Winning the Fight but Losing the Customer

People in the marketing world either love Seth Godin or they hate him. I personally enjoy him; he has a new-millennium sort of wisdom, but he delivers it in something of a folksy way.

At any rate, I ran across this post of his last week. Go ahead and go read it, but the gist of it is that sometimes, in business, it doesn’t matter if you’re right. If your customer is unhappy, she’s unhappy. No amount of arguing can change that. If you want her to remain your customer, you need to acknowledge that she’s unhappy.

This got me to thinking about revisions.

I rarely get asked for revisions. I always offer at least one revision for any given project. Customers want to know they have recourse if they don’t like the product. On top of that, it doesn’t happen very often. If I get asked to revise one project in a hundred, that’s probably a lot.

In many cases, the revision represents a change in project requirements. It’s more of an “oops, I  needed to have these three keywords” or “hey, can you write this in Top 10 format?”

My instinct, when I am asked for a revision, is to recoil. I could argue with the customer. I could tell him that he’s changing the scope of the project, that my time is valuable and that I don’t appreciate being asked to do the work twice. Technically, all of those things are true.

But you know what? I don’t usually do that. Once I get over my goofy artistic pride (”WHAT?!? Did the Pope ask Michelangelo to revise the Sistine Chapel?!? This is OUTRAGEOUS!”) I usually just do the work.

And you know what? Those customers – the ones that ask for revisions – almost always come back. In fact, they come back over and over again. And usually, they don’t ask for revisions again.

So, what about you? What’s your revision policy? Will you only revise if you didn’t meet the project specs, or do you allow for customer error? I look forward to hearing how everyone approaches the issue!

(Oh, and if you’re interested in more Seth Godin, here are three of his best books to get you started):

Permission Marketing : Turning Strangers Into Friends And Friends Into Customers

All Marketers Are Liars: The Power of Telling Authentic Stories in a Low-Trust World

The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick)