Working with the Business Clients
By Russ Finney
Many service oriented businesses people are learning that regardless of the product or service, their customers have changed. This revelation holds equally true for systems builders who are working with their own business client customers. The type of client encountered ten years ago is just not the same as the sophisticated business client who is utilizing computer systems today. Business needs have changed, client technology expectations have changed, and system-based work approaches have changed. All of these have combined to create discernible trends which can potentially impact the way systems builders serve their business customers.
Four Important Trends:
1. Business clients are becoming more computer literate and have higher expectations.
2. This is an age of "instant gratification", and it is impacting the demands of the business clients.
3. Business clients are increasingly working in groups which are geographically separated.
4. More and more business clients are "computing on the go".
Focus on the Customer
What all this means is the successful system builder must now continually apply customer satisfaction principals throughout the system development process. This helps to ensure that all customer needs are being met, and that all customer performance concerns are being addressed. In his book, Keeping Clients Satisfied, Robert Bly points out the following three principals for working with clients in today's demanding business environment:
- "To assure customer satisfaction, you must find out what the customer really wants, not just what they say they want, and fulfill that need." - Systems builders tend to take everything too literally - instead they should look at the spirit of the requirement as well as the underlying business purpose.
- "To keep your clients satisfied, don't just give them their money's worth - give them more than their money's worth." - Business clients today are now presented with a multitude of options for addressing their business processing needs. Countless system building firms exist which are aggressively seeking out new project opportunities and offering competitive pricing. Off-the-shelf software is being created which is able to handle many generic business requirements. Many sophisticated clients are able to create their own business systems using today's powerful application building database products. For these, and other reasons, system builders must focus on the both value and the timeliness they are providing to the client, and provide even more. Failure to do this will result in the business clients exploring, and possibly selecting, other alternatives when the next system is developed.
- "Create an expectation on the client's part that is realistic, yet that is one you know you can not only meet but actually exceed!" - System builders tend to make grand promises right off the bat which they then have to back down from later. Instead, follow the advice of Jean-Jacques Rousseau who reflected that "he who the most slow in making a promise is the most faithful in the performance of it." Set expectations realistically, then deliver results which go beyond the promise!
Copyright © 1999, Russ Finney, All Rights Reserved