It was 2005. My wife and I had just moved into our first home, and we were eager to paint our bedroom. At that time, yellow was the “trendy” color and sounded like a great color for the room.
So we went to the paint store and selected a pale yellow.
Then we started painting.
Sure, the paint looked a little bright when we first pried off the lid, but that’s to be expected, right? Just needed a little mixing. I gave it a couple swirls with the paint stick, ran the roller through it, and applied the first stroke.
I looked at the line I’d just smeared on the wall. Then at my wife. We both looked back at the wall.
“It’ll probably dry lighter,” I said with confidence I didn’t feel.
Four walls later, we set down the roller and looked around at what can only be described as the scene of Big Bird’s murder. All that was missing were the feathers and yellow caution tape (which would have blended right in).
We’d gotten exactly what we asked for.
The problem: It wasn’t what we actually wanted.
The Customer Is (Sometimes) Right
I understand the sentiment: Listen to your customers. Treat them well. Don’t argue with the person paying the bill. But I think somewhere along the way, good customer service got confused with simply doing whatever the customer asks. And as a customer, that’s not what I want.
When I hire someone, it’s because they have expertise I don’t have. I don’t want an order-taker; I want a partner.
If I tell my accountant I’ve come up with a brilliant new way to save money on my taxes, I hope he doesn’t just say, “Sounds great, Chris.” I want him to tell me why my brilliant idea might end with a letter from the IRS.
The same goes for any good vendor relationship. I’ve had plenty of situations where I’ve asked a vendor to do something and heard, “We can do that, but can I recommend an alternative?”
I appreciate that. In fact, it builds trust: It tells me they’re not just thinking about how to complete the task I handed them. They’re thinking about what I’m actually trying to accomplish.
It’s a subtle, but important, distinction: The customer may know the outcome they want. But the whole reason they hired an expert is because they might not know the best way to get there.
And if you, as a vendor or service provider, know a better way, it’s your job to say so.
There’s a Right Way to Be Right
Of course, nobody wants to hire someone who responds to every idea with, “Well, actually …”
Pushback only builds trust when it comes from a place of genuine service, not from a place of arrogance or performance. Remember your ultimate goal: to help the customer.
That means listening closely enough to understand what the customer is actually trying to accomplish before you start telling them why you’d do it differently. It means explaining your thinking rather than handing down a verdict. And sometimes it means saying, “We can absolutely do it your way. But based on what we’ve seen, here’s what I’d recommend and why.”
Then the customer gets to decide.
They may take your recommendation; they may not. Either way, you’ve given them something more valuable than unquestioning acquiescence: your expertise.
That’s what I want from the people I work with. And it’s what we give our clients at VitalWay.
A Better Shade of Customer Service
After the Big Bird bloodbath, my wife and I returned to the paint store and told the associate what had happened.
He nodded knowingly — this clearly was not his first time doing damage control in shades of yellow — and suggested mixing the rest of the yellow paint with five gallons of white.
We went home, mixed the paint, and tried again. It was exactly what we’d wanted in the first place.
I couldn’t help but think of the time, money, and frustration that could’ve been saved if the first associate had asked what we were painting and said, “Just so you know, many customers find that this shade dries a bit brighter than expected. Can I recommend something lighter?”
We probably would have listened. But even if we hadn’t, I would have appreciated the advice.
To be clear, I don’t blame the associate. We picked the color. We bought the paint. And we were the ones who saw that first streak of radioactive yellow, shrugged, and proceeded to cover four entire walls with it. That’s on us.
But that’s also what expertise is for.
Sometimes the best way to serve your customer is to give them exactly what they ask for. Other times, it’s to understand what they’re really trying to do and have the confidence to kindly say, “I think there might be a better way.”
The customer still gets to make the call. But a good partner makes sure they’re making it with the benefit of everything you know.
Because sometimes the customer is right.
And sometimes they’re about to paint their entire bedroom Big Bird yellow.