Immply.com Blog

Facebook is testing a new interface. The old one was more suited to the 800 px old monitors, I’m guessing since most of their audience now uses 1024 or better but more importantly - more space for ads on the right means more monetization

Here’s some screenshots.

Applications can now have their own tabs on your profile … and er.. ads on the right.

We got this question today from an existing client we did a small project for recently. The customer came back with a larger set of requirements for a second phase but when we provided an estimated quote which was approx 3-4 x the first phase was a little surprised.

I couldn’t help but blog about this.  As I have said before, if you really value your work, name your price and stay away from bargain hunters. Now, I would not call this customer a bargain hunter but surely “price sensitive”, but more importantly, I’d say that the customer did not have a fair sense of the work involved or at least did not want to admit it.

What can you do in such a case. You really have three options.

1) You reduce your bid and loose money to get the project

2) You try to convince the customer that it really is worth the price tag.

3) You let your customer test the waters out and try to find someone else (which they will as there is always someone that will give a lower price) and see if they can do the project.

In this case, we decided to go with option 3. There are several reasons to this. The main reason is that we really believe that the work we do is fairly estimated and the effort and communication is really worth the price. So, there is no reason to sell short. If the customer is too price conscious and does not care about what you bring to the table then is this even a right relationship in the long run. We don’t think so.  Besides, you almost always get what you pay for and what seems too good to be true, most often IS too good to be true. We have had several customers that have gone through the path to find someone at a lower price, and come back to us when they get stuck - to know that if you are better than others, there is no reason to budge on price.

It’s very easy to fall into price battle to gain customers. But, there is always someone with a lower price and that someone is not always you. So, should you then fight the price battle?

We believe that if you don’t believe in the the value of the products you create or sell, it’s time to go back to the drawing board.

There have been too many times when we could have just got a project by just providing a better price. But would we be happy with that in the end ? Not really. Would we then be able to provide the best possible product at the price without cutting corners? Not really. Would that have resulted in a happy customer? Not really.

The answer then becomes really simple. Not every company can fight the price battle and win in the end. But it is so simple to fall into that trap. But don’t. Provide value to your clients, and let bargain hunters find someone else. They will be better off that way and so will you.

Customers pay the bills, we all know that. It’s ever so easy in a customer focused business to say “The customer is always right” and do what customers want.

But is that the right thing to do ?

Absolutely not!

Even in a very customer focused business like web design and development, we’ve come to realize that

– Customers do not always know what they want

– Customers are looking to you as experts

We do not want to act as do-ers, we want to be experts, we want to be the people that can provide the right direction to our customers and so we always question the customers ways of thinking and provide guidance on best practices based on our experience in the business. We act as a strategic partner rather than just a design and development shop.

That results in the end in a better product and a more satisfied customer.

And this philosophy, I can guarantee you will apply to most customer-centric businesses. So, don’t be afraid to challenge your customer and provide them the right direction. In the end, they will appreciate you for it even though it may not seem like the right thing to do initially.