nor in business.
Respect is fading out.
It does among people, in the public discourse, in politics, everywhere.
We hear politicians demanding it for themselves, as if respect can be demanded.
I was taught in my day that respect must be earned.
According to an Irish saying I read somewhere, no matter how tall my grandpa was, I must grow tall myself.
So, one got to “grow” tall first and only get respect later.
This is especially the case with customers who give us their money and trust.
They believe that we will help them.
That we want to help them first – we will only benefit afterwards.
So is it fair and also it is in our best business interest.
A service provider who doesn’t understand that or doesn’t care about it doesn’t deserve that respect.
Well, I have gone off-topic, let’s stick to websites.
You can check the speed of your website using the method in this report and if you are not happy with the results, let’s talk.
We’ll be glad to help.