Thinking of doing business with my company? You should proceed with caution. I’ve made mistakes, and some of my clients have suffered because of them.
My 10-person firm sells popular business software and then provides services such as consulting, training, support, and customizations. We have more than 500 clients. Most are happy, but some are not. The unhappy ones are not to blame. Their dissatisfaction is almost always my fault. In the effort to get a sale, and sometimes long after the sale, I’ve made errors in judgment. I didn’t take the high road when I should have. I took the easy way out. I’m pretty sure that other information technology professionals have done the same. But this is about me, not them.
Am I kidding here? No. To prove it, here are a few real-life examples, with names changed, of how I messed up and failed my clients. I’ve tried to learn from these mistakes, and you should be on the lookout for warning signs such as these before you give the green light to any IT project.
1. I sold cars to unlicensed drivers.
To this day, I’m amazed by the number of people who will spend a ton of money on software for their entire business after a single demonstration. I spend more time picking out a pair of sneakers than some clients have spent evaluating a business application.
Barr Landscaping turned to my firm to put in a help-desk system so they could track service issues from the time a ticket is opened to the completion of a customer survey. After one demonstration of our product, Alan Barr, the owner, gave me a thumbs-up and said enthusiastically: “This looks great. Let’s get started!” Buying new software should require product research, multiple demos, on-site testing, reference checking, and planning. None of which…