You would think the customer would be your best friend for project engagement, right? After all, they want what you want: Success. They want roadblocks cleared for your delivery team. They want dead-on correct requirements. They want to give us as much money as is needed to get it done. Well, maybe not that last one. But they do want us to succeed.
Pleasing the customer is huge; it’s one of the main success determiners in the project management world, and definitely a key to success for small businesses and individual consultants. You can’t afford to offend customers, you can’t afford to lose customers—you can’t afford to drive them away at all. But do they always know what’s best for the project? Should you do whatever they want you to do? Should you act on everything they say or ask for? You may have to say no to that. Let’s explore this concept further and figure out why.
It Starts with a Perceived Issue, Need, or Problem
The customer may already be on your radar and in your customer relationship management (CRM) system as a previous contact. Or they may come to you from nowhere through an Internet search or a recommendation about our services. Either way, they have become your client—either your consulting client or your organization’s client—because they have a need or a problem that needs to be resolved.
However, they may not have done the up-front preparation and digging to really know what their problem is, so they come with a perceived solution that they want implemented rather than letting the consultant figure out what the real solution should be. So should small business consultants always do what the customer wants? Maybe not, and sometimes that can cause some early customer friction. Be careful, but be firm.
Approach the Project in an Analytic Manner
While there is an issue that likely needs to be resolved, you won’t be certain right away what that issue is and the customer may not have all the requirements figured out coming into the engagement. No matter how hard the customer tries to convince you that they know all about what they need, keep digging to make sure this is true.
Remember, You are the Expert
You, your team, your organization—you are the experts. That’s why the customer came to you, so it’s more than okay to put the brakes on at the beginning of the project and work through additional planning and investigation. You may get pushback from the customer if they think that’s just a drain on their funds, and they are entitled to that thought. You must step back and explain to them that your mission isn’t necessarily to deliver what they tell you to deliver, it’s to deliver the right solution to their problem. In a perfect world, those two would align but we don’t live in a perfect world. If your project view differs greatly from your customer’s project view, remind them that you are the expert and it’s your job to ask questions and to find out what the real need is and what the real solution needs to be.
Is the Customer Really in the Way?
It all depends on the project, the customer, and how well the project manager or consultant is able to manage the customer. A good project manager keeps them engaged, working on tasks, and participating every step of the way. This can keep the customer from getting in the way of success and allows them to be a valuable contributor on the team. Use the customer and all of their expertise to fully define requirements, truly pinpoint the problem, identify all the risks, and help you manage the solution to a successful ending. If your customer initially wants to run the project, you’ll need to set expectations about your leadership role and communication processes early on. By doing this, you will instill confidence in the customer and stop many of these potential problems from ever happening. While you won’t encounter these problems with most customers, you’ll still have to watch for the overbearing client who wants to tell you what to do throughout the project.
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