I never understood the phrase “The Customer is always right” until I began doing web development work. The customer, or client in our case, is always right, even when they are wrong. It never occurred to me why however, until I began to build my own website and needed a designer to help me out with some of the design elements.

Designers have a way of wanting things done their way. They are artists, and like most people, tend to dislike criticism. So when a client wants to change their design, they are reluctant to do so. They may, through their own hubris, believe they are right but, in fact they are wrong. See, the designer and developer’s job is to give the client or customer what they want. It’s not the designer or developer’s site. The code, the design, it doesn’t belong to them. It belongs to the client purchasing the services of said developer/designer. And the client wants it done their way, regardless of the aesthetic appeal or business sense of it.

I figure, our job as web solutions providers is to give the clients exactly what they want but in the process, help persuade them to do things the “right” way. Whether they take our advice or not is up to them, but we are obligated to help guide them on the path to better business for themselves. See, most clients a web development company takes on are not in the business of the internet. They use the internet as a tool. It could be products or services completely unrelated to the internet and those clients are the ones we have to help persuade the most. They do not know the internet as intimately as development teams do. They do not understand what works, and what is effective. All they know is that they have an idea in their mind, and they want to make it a reality.

So we do that for them. How they want it. Now if what they want is changed along the course of the way because of good advice from us, backed up by solid facts and data, then we have done our job. Anything less than that is a failure on our part. It is imperitive that the clients a web development team take on are completely informed of the best practices for working with the great tool that is the internet.

It is our goal. Are there other web development companies out there that can do what we do? Yes. Can they do it better? Some of the probably, but, do they do it with the care and passion that we bring with the goal of not only completing the project but having the clients’ future success in mind? I doubt it. Its not important to us that we build fancy, impressive websites. What is important to us is that our clients are happy with their final product and that their business is improved from having come to us. Not only do we want to be proud of our final product, we want the clients to succeed. If we do our jobs right, they will have nowhere to go but up.