The customer is not always right

Years ago, I was commissioned to produce an A5 leaflet for someone who ran a cleaning company. I remember at the briefing stage she stated exactly what she wanted and I also remember thinking: “There’s too much information for this to work. The design is going to be too crowded and will obscure the message. However despite my misgivings, which I made clear to her, I agreed to produce the leaflet exactly to her spec.

Needless to say the job didn’t turn out well and the leaflet looked terrible. It was too crowded with too many messages to have any real selling point or be memorable. My point is that the client didn’t understand what would make a successful leaflet, but it was easier to to just go along with her. This was completely wrong, and I didn’t end up getting paid for the job as she was not happy with the outcome. Yes I advised her, but as designers and experts we have to do more than just express concern.

I have often found working in the design and media industries that everyone has an opinion. Even if they don’t know much about design they “know what they like”.

And it is the same in marketing. Clients often hire experts only to dictate exactly what they want, so what is the point, why hire someone in the first place? It seems like they’re only looking to justify their own opinions.

In many cases the client’s suggestions will be incorrect. But what can you do, they are the client, right, they pay the bills so what they say goes right? Wrong. It is always worth  going the extra step and making sure your suggestions are taken into consideration or even dropping the project if you know that what is being proposed isn’t going to work but the client insists on doing it their way.

Obviously this is an extreme reaction and there is always room for compromise, but the point is there is not much point going along with something you know will turn out badly. As in my example the client may not be happy, even though you were just following their suggestions, and will probably blame you. And once the client realises it’s not working you could both end up losing money by implementing countless changes from a cllent who has little or no experience in what is feasible.

Ultimately it is better to trust your instinct and your experience. Be polite, but make your point to the client as a statement, not a question and give a clear explanation of why. Say, ‘this is the best way to do it because…’ or ‘this will not work because….’. The project is more likely to be successful if they decide to use your judgement and experience and hopefully after the final result the client will accept that all along you knew what you were doing.

I suppose it comes down to professional integrity. It is a big hassle to argue with a client and tell them they are wrong and much easier to just do exactly what they say. And in fact this may turn out OK in the sense that they may be happy with the outcome, even if you’re not. However, it will leave you with little pride in your work and no amount of money can make up for that.