Client Compliant

If at all there was to be a movie or a documentary on do’s and don’ts of business, then the hero would have been the client without an iota of doubt. Why does this happen? Why is it so that the client is the one who makes a business or breaks it? Why does a businessman having a shrewd mind and an acute business acumen render handicapped if he doesn’t have or retain clients and bring in new ones?

Talking about the world of artificial intelligence and the concept of data warehousing, the basic study is called the client-server architecture. Your server might be the best in its class but it is a mere nothing without the client. The server is at the disposal of the client. If there is a small lag in the co-ordination, interdependency and functionality of the client and server, what is set right is the server and not the client. This means that the server should be client compliant.

An American businessman Arthur Nielsen said “Give your clients the earliest delivery consistent with quality – whatever the inconvenience to us”. The importance of clients in your business can be commensurate with the importance of tea powder in your tea. You can afford the absence of sugar and even milk, for that matter, in your tea.You can be a lawyer, an IT solutions guy, a Chartered Accountant, an architect, a mutual fund advisor, an advertising agency or even a movie director. You can have an insight of what you have to do and what you have to achieve as your goal but there is a dependency on your client as well. What really makes a client go for your work is not just your skill set but also your compliance with what they want. You might make the most creative advertisement by pulling in your best designers for a company but if it is not in compliance with the vision of the client then that is the end of the road for you as far as that client is concerned. As they say, success is a combination of perspiration and luck and in this case, your client is the factor of luck. This is because when there is a laudable service that has been offered to a client by you, there is a fair chance that your work will be appreciated and you earn a few more clients through word of mouth but in case he is unhappy with your service then negative publicity is an assured free gift.

A successful businessman doesn’t have just a handful of clients to generate a great turnover. He always is in quest for more clients whom he can service and generate dollars and a reputation. At the same time, he cuts his coat only according to his cloth. Situations wherein you have to meet more than one client with overlapping timings makes you wish for a Hermione’s watch or a time travel machine. The worst thing that you do here is say ‘no’ to one of them. Negative attitude in business is negative altitude in reputation. A typical example is when you want to buy a camera and you logon to google and search for shopping sites. You get hundred odd sites ranging from amazon.com to costco.com. You log on to one of the sites, say, abc.com and check out the user friendliness of the site, the prices they offer, the services they provide and their payment mechanism. If there is any discrepancy in that website in comparison with amazon.com, you need not worry. All you need is the best e-shop for the camera and so, without batting an eyelid you go for amazon.com. But it is the loss for the dotcom which had one of its potential customers brushing shoulders with it yet, lost him. David Ogilvy, a Scottish born British military intelligence Officer and later an advertising executive said, “I never tell one client that I cannot attend his sales convention because I have a previous engagement with another client; successful polygamy depends upon pretending to each spouse that she is the only pebble on your beach”. Ogilvy doesn’t mean that one has to put up pretence in front of the client. He means that though there isn’t much of a difference between the numbers thirteen and fourteen, fourteen is better and greater and so, no client must go unobserved or overlooked upon.

Client compliance is the numero uno rule for any given business process. The unhidden secret of a business giant is that it is client compliant. Client compliance is not about pretending that a client is precious but to actually consider him precious and make him feel at ease and imbibing confidence in him that his work is in safe and skilled hands.