During the holiday week, a friend lamented a work situation involving a client that had provided a large batch of incorrect data that was going to cost my friend and her team a considerable amount of time (and redundancy, considering they had already inputted the data once).
As I listened to this story, I started to wonder about how this client could have approached the situation in a more decent manner. We typically think about how businesses can better serve their customers and clients, but there’s so much potential for mutual respect and human decency in these partnerships, especially when someone makes a mistake.
Stonemaier Games is a client to a variety of organizations, including our manufacturer (Panda), our freight shipping company (OTX), our fulfillment centers (GTG, Spiral Galaxy, Aetherworks, and D6), our lawyer (Scot Duvall), our graphic designer (Christine Santana), our accountants (Anders Accounting), our artists…the list goes on.
As a client, I’ve absolutely made mistakes similar to the example I mentioned earlier. The most common mistake for me is that I simply change my mind about something after I’ve already approved it, typically with Panda.
When that happens, I first ask myself if the change I want is worth the time it will take for Shannon (our account manager at Panda, who is endlessly patient with me). If I decide it is, in my email to Shannon:
- I apologize for the mistake
- I say that I’m aware it will cost him and his team some time (and that it might impact the overall schedule)
- I indicate my understanding that it may be too late to make the change
- I offer to pay for any additional expenses
- I thank him for trying to accommodate my request
Basically, I try to be decent, not demanding or entitled. I’m sure I have my moments when I fail, but my goal as a client is always to treat our vendors with the same decency with which we try to treat our customers.
And of course I would ideally not make these types of mistakes in the future. Rather than rush to approve something, I could “approve” it without actually sending the email, sit on it for a day to see if that’s how I really feel, and then proceed accordingly.
In what ways do you try to be a decent client to your vendors, especially when you make a mistake? How would you like to be a better client in 2021?
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4 Comments on “How I Try to Be a Decent Client (Especially When I Make Mistakes)”
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Well said.
Hello Jamey, your behavior has a philosophical basis
The basic behaviour should be
-respect for the other,
-the recognition of his right to exist and
-in the recognition of the fundamental equality of all human beings.
In one sentence:
what you don’t want to be done to you don’t do it to anyone else.
(Kant)
Human dignity also applies to customers and vendors. Unfortunately, this is often forgotten. I like the acronym of Andrew: HEART!
Even outside the corporate world this is a much needed concept. I worked in retail for 5 years and a big tech retailer and the amount of disrespect and entitlement that customers show is astounding.
Most of it involves customer service/repair as the sales teams mostly just provide information. However, sometimes when the sales team provides misinformation or makes a mistake we at service had to understand and make it right for those customers.
It was easy when they came in, explained what happened and requested something. But when they came in irate and disrespectful right off the bat it was really hard to be on their side.
This doesn’t necessarily apply in terms of a client making a mistake, but when I worked in the hotel industry they had a very useful and straightforward acronym for dealing with a complaining guest: HEART. Hear, Empathize, Apologize, Resolve, Thank. In your e-mail to Shannon, even as the client making the mistake, I can see that this is being utilized and is effective from that perspective as well!