Have you ever encountered people asking you to do a website whereby they say “I just want to have a simple to use website.” when you were trying to explain some user-interface problems you are facing which you need some input from the people? You might say “Dear customer, I am facing some interface problem with your requirement. Can I ask you how you would want the work done?”. And your customer might reply “You just go by your instinct. Just make sure it is simple to understand, and a user knows how to use without much explanation.”. Is this as good as not telling us anything?
This can be a problem of communication breakdown between the website companies and their customers. This is usually the case of over-relying on the good background of the company and caused problem at a much later stage. I am not saying that relying on the company isn’t good. It’s more like getting yourself involved a little to make sure the company is doing the right way that you wanted.
And because of the requirement might not be what they wanted, there usually would be case of re-doing a certain module of the program. And that’s where the companies have to charge for extra time and yet the clients complain for incorrect requirement. The rule of thumb is that “Customer is always right” and hence, the best case is still to bomb the customers till you got it right before you move on to it.
Probably some companies just accept things as they are (even though it might not be exactly what they want), and get things over so that they can move on with further things. These are the 20% of the clients who are willing to pay big money and are less cost to maintain. The 80% are the ones I mentioned above who are so troublesome and yet they are paying low price.
I remember some marketing expert mentioned that “Focus on 20% of your clients, and give away 80% to your competitors.”. This can be so true when you are handling the complaints from your 80% who can be so cheapo in the things that they want and yet keep on insisting on getting the best things.
