There’s a big difference…
“The customer is always right.” It’s the first rule of customer service. The housepainter does not critique the customers paint selection, the chef will serve the steak with ketchup. These are preference based decisions that are meant to please no one other than the whims of the customer themselves. To argue against customer taste would run contrary to the whole purpose of the profession’s existence.
There are of course service based professions that don’t follow this logic. A doctor for example won’t amputate your arm just because you ask. A CPA won’t round down your earnings on your tax return based on your preference to pay less. Both of these professions have organized governing bodies to dictate ethics and accuracy. Customer satisfaction is prized only in so much as that the jobs are performed successfully based on the standards of the profession.
Graphic design walks an interesting line. A primary function, and the end result of which is an artistic creation. Quite unlike many services, graphic design results in something undistinguishable from a product, albeit a made-to-order one. Which Is why it’s probably often confusing for clients; are they buying graphic design the final product, or the service that leads to it?
It admittedly would be much easier if we were selling final product. That would remove the most costly and taxing part of our profession -personal preference. There are so many right answers to any graphic design problem, but what every client searches for is the one right answer that feels like the right one for them. Which is why we, and so many of our competitors sell graphic design as a service rather than a product.
It’s a function of the best types of professional services to council as well as produce. The best graphic design studios are able to listen as well as talk. It’s important to find compromise, _and- success. It’s important to be able to stand up for what you know to be true about a project. Keeping quiet about a project off course is to sin by silence. It’s the lettuce in the teeth, it’s the unzippered fly. As uncomfortable as it may seem, you know everyone will be better off if you speak up.
So, a good agency will fight for good design. Not as a function of pride, but as a result of conscience. To allow client preference to prevent a successful project would run contrary to the point of our profession.
The client is most decidedly always right in their intent to seek great design that sells product. The client is always right in their want to be heard, and included in their projects. The client is right to want a customized solution that fits their own individual needs. But if occasionally the client is not right on some specific portion of the artistic, or sociologic vision of a project, and if you know it in your designer’s bones, and with every year of experience in your body, then it’s the duty of your profession to speak up. We don’t need a national governing sovereign committee for that to be true. We only need to look across the conference table at the hopeful eyes of our clients to know it’s our most important responsibility.
An inability to push out successful advertising reflects an inward inability to succeed.
Try to think how many companies have terrible ads, but are still successful. You may know of poor companies with great ads, and great companies who don’t advertise- but can you think of any great companies with bad ads? Maybe it’s an inability to trust an agency, maybe it’s not being able to choose correctly, maybe it’s fear, or just being out of touch. Whatever the source, it’s a great indicator of a company that’s struggling.
No studio or agency wins every bid they go after. Even the best studio loses out based on cost, relationships, un-perfect meetings, bad chemistry, and occasionally clients just have bad taste. It still hurts- if you’re in this business and you don’t believe with your whole heart that you do a better job than your competitors, quit. Quit now, and don’t look back. If you’re like us though, you work extremely hard at being a great company, and it’s hard not to get angry about it. The single, and only reason you can feel ok about it, if you really wanted it, is if you lose it based on cost.
There is always someone willing to do something cheaper, and competing based on price is a race to the bottom. We’ve always opted to compete on quality. Our hourly rate is competitive, and we’re fast at what we do, but we have a level of quality that we aren’t willing to go below. Not every studio is like that, and not every client can tell the difference. Sometimes it requires education to tell the difference between paying more for quality, and being taken advantage of. It’s important to admit that paying less for something of inferior quality is being taken advantage of just like the opposite. It’s contradictory of your ultimate goal.
We lost a bid for a website last week that we shouldn’t have lost. We were the perfect fit for it, and we’re not going to lie to you, it stings a bit. We lost it, according to the client, based on cost- which helps somewhat, but not much. If the client doesn’t have the money, that’s one thing, but probably not the case here. The client may have had their limitations, but money probably wasn’t one of them. Which makes it hurt more, because the blame is on us for not educating them on why our services are more expensive. People who aren’t connoisseurs of wine buy cheap wine, people who aren’t connoisseurs of design buy cheap design.
One of the main purposes of this blog is to educate people about the things that they ought to be thinking about when choosing a studio to work with. Not to coerce them into picking us, but to paint the picture accurately so they can choose for themselves. Since virtually every business needs a website, and almost nobody is a website developer, that means most people have a learning curve when picking a web-dev studio. We’ve covered a lot of the factors in choosing a developer before, but in this case we want to talk about some of the not-so-obvious things that some agencies skimp on to help you compare apples to apples.
Great websites require a whole collection of things to come together perfectly. A lot of the ingredients aren’t immediately apparent.
Here are some often skimped on, or skipped over factors.
This article is about the small things, but don’t forget the obvious stuff.