It's Worth Noting

Make a purple cow: customer centric web and app development

I've worked with a lot of web developers over the years, from solos to mid-size and larger.  All have left something to be desired, which is probably why I've tried so many.  I've talked with peers about this and their experiences are the same.  Why are web and app development customers so consistently dissatisfied?

I believe the central problem is that most web and app development companies are staffed, run and owned by technicians.  These folks know how to program/design, but they are fish out of water when it comes to being customer centric.  Customers are a problem or annoyance to be tolerated or managed, not the focus of everything they do.  This is similar to how folks view auto repair shops.  Expect the worst: poor dollar/time estimates, unnecessary technical jargon, one excuse after another and consistently unmet expectations.  Rinse, repeat and switch when you can't take it anymore.

Whenever there's an "always" that can be applied to a product, service or industry, there's an opportunity for someone to do it differently and stand out from the crowd.  This is true in the web and app development world.  If someone was willing to make every interaction and experience customer centric, they could be the purple cow in the herd.  For the technicians, this is difficult to imagine and more difficult to execute, so few even try.  Will you?

Below are my top ten recommendations for transforming a web or app development company into a customer centric organization, which will retain customers and convert them into evangelists instead of antagonists:

1. Don't take clients that have an insatiable appetite for being dissatisfied.  They're bad profit and tips 2-10 below won't make any difference to them.
2. Develop a customer interview process that ensures you understand the business objectives (e.g. a site isn't the objective - web marketing is) and a key decision maker or influencer.  Help them translate the technical task into a business objective with an assigned value.  If someone jumps in halfway through the project and disrupts things, your interview process failed you, not the customer.  Improve your process or toolkit.
3. Following the interview, and as part of your written statement of work (which you should be doing if you're not already), put the business objectives on paper.  That becomes the goal post - the project is just a means to that end.
4. Storyboard sites and apps.  Don't waste time or money programming/designing something that can be sketched, flow charted or mapped out first.  Seek the feedback on the front end, not after all the heavy lifting is done.  Ad agencies don't record commercials and then pitch them.  They storyboard, seek feedback, obtain buy-in and then produce.  You should do the same.
5. Develop a time/module matrix that allows you to track and communicate where the project stands at any moment in time.  Update the matrix daily based on % of work completed for each module and share it with your customer.  This will force you to prioritize the work, will introduce accountability and will improve communication.  If you and the customer can't accurately assess where a project is at on a daily basis, you cannot consistently meet deadlines or know whether you can take on more work.
6. If your customers ever email or call you wanting a "status update", you've failed in your communication.  They're not the problem - your communication practices are to blame.  If a customer wants status updates daily, direct them to the matrix, but never go more than a few working days between contact for an active project.  Setup a system to handle this and make it easy for you execute day in, day out.
7. Get on the phone.  Email is efficient, but it doesn't build relationships like face to face or telephone conversations do.  If it's just about the project for you, it'll just be about the deadlines and budgets for them.  If you build a relationship, you'll build some cushion for rough spots and increase the likelihood of repeat business and referrals.  It's also more fulfilling.
8. Speak up.  You're being hired to execute a project to move the ball forward on a business objective.  If you're perplexed by a request, don't know why it's not being done a simpler or more cost effective way, say so.  If you don't, your customer won't get the full benefit of your perspective and expertise and you're likely to waste some of your time and their money.
9. Don't assume.  I once had a home builder tell me that I should have caught a framing mistake.  I told him that's why I was paying him to build the house.  He just shifted blame because he assumed and developers consistently do the same.  Be mindful of the information gap.  Develop a set of questions or techniques to assess whether what they're saying and what you're hearing are the same thing.  They're frequently not and it's not their job to correct this - it's yours.  Good communicators listen intently and ask inquisitively to understand what someone means, not what they've said.  The point isn't to hear words, it's to understand why they're being spoken.
10. Don't permit you or your team to complain about customers anymore, whether internally or externally.  It's cancerous.  If they are a challenge to deal with, you've most likely failed to adhere to one or more of tips 1-9 above.

The danger of measuring your success based on your competition

What if an airline filled up an entire cabin with wide seats and extra leg room? No first class seats, but a whole plane full of seats offering about 20% more width and leg room. The fact that this suggestion seems fanciful is indicative of a major problem amongst the airlines: they lack focus on radically improving the customer experience with the application of creativity and innovation.

Give JetBlue, Southwest, etc. some credit - they've made some improvements over the years - but why have the improvements been so minor and on the whole unsatisfying? The root of the problem is that the airlines measure their success based on one another. Instead, they should measure their success based on the imagination and expectations of their customers.

A business takes the shape of how it measures success. If your measure is your competition, you'll look a lot like them and spend your time trying to differentiate yourself in the marketplace. If your measure is your customers, you'll look a lot like them and spend very little time trying to convince them you're what they want or need.