Let’s Stop (Publicly) Complaining about Our Customers

The integration industry has taken to "publicly shaming" our clients via Twitter and sharing of stupid customer quotes. This isn’t good for anybody.

George Tucker

We are a passionate lot, the integration community.

We love to talk about the products, the methods, whose hardware flags we fly and innumerable technical minutia.

Passion of such depth is a requirement in our industry where a single individual must understand a plethora of overlapping technologies. From analog video to digital distribution,streaming architecture, Ethernet networking fundamentals, system code and even basic construction techniques—all of it must often reside in one head.

This obsessive (some would say “compulsive”) fervor about how things work and more specifically how they are supposed to be installed can reach aggressive heights. 

To the uninitiated, our industry debates can seem a bit like third-year philosophy students arguing the merits of Martinus Scriblerus treatises. However, this dialog is important to us in that it forms a continuing conversation on industry practices and is often the foundations of standards.

Often these discussions turn to the topic of clients and their demands based on technical ignorance or even, on occasion, simple arrogance. 

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For the most part, these discussions occur in small offices of the integration firm, the only wider audience being at a beer-and-bull session at a trade show event. These “venting sessions” serve a function, that of getting the weight of umbrage at being asked to do things incorrectly or even unprofessionally off our chests. It is also a way of bonding to our peers through a shared dismay or concern.

Regrettably, this rage among peers has escaped the confines of our professional space and is now allowed to roam free in the public spaces. Just why have we as an industry deemed it acceptable to “publicly shame” our clients? Even when one takes the tact of talking in abstract it is still wrong.

In posts from raging blog entries to tweets in the vein of stupid client quotes there has been a marked increase in the volume over the last few years. While the rise of social media has enabled these vitriolic screeds to gain traction and public attention, it is not the cause. 

When a community or industry is as insular as ours its practitioners often presume that the fundamentals are obvious truths. We forget that those outside the confines of our sect do not see the rules and requirements we must live by as common sense.

AV integration is in truth a service industry not much different from that of plumbers, accountants or cleaning crews. All provide solutions to meet clients’ needs and wants. Understanding the difference between clients, who are nurtured relationships, and customer, ones who simply consume, is essential here.

While we may be frustrated by demands of timing or just plain wrong installation requests it is our responsibility to educate clients on why it cannot or should not be done in “their way.” 

Much of the frustration comes when clients withhold payment in disagreement over what they thought was promised and what was contracted. These are terrible and avoidable conflagrations which never result in satisfaction for either party.

The solution is (no surprise) communication.

Introducing a form of a phased contract—where the job requirements, scope and timelines are broken into scheduled parts—is a start. This form of contract requires all parties to sign off on the project scope with payment schedules that build in profit to each phase. Any changes, updates or feature requests can be added to the next phase and signed off on. 

Whatever form it takes constant communication and management of expectations is key.  This and only this will temper our fascination with the schadenfreude. 

Are you ready to give up the immediate gratification of venting online?  Communication takes work, forethought and a willingness to collaborate. 

How will you impart this to your staff?

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