Don't Always Listen to Your Clients

I’m not sure who penned the maxim that “the customer is always right,” but that statement really is too much of a generalization. And lately I’ve seen way too many creative firms caring too much about what their customers think.

For example, someone will design a survey to determine what current clients appreciate about your firm’s service offering mix. You may hear that they value getting a little bit of everything from your firm of a dozen employees. They like one-stop shopping, explaining that this is more important than using a media planning firm for that stuff, or an annual report firm for that other stuff.

So what’s the problem, right? The problem is that you may not want more clients like that. They may have taken you from some less developed point in the past to where you are today, but there’s no hope of these same clients taking you to the next level.

By definition (with very few exceptions), current clients want you to stay the same or they wouldn’t be your client in the first place. And if you need your firm to evolve for other reasons, don’t listen to them too closely.

What other reasons might you want your firm to evolve in ways that may make your current clients uncomfortable?

First, maybe your positioning as a generalist firm is attracting clients who place too high a value on cost and turnaround and too low a value on your expertise.

Second, maybe the expectation they have of your personal involvement in each account is not sustainable and you need to find clients who will allow you to backfill with more qualified “interfacers” to free you up for more of the strategic work.

Third, maybe your clients are control freaks who need you at their beck and call at every hour of the day—so much so that you’ve developed a co-dependent relationship with them.

All this to say that I’d like to modify this maxim, and state it like this: “The customer is always right if it’s the kind of customer you want.”

I hope that different way of looking at it is helpful to you.