25 ms·
Ask HN: What is something you do for clients that consistently blows them away?
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- justintocci 10y agoObviously anything non-trivial. Lately i've been mixing version control with various things that haven't gotten that feature yet.
- myroon5 10y agoCould you elaborate on which various things? Interested to know
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- justintocci 10y agoOne client used autocad. We re-built it in javascript/html, then added version contol and reports.
- sandebert 10y agoI'm curious, how did you handle dwg files? I understand they can be quite complex.
- JoshTriplett 10y agoNumerous libraries support parsing .dwg files. Autodesk provides a JavaScript library, though under fairly restrictive terms.
- justintocci 10y agoWe had them export to pdf, then imported them. Our system stored pdf objects for display. Since it was a migration, backwards compatibility was irrelevant.
- justintocci 10y agoAnother was version control for bom/assembly processes. They wanted a visual tool for showing the differences. Sort of like a diff tool, but all the files were shown instead of just two at a time. Also, who made the changes.
- _sammcf 10y agoAs an engineer currently migrating decades old paper records to an entry level ERP, this would be an amazing killer feature that would blow my non-engineer co-workers away. Basic version control on product data without shelling out for a massive overkill PDM/ERP/CAD integration would make me pant with hot joy.
- justintocci 10y agoERP features that always amaze: kit demand; click a button, get a colored report with charts; click a button, see who and when changes were made to a part/order/entry.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- justintocci 10y agoAnswering the phone when it rings. Not so much old clients, but new clients are consistently impressed with this. A lot of our competitors don't answer and some don't even have voice mail.
- fapi1974 10y agoI like this one. I'm a bit biased because I run a customer service business so that's a big deal for us, but even I am impressed when someone just picks up.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- fapi1974 10y agoI'll add one here from my own business, which is customer care outsourcing. The outbound call. Basically it comes with the territory when things go wrong. But when you call the customer before they realize things have gone wrong they are always, always grateful and impressed. Same thing goes for a "just checking in to see you are enjoying the service" call. Since we have agents sitting around all the time anyway this is time that can be used to call up customers and impress them.
- justintocci 10y agoYes, this is true. We have set up a ping to all our clients external ip. If they go down, we know immediately. Client never fails to be impressed.
- cyberferret 10y agoYep. we do this too. Whenever we develop a web service for a customer, we set up uptime monitoring on the server where the app is hosted, but I also set up ping uptime checks on most of their other server infrastructure as well. Just last week, I was alerted at 5am that a client's email server had gone offline. Nothing to do with us, we don't look after their emails at all, but I immediately texted their IT guy to let him know. He texted me back at 6am - their own uptime monitors somehow failed to detect the DNS issue. He managed to fix it before their staff got to work that morning, and was extremely grateful that I had given him advanced heads up on something that was totally outside the scope of what they had engaged us for.
- JshWright 10y agoPerhaps this is just a product of working at a very privacy-centric company, but I would be _super_ creeped out by that...
- cyberferret 10y agoContext: We've worked with this client for 10+ years, I know their IT team really well. They are not a super huge organisation, and we are a tiny (read: 3 man) operation too, so the reliance on each other's services is something we consider important to keep everything moving forward.
- kayman 10y agoRespond to requests right away. A lot of the time, when a client has a request, they are thinking out loud in the moment. Even if I can't pick up the phone, I'll send a short email straight away to let them know that 1. I got the message 2. Timeframe when I can action
- stefek99 10y agoI do this all the time. "Got the message" + please allow some time...
- dbg31415 10y agoThese are a few things that have gotten me praise over the years: 1) Keep emails short. I set a 200 word max on all emails. If you can't say what you need to say in 200 words, schedule a meeting to discuss. If you have to send long documents, send a 2-3 sentence summary. Tell them what you're going to tell them, tell them, tell them what you told them... in 200 words. (= 2) Keep detailed time records and make them available to the client on-demand. They paid for it, might as well show them what they are getting. Be honest... if your team wasted 4 hours trying to make sense of a BS email from the client... make sure they understand that. 3) Being on time and inclusive; inviting them to daily standup meetings with the team, and posting notes from those standup meetings in case they (or anyone else) can't be there. Easy with a Google Sheet to just type a few notes each day during standup. I don't have any tools for the team that the client can't access, or hasn't been given a rundown on how we utilize it.
- seanlinehan 10y agoLower their prices, without prompting. At Flexport we sell logistics services. The price of ocean freight is highly variable (less dynamic than, say, the stock market or airline seats, but still fluctuates a ton). We make money by brokering these services. In some cases, the price of freight drops in the time between customers when contract us (and agree to a price) and the service gets executed (when we contract with the asset owner). We pass those savings on to the customer and let them know. This usually results in big joy, all around.
- BigJono 10y agoInteresting, if the price rises do you pass that on to the customer too or do you take the hit?
- seanlinehan 10y agoDepends on the situation. Our rates have expiration dates attached to them, so if the price went up before our negotiated rate expired, we will eat it. If the rates expired, we leave it to the judgment of their account manager on what to do.
- ohstopitu 10y agojust out of curiosity - the value that your customers see...is it actual cost + your fee? (hence you can collect the fee even if the actual cost reduces?)
- seanlinehan 10y agoYeah, classic brokerage biz model. We contract in bulk with asset owners and sell piecemeal.
- richardw 10y agoNice example. What do you do when the price moves against you? Swallow the difference?
- RickS 10y agoHere's an internal facing one: We send an automated greeting from the CEO as part of onboarding, but he actually sees and replies to every customer response, in both english and spanish, and forwards the more heartwarming ones on to the entire office. It's pretty cool to get a handful of emails every day from actual customers who are very grateful for the work we do. It also changed my opinion on the "canned CEO greeting". As someone who knows how those are built, they always struck me as annoying and disingenuous sales gimmicks, but our customers are significantly less tech savvy, and a huge number take the correspondence at face value and actually start a real conversation with the CEO.
- mercer 10y agoI generally respond rather negatively to automated emails or chat messages that seem human but are not, and I've been thinking of how I would approach this if I had a company big enough that automatic greetings are 'necessary' (or desirable, at least). Perhaps one solution is to use a clearly non-human company 'avatar' character specifically for some of these interactions? A robot or pet character?
- artpop 10y agoTableau vizs
- eb0la 10y agoDATEPART("weekday",...) is my best friend here. Usually sales, etc. on mondays are similar to other mondays and so on... Maybe I am overly used to this; but customers are astonished seeing that kind of stuff...
- notlisted 10y agoTell them the truth, even if it means fewer projects/billable hours for me. Every single lead I've talked out of working with me, has referred me to another customer and/or came back weeks-years later with a bigger project that did make sense to pursue. Choice quote: are you allergic to money?
- justintocci 10y agoi would say about half of the leads i talk into trying someone else send a referral, but that isn't why i do it. Our field is so large. It's important to not get distracted. Of course, this assumes you have a plan.
- lowglow 10y agoHand written christmas cards are always a big hit.
- vcool07 10y agoI never disagree with a client. Even if I internally feel it won't work in reality, I always start my response with "That's an excellent idea you proposed, let me try if it works and get back to you". I come back after a day or two as to why the proposal won't work (if it was a bad idea to begin with) with sufficient data. Client is happy you that you considered his proposal and you've avoided a potential standoff that could've existed for the same duration !
- alltakendamned 10y agoDepending on the context in which you do this, you've also just wasted 2 days of billable time. If you know it won't work from the start, you're not providing value to your customer by fake considering it.
- JoachimS 10y agoGood counterpoint. Obvious errors you should not spend much time on. But providing some references to why is probably better than simply stating "no". And I don't think the parent comment suggested to fake work and bill for work not done. We should always be honest.
- croon 10y agoI don't think the responder suggested to fake work either, but it's still 2 days wasted and no work done.
- 10y ago
- trelliscoded 10y agoAnticipate their emergency procedures, and ship them a binder wrapped with dire warnings should it be removed from the data center. Multiple customers have said this has saved their bacon.
- tomcam 10y agoClassic E*Myth strategy. Plus I bet they feel great when it's first delivered to them as well.
- janci 10y agocould you please elaborate? What's in the binder?
- trelliscoded 10y agoEmergency procedures for administrating the network gear. There's two sections: 1) symptom->fix procedures, and 2) how to rebuild everything in the network from scratch in case it got wiped. The reason it's in hardcopy is because you can't look stuff up on the Internet if the Internet is down.
- gmarcus 10y agoMy business develops mobile apps for clients. They love when I analyze major announcements from Apple / Google and explain how the new features may apply to their apps. They feel they have a partner, and it typically results in new development for us.
- JoachimS 10y agoOne thing we did a few years ago when we found that a customer didn't use revision control was to bring in a server. A small PC with Linux, Subversion and Trac. We not only could explain the benefits of RCS, but the customer could see changes, att issues, get them resolved etc. When the job was done, the customer kept the machine. I occasionally bump into old customers and many still run the same server. All of them are today using revision control systems. So basically we didn't just provide a tech solution, but also brought in methodology and free tools to implement that methodology.
- JensRantil 10y agoDo they have a backup of it? :-)
- itsthecourier 10y agoThe client accepted a faustinian deal there! :p
- JoachimS 10y ago;-) I hope and don't think so. Demanding them to use ClearCase, that would however been pure evil.
- JoachimS 10y agoGood questions. ;-) Some do.
- jedberg 10y agoUse CloudFormation to do anything.
- tiffani 10y agoWe call them back. I run The Human Utility (formerly the Detroit Water Project) and we help folks with their water bills. When they reach us, they're used to dealing with other social service agencies that aren't very responsive and don't do something as basic as ever calling them back. We do and we find that people are grateful even for that. Edit: People are happy to hear from us regardless of whether we actually help with their bills. If we say we can't, at least they know to try elsewhere and can do so fairly quickly.
- Insanity 10y agoI have to +1 this. Whilst I have never specifically dealt with Human Utility. A couple of times when I had an inquiry or an issue, I have been offered to be called back later rather than wait and eventuall call back myself. Each time I appreciated the phone call. Something so simple, yet great for customers!
- loteck 10y agoLook at how many of the answers in this thread are simply about communicating effectively. That mirrors my experience when I was on the service provider side, and as someone who is now consuming those same services, I can confirm that I am most impressed by my providers when the communications are focused, helpful and timely.
- babayega2 10y agoI discuss wit a client about some data they collect using an Excel form. Prototype quickly under one hour a small CRUD app based on Django and set Django Import-Export [0] Get an easier Excel sheet containing data. They're gaga about that. I've won contracts just by showing them that they will get all the data in an Excel sheet. [0]: https://github.com/django-import-export/django-import-export https://github.com/django-import-export/django-import-export
- gkoberger 10y agoWhen I did freelancing, I charged a bit more than I felt I should... but went above and beyond. My hourly rate may have been high, but I spent many "non-billable hours" making sure everything worked great and any changes (their fault or mine) were accounted for. I did a few jobs where someone else controlled the billing, and kept us on a tight schedule. Every hour was billed. We were "fired" (AKA contract not renewed) every time. Yet when I went above and beyond, I had no problem getting and maintaining awesome clients. As someone on the opposite side now (hiring freelancers), I've realized the thing I value most: the freelancer gives me less work, not more. It may seem obvious, but when I was on the other side, it wasn't. When I hire freelancers now, I value one overarching quality: to make my life easier. I don't care about price or hours (within reason), I care about not having to think about it.
- haarts 10y agoI'm going to print that on a tile: "The freelancer gives me less work, not more."
- andai 10y ago"I don't care about price or hours (within reason), I care about not having to think about it." Brilliant, thank you for your comment!
- mooreds 10y agoThe best freelancers sell solutions to pain, not hours. Worth remembering.
- BobCat 10y agoI do bespoke personal support. I always solve their oddest problems. There's always a way, somehow. I'm available 24/7, for those 4am calls from Singapore. In return, they are very loyal. Sounds like I'm bragging - maybe I am.
- Zyst 10y agoMost of these seem to be very on the side of "I'm a company", so as a sole developer what I like to do for clients is implementing sockets into their apps. Adding sockets for, say, the 3 newest logs they get in real time. Or if they have anything that maps to a graph/app-overview just make sure that will always update in real time. It's not a huge time investment for me. Customers usually never request it specifically. But I've found they are blown away when they see how everything is updated in real time. It just makes the whole thing feel 'alive'. Another thing which I don't personally love, but I do because I understand industries have differences is just exporting whatever can be exported into .csv files or .xls files where applicable. All in all, I work in consulting. The code I write is meant to make the life of people easier, I want to make sure they get that when possible. A big part of why I'm able to do this is that I have a lot of creative freedom to do whatever I want so long as I'm getting stuff shipped. So huzzah for comprehensive management as well!
- majewsky 10y ago> Another thing which I don't personally love, but I do because I understand industries have differences is just exporting whatever can be exported into .csv files or .xls files where applicable. Working on an in-house application, this has been one of the most common types of requests. "Can we add this field here to the CSV export?" It's a three-minute task for me, but a huge time-saver for the manager of the team using the application and thus highly appreciated.
- gpayal 10y agoConsistent updates(mostly daily) on email with screenshots and quick short screencasts. A lot of times a particular feature takes more than a day to complete and be pushed to some server for client to actually see what it looks like. But if I create in progress screenshots and videos from my dev machine it always impresses my clients.
- tomcam 10y agoThat's brilliant and super easy. I hope a lot of people read your post.
- gpayal 10y agothank you :)
- stefek99 10y agoYeah, always taking screenshots + Screenflow (on Mac) or Camtasia / SnagIt (on Windows)
- gpayal 10y agoTrue that! Clients feel lot involved in the whole process of development this way.
- edoceo 10y agoSimpleScreenRecorder on Linux
- j_s 10y agoAppreciate the recommendations. For Windows I recommend ShareX: https://github.com/ShareX/ShareX https://github.com/ShareX/ShareX Tools like these also make it easy to create documentation that is a step-by-step walkthrough of each process. There is also an entire class of tools designed to screenshot automatically to track work: http://alternativeto.net/software/timesnapper/ http://alternativeto.net/software/timesnapper/
- the_arun 10y agoBuild better products and gracefully handle every scenario. I was always blown away by the attention to details Apple gives to its products compared to others. For eg. Just a video on stress testing water proof behavior of Apple watch
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- cdevs 10y agoFix bugs in under 2 hours ...sometimes
- elorant 10y agoBuild much better UIs than my competition. It's a known issue, we developers rarely take the time to bother with UI and it's a shame because it makes all the difference in the world, especially in web apps. Clients can't tell technical superiority, they can only judge from what they see and if your UI is stellar you'll make selling a lot easier. And you know, judging from the fact that so many of us are afraid of the sales side this could be a lifesaver. Build better UIs to counteract the fact that you suck at sales.
- omarchowdhury 10y agoPortfolio, please.
- elorant 10y agoMost of my projects are subscription based SaaS web apps specifically aimed for a local (non-US) market. Showing them wouldn’t do you any good because you’d need an account to view the service and it would attract unwanted attention. Contrary to the prevailing HN mentality, I prefer to fly under the radar.
- ARCarr 10y agoI think he just wants to see screenshots...
- omarchowdhury 10y agoIf that's all I wanted I can go to Dribbble or Behance. Was genuinely curious...
- tonyedgecombe 10y agoListen.
- angrymouse 10y agoI work in a large health organisation right now and the thing that seems to blow most away is just saying yes. I don't work in the IT department and they basically say no to everything. Regardless of business value or difficulty. I work in the chief executive office and numerous departments will be amazed when I say yes... Let me look into that. Recent example was a publicly facing, real-time waiting time tracker for the city's A&E (as well as two walk in centres). Each solution I thought of had compromises but they chose the one they could live with.
- orly_bookz 10y agoHealthcare IT is one of the most backwards areas of IT to work in, I think, in large part because of the legal red tape around everything clinical. So you get a lot of people that say no automatically. Additionally, I think you get a lot of people that don't really have an "IT mindset." I don't know about where you work but in my neck of the woods we have so many people in programmer positions that can't even write a three line script. They're great at clinical stuff because they came from there (e.g. nursing) but have no technical background...
- michaelt 10y agoI have a different theory: For many IT applications you can tell users to conform to the system's needs or take a hike. With healthcare (and some other government type services) you don't get that option. If I'm Amazon and you don't have a computer? Sorry, come back when you do. No e-mail address? Sorry, come back when you have one. No credit/debit card? Sorry, come back when you have one. Don't know your postal address? Sorry, come back when you know it. No phone that can get SMSes? Sorry, come back when you've got one. Don't speak any of the languages we use? Sorry, come back when you do. Unable to pass a captcha? Sorry, come back when you can. Bad at reading and can't navigate our site? Sorry, come back when you can. Blind and your screen reader doesn't work with our site? Sorry, come back when you have a different one. Child that doesn't know their own name? Sorry, come back with a grown-up. No address because you're homeless? Sorry, come back when you've got an address. Companies that can decline service for such people can make many simplifying, cost-saving assumptions in their IT systems. If you can't decline service (Hospital, voting etc) you need to deal with such corner cases - and combinations of several. I can understand how getting that right would raise costs substantially.
- stunthamsterio 10y agoI spend a lot of time picking up existing and 'legacy' platforms, and it consistently seems to impress my clients when I'm able to implement automation, even on so called 'un-automatable' platforms. I also think it's the ability to understand that the business and the technical elements may not always work in lockstep, and being able to translate the needs of one to the other.
- v4n4d1s 10y agoWe clean devices, such as notebooks and keyboards, before returning them to our internal customers/users.
- orly_bookz 10y agoThat's a very nice service but I'm not sure I'd like to do it. When I did support for a university we very specifically could turn down items (mostly laptops) that were too grody to work on. Most of the techs used their own keyboards and mice regardless but still... some people are pretty abusive to their hardware (gunk, stains, very clear food spills, etc). Though I guess the SOP wasn't to say "ew get that out of here" but rather "here's some wet wipes can you please wipe it down we make everyone do this" which wasn't even remotely true.
- julienmarie 10y agoSomething we were doing when I had a web design agency was to have awesomely beautiful and detaild proposals where we summed up the context, constraints and goals of the project. We considered them as our first deliverable and spent time creating beautiful indesign templates. It allowed us to stand out from the start. Another thing is while our competitors were usually not showing anything yet at this bidding stage, we were already delivering some high def mockups, sometimes within the weekend. Last thing, we didn't have any sales people. Meetings with leads and customers were directly being handled by tech leads and lead designers, who were not there to sell, but to advise and find solutions with the client, explaining and integrating the client within the process from the start. All in all, we won all the biddings at the time despite being usually 30% more expensive. Something we were doing also is to include free perks that didn't cost us anything and was making a lot of difference for them ( free access to our email marketing platform, server monitoring, etc... ).
- zielperson 10y agoThis is so important. We had this experience (as a client) when we went around to find a venue for our wedding (100 people). The restaurant that got the bid wrote us a personalized letter, included information on the town and hotels that would be available for guests nearby, etc etc.. The rest just sent short notes. As a leader in an IT department, I asked for proposals for a 40K software review. All of them responded with no-brainer copypaste letters. All but ONE, who took their time to make a good, detailed offer. They called me, we met for an hour with their experts, THEN they made a thoroughly thought out offer. Guess who got the job?
- NicoJuicy 10y agoI have created an app and site where they can see when I arrive. I have a big success rate in winning bids. I'm not a sales man, I can help them and a proposal is discussed immediately and i just start
- BjoernKW 10y agoSpeaking as an independent IT consultant: Listening and trying to truly understand the problems they have (at least I try to do that as much as possible). Then solving those problems in perhaps unexpected ways. It might sound a bit trite but from my experience business software development often tends to get stuck in a rut and less than optimal or even harmful practices are perpetuated because "it's always been done this way". Cargo cult is an eminent problem in business IT processes that goes unchallenged far too often. Effective knowledge transfer is another aspect. Not just coding up a solution but teaching others how to solve specific problems by themselves is highly valuable.
- sgt 10y agoOur clients tend to be blown away by map widgets. If we showcase an application and then bring up the embedded Google Maps view, e.g. with different kinds of overlays, most clients are completely blown away.
- barbolo 10y agoI'm partner of a B2B business. We send cards and/or gifts on Christmas for every client. I and my partner write all the cards. We always thank the client for being with us another year and we ensure them we will do everything possible for the next year to be even better. We haven't lost a client in the past two years. We have about 30.
- cperciva 10y agoIf there's a Tarsnap outage because I screwed something up, I give Tarsnap users a credit to their accounts... without waiting for them to complain. Apparently this is unusual. I can't imagine doing it any other way; I mean, who wants to deal with thousands of emails from customers who are owed account credits?
- JusticeJuice 10y agoI don't use tarsnap, but I always thought it was a fantastically designed product.
- bartoszhernas 10y agoIt is wonderfull product, I love simplicity of it. One question though, why don't you allow me to set up recurring billing? Eg. if credits go below 10€, charge 10€.
- db48x 10y agoStoring credit card numbers is annoying (unless you don't care to do it right, but it's pretty clear he does care). On the other hand, there are payment processors that will handle that sort of thing for you, for a fee.
- bpicolo 10y agoTypically you're going to be storing tokens from e.g. Stripe these days, and not raw cards. Major card carriers provide the same service too. Still worth doing well and securely, but much less risky
- wolfgang42 10y agoI got an email last week that I had only $ 0.115755044102126754 left in my account. The last time I paid was $10.00 in June 2015. I'm guessing that I'm fairly representative of most of Tarsnap's customers; for $10 charges once every year and a half recurring billing seems a bit silly.
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 10y ago
- cyberferret 10y ago1. Deliver just a little more than they expect. Most times when we write a web app for enterprise customers, we try and give them a little bit of extra functionality than they ask for. One example is the user profile settings for their sign on to our web apps - most customers are only bothered with having a username and password, but we often incorporate things like ability to choose avatar images or upload their own images against their profile. We did this on one education site we developed, and also gave them the ability to choose from about a dozen 'stock' cartoon style avatars if they didn't want to upload their own images. The users were impressed at the handover training session we ran, but I overhead one guy (who was indigenous Australian aboriginal descent) jokingly remark that the stock avatars didn't have a person of indigenous culture represented. I took note of that, and when I returned to the office, we added a handful of indigenous avatars as well within the hour. Client was happy that we went the extra mile to take their offhand comment seriously and deliver on it. 2. Saying 'No' to 'easy money' projects. We've worked with some of our clients for over 20 years now. Mainly because often when they come to us to add on features to their custom written apps, we often say 'No', along with some valid data to explain why we thing the $$$ sunk into the added feature are of very little benefit. This has lead to them trusting us a LOT more when we go the other way. Real world case study - we had one client, whom we developed a short term loan application for, ask us to add a Monday morning report with customer mobile numbers so they could do a ring around check for customers who were about to default on their loans. I said 'Sure, but lets go one better'. I said that along with the report, it wouldn't take much extra work to actually have the system send out an SMS message to all those clients as well, with details on their upcoming defaults, and what they needed to do to fix the issue. They were delighted and said to go for it. Well, that was two years ago, and it turns out that the SMS messages by themselves have reduced their default rate by an incredible amount, and they are FAR more profitable as a result. Hmm, maybe I should have asked for a percentage of profit increase as my payment! :)
- rdpowers 10y agoI do hardware engineering work for hire and one of the things that always works is having some documentation ready at the first formal meeting. Specifically, I have a skeleton requirements document that I put together from our previous correspondence (there's always a phone call, few emails, etc.) trying to flesh out their project needs. It doesn't matter if this is incomplete, inaccurate, or any other in-word. It shows that I'm a professional who has tried to understand the problem, the business case, possible solutions, will approach it methodically and like a real engineer, and that I know what I'm doing. Those 10-15, printed, very real, pages, mostly just ?-marks, have written me more contracts than I can count. It takes about 1-2 hours of work to write things up, but I've never - not once -, had a potential client fail to notice and be impressed when I show up and have a presentable document already underway.
- jenkstom 10y agoThis is generally the way to win contracts, grants and impress people. Going over their requirements carefully, whether written or verbal, and gearing your proposal directly to what they say always impresses. That's why changing project managers at the beginning of or before a contract starts is a big problem.
- ChrisGammell 10y agoSo important to have requirements set up for the less "agile" world of hardware, but really like the idea of having a framework set to go. Have worked with a few contract agencies at past co's and that would have impressed the hell out of me. This is always as a solo? Or as a small engineering firm?
- lb1lf 10y agoWhenever I find myself at my desk not knowing what to fill the next few minutes with, I tend to call a more or less random customer - the ones who USE our products, not the ones who procure them - and ask them what they think suck about our current offerings. Most educational, and it has resulted in a number of improvements to our product line (subsea handling equipment - used for deployment and maintenance of subsea wellheads, submarine communication&power cables, &c, &c.) They all expect you to ask what feature they like best; they're always baffled when you rather ask where we've screwed up - and more than happy to help! :) This is very cheap and effective market research.
- orly_bookz 10y agoI used to work with this programmer who would get free beta testers by doing this. Set up a meeting with endusers in one of our training labs and tell them they can complain about whatever they want. Then walk them through a 15-minute set of steps for whatever change we're going to roll out. Not only do you get great feedback on the product as a whole, they'll inevitably find ways to break your new thing within five minutes. Literally a few hours of two analysts' time and you might avoid dozens if not hundreds of man hours spent fixing things. It was beautiful. And just like you said... the customers are amazed that you want them to complain. They love it.
- stult 10y agoIn my business line, we have two kinds of users: the competent ones who have useful complaints but never seem to break anything and the incompetent ones who break everything and have no useful complaints. I try to get a mix when I want feedback on an upgrade or new tool or for more formal UAT. The former group shows me flaws in the data model and UI, the latter shows me the flaws in the business model.
- mabbo 10y agoI used to write software tools used by Amazon associates inside the warehouses (fulfillment centers). I loved meeting the users and asking them 'what sucks about this?'. A few would be too freaked out by some manager-looking-type asking them any questions. Some would say the usual stuff that we knew but couldn't help. Some would point out a few small annoyances that we would try to improve. Rarely, one would tell you things that blew your mind, like holy shit why didn't we think of that? I kept going back to try to repeat that experience.
- pknerd 10y agoI am a developer and usually writes web scrapers or automation tools most of the time beside typical web development. A couple of things I did and worked for me. - I offer them more than what they expect. At times scraping additional info which I think is useful but they did not realize I extract that too. Sometimes they ask for the script or data, one of them and I just offer them both and they appreciate it lot. Though that script is not helpful for them and they eventually come to me but it's just increase their trust. - It sounds silly and dangerous but often I don't ask advanced payment from clients and prefer to show off some skills, mostly it was quite helpful and they worked me on other projects as well.
- rgzn 10y agoHow did you get into doing scraping contracts? I often write web automation scripts and scrapers for gathering research data, but have never figured out a way to get contact work.
- neals 10y agoMy rates! Seriously. That's how high they are and that's where I want them. But because I pick up the phone when they call and I seem trustworthy, they pay it. Also, I take my work very seriously, and they get what they pay for. Contrary to what I read here, I put me first, my company second and the client third. I think that in consulting, this is the only way to stay sane and deliver on time and to spec.
- chrisbennet 10y agoI don't know if these things "blow them away" but I do think they are differentiators: - I bring homemade cookies to our first meeting and if the client likes them, to subsequent meetings. The first time I did this for purely selfish reasons; I like cookies but I'll eat the whole batch myself unless I get someone else to "take a cholesterol bullet" for me. - I'm extremely honest and forthcoming. I tell them that it may sound like I'm trying to talk them out of hiring me but what I'm actually trying to do is make sure we're a really good fit. I tell them even the non-flattering data about my capablities or lack thereof i.e. I've told more then one potential client "I can spell 'SQL'" when they tell me they'd like to incorporate a data base in the product they want me to make. (But my wife is an expert and she'll help me out.) I tell them my estimates are usually off by a factor of 4X. You know what is worse than not getting a contract? Getting a contract where you can't make the client happy. - I tell them that they can probably do the job without me - and I mean it. "Here's how I would do this. ... That part might be tricky, I can't remember off the top of my head but I'll look it up and send you some links on this.. Buy me lunch and you can pick my brains." - Communicate even when there is no news or it's bad news. "I still haven't received your hardware but I wanted to call so you'd know before you left for the weekend. I'll call the vendor on Monday."
- SXX 10y agoLooks like a good strategy to find the job you're going to enjoy, but is it working well for you in the long run? Or you just have enough savings at bank to not rush until you find a good position? Since I wish to find some non-freelance job in future, but requirement of bullshit talk scares me. And few times when I attempted to act similar to what you posted I just bumped into a wall of misunderstanding.
- lotyrin 10y agoI find honesty gets misunderstood pretty often, like I must still have some angle but they just can't figure out what it is.
- chrisbennet 10y agoI'm hard wired for the "honesty thing" but started going out of my way a few years ago after a bad experience. I interviewed with a company for a contract and I had told them I only had 5 days of experience in technology X. They hired me and then let me go after a week because they needed a true expert to fix something in time to ship. I said them "I told you I only had 5 days experience with technology X, why did you hire me when you needed an expert??!" The manager responded "We just liked you so much!" After that experience, I would tell them [interviewers] right at the beginning of the interview that I was going to try my best to "open my mind and let them peek inside" and give them any data they might need to reject me. I'd tell them, "It's going to sound like I'm trying to talk you out of hiring me but I'm really just trying to make sure we're a good fit." Somewhere in there I'd tell them the above story so they'd know why I was taking such an unorthodox approach (and offer them another cookie). I'm a freelancer with multiple clients now. I have too much work so I guess I have the luxury of not taking jobs that aren't a good fit. That said, being so confident that you can be radically honest with a potential client or interviewer, also signals competency. A desperate person doesn't behave that way.
- erkkie 10y agoReply to their emails in an timely manner.
- simonswords82 10y agoWe're not setting the bar here very high are we?
- jordanwallwork 10y agoIt's a little thing, but it's surprising how many people don't - if you've got a lot of work on and a someone's emailing you about something that isn't a priority at the time it's far too easy not to bother replying immediately. It's much better for your client if you just take 20 seconds to shoot back an email to manage their expectations explaining that you've seen the email and you'll aim to take a look and get them a response in the next x days/hours/etc
- jenkstom 10y agoSadly that bar is rarely met. One vendor answers support emails within 24 hours... usually closer to 24 hours. That's a problem when one of our contractors is waiting. If our contractor walks it's $10K to replace him or her.
- MWil 10y agoOrganizing their 4,000 pg VA claims files that are essentially their last 30 years of private and VA health records (usually already organized by facility though), military service, military medical, and the VA claims process The longer a claims file, the more I get excited because the chance of a VA error is already very high - in a 4,000 pg file I can guarantee at least one big one
- fecak 10y agoShow them how to do it themselves, and teach them "why" I do things the way I do them. I write resumes for clients and do them in Google Docs, and I invite the client into the doc from the very start. They can actually watch (in real-time, if so inclined) the work being done at all stages in the process. Lots of them will ask why a certain decision was made that seemed unusual, and sometimes the dialogue gets into some rather detailed nuances of how readers interpret bits of information and how it's delivered. I came to resume writing after ~20 years in recruiting, so I am able to provide insight into what the audience for their resume is thinking. Clients say they like the collaborative approach and appreciate that they learn things that they can apply next time (and not have to pay for the service again).
- DrNuke 10y agoAs a consultant and advisor, I add value in the sense that I move my clients forward very fast, whatever they need at the stage they are. Need strategy? We devise a plan together. Need sales? We make calls together. Need r&d? I have a network to rely upon. Need introductions? We have a look at the sector and agree the approach. Need a deliverable? We have a look at capabilities and try the shortest path to put out something for sale. Need services? We test the market together. Blowing away = moving forward efficiently, safely and as soon as possible. That said, the ultimate problem everywhere is sales, so just help clients sell their sh*t and they will be happy, very happy, very very happy.
- technotarek 10y agoUsing web dev tools / inspector during a screen cast demo, either to modify a style or to show a site/app's responsive behavior. Simple, I know, but it comes off as some form of wizardry to many clients.
- bshimmin 10y agoI think you want to be careful with that - you don't want to make the magic that we do look too easy. "Can you just quickly change all the fonts on our massive, complex site to Comic Sans? I saw you do it in the demo the other day and it looked like a two second job..."
- hoschicz 10y agoThen just explain to them, why it won't be so easy. "Comic Sans is licensed by Microsoft and can't be used on the web" "When we build websites, we first write it in another language and then pass it through a program that translates it so that browsers understand it. Adding Comic Sans would require us to make changes deep in the 'translator' program that is supplied by a third party." "Comic Sans is cancer, see these links. Designers all over the world hate it. If I had a site with Comic Sans on it in my resume, I would seem very unprofessional to a lot of potential clients." I usually explain them the problem I'm facing in non-technical terms. Of course, and I bill my time spent doing this.
- hoschicz 10y agoAd quote 2: When I showcased it to you, I edited the code for browsers directly.
- johngalt 10y agoGeneric company sysadmin. I have a rotating list of power user tips. I'll pick one to show someone during a trouble call (provided no one is in a huge hurry). It has to be something cool that I can demonstrate/teach in seconds. Examples: Snipping tool. Rather than writing down error codes. Windows key + start typing the program name. Rather than navigating the start menu. Piles of excel tricks. (everyone loves excel) The big thing is knowing your audience. People enjoy participating in something, not just being shown things they can never accomplish. If you make it something they can't understand it will just make them feel stupid or frustrated.
- kisna72 10y agoI'd love to learn more excel tricks. Any resource you'd recommend?
- pmx 10y agoI found this [1] video to be a great watch. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nbkaYsR94c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nbkaYsR94c
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- trevorcreech 10y agoJoel Spolsky has a surprisingly entertaining video about excel features: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0nbkaYsR94c https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0nbkaYsR94c
- johngalt 10y agoSorry most of it is off the cuff. I always localize it to who they are and what they are working on in that instance. Since my audience is non technical, almost no one decides to just buckle down and 'learn excel'. Commonly this means demonstrating filters and if statements. Pivot tables for the more advanced users.
- rubyfan 10y agoConsistently deliver things quickly and for less effort than competitors.
- bookofjoe 10y agoWake them up from their general anesthetic. Never fails.
- nunez 10y agoOvercommunicate. Even when things are going wrong.
- timdeneau 10y ago*especially when something goes wrong
- petegrif 10y agoSounds vulgar.
- JoeAltmaier 10y agoFinish on time and under budget
- logicallee 10y agoall that tells me is that you're not charging enough and you're working too hard. (KIDDING! KIDDING!!! ... or am I?)
- JoeAltmaier 10y agoOh no I'm not working too hard, that's for sure. I'm half retired by now. And getting it done early - means they're very happy and send more work my way. I have more work than I can do.
- dfederschmidt 10y agoInstalling Adobe Reader. I'll see myself out.
- babo 10y agoListen to them. As a consultant this is the key, understand the customer first to provide them unique, tailed answers.
- johanneskanybal 10y agoShow that you care and build trust. If you are looking for hacks then knowing everyones names before an important meeting is efficient.
- moflome 10y agoMobile app development - releasing a binary download (MVP) in a few days which delivers the bulk of the clients required functionality. Somehow, at least for (native?) mobile, the spec to implementation transformation still seems magical to many of our clients. I personally think it's the rapid turn around. It seems there's an expectation still that the development will take longer and thus the reaction?
- Humdeee 10y agoI do this as well. Simple, rudimentary prototypes can be made in relatively no time flat. And it's never really that ugly anyway.
- Caerus 10y agoDocumentation. I'm a sort of internal consultant in my company who often interfaces with external customers. I've repeatedly heard that no one else provides as thorough yet easily understood documentation. They value the results, but value truly understanding them and being able to follow how I got them almost as much.
- chrissnell 10y agoMy answer here is more relevant to an e-commerce company but the basic idea can be adapted to any company. So, back in 1994, my dad and me started an ecommerce company (bikeworld.com) that sold bicycle parts online. It was an extension of his brick-and-mortar bicycle business and I took a couple of years leave from college to help him build it. He did one thing early on that generated amazing word-of-mouth support: send a little treat in every order box. Our company was based in San Antonio, TX and Dad decided to include a little local flavor with each order to make us stand out from the few competitors we had back then (incumbent mail order outfits). At every good Mexican restaurant back home, they sell Mexican chewy candies at the cash register when you pay after your meal. My dad and I loved these things so he went to the manufacturer in town and bought a few cases of them. They were really expensive, like $0.50 each, and it became a big expense but the customers went nuts. Dad printed up a little card that he put in the bag with the candy, explaining the tradition and thanking them for their business. It worked well--we quickly became one of the largest online bicycle stores of the late 90s.
- abakker 10y agoSweetwater sound still includes a handful of smarties, and other similar basic candies with every order. I always enjoyed this, even when I didn't want to eat all the candies. Its just fun.
- Cerium 10y agoThanks for the story. Advanced Circuits (aka 4pcb.com) includes a package of microwave popcorn with every prototype order—since they know you will be up all night when the package arrives.
- thearn4 10y agoHa, I should have read down a few comments, I didn't even see yours!
- fraserharris 10y agoThey used to (maybe still do) have a pizza & pop special for students. It was something like $199 to print 4 copies of your PCB and you get a large pizza and 2L of pop from Domino's Pizza. I got it as an engineering student in Canada, and was disappointed to learn upon delivery that the coupon could only be used in the USA. I had to wait to use it til my next climbing road trip to Red Rock Canyon.
- gk1 10y agoCall them out when they're wasting money on marketing. This has been in my "blog post drafts" folder for a while, but the short version is: One of the first things I do on new projects (I'm a customer acquisition consultant) is review the running campaigns and their results from the past few months. Not clicks—which is what all the dashboards show you—but actual results like signups and new customers. Almost always I find money being drained away. There was the time when a company targeting Python developers was losing its AdWords budget on snake enthusiasts. Another time a mobile analytics company was spending thousands on people searching for free apps. In another case a company whose ads went to a 404 page and nobody realized. Also recently I found that an SEO agency was falsifying results to one of my clients (the contract was quickly terminated). I don't know if "blown away" is the correct phrase. It's more like a brief moment of embarrassment followed a huge sense of relief that a budget leak was found and plugged. PS - The companies described here have successful products made by brilliant people. This is more a symptom of hiring the marketers who don't have the skill (or intention) to demonstrate the results of their efforts.
- franze 10y agoI get marketing, developers, content-people, biz-dev, product, higher management, middle-management ... in one room ... and after 2 days we produce a prioritized roadmap on how to move the company forward. Plus: No dead bodies, they actually liked beeing there. Most of the time they can't believe it either. It's fun.
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 10y agoThat sounds awful. How do you avoid dead bodies?
- franze 10y agoestablish a framework of thinking that is outside of their usual modus operandi / way of thinking. so they are all fish out of the water .... together.
- ryanmarsh 10y agoBuild a rudimentary CI pipeline that automatically runs some kind of test. Don't roll your eyes. You might live in a JS filter bubble but there are a lot of impoverished developers working in software engineering ghettos.
- flarg 10y agoRequirements analysis in UML blows a lot of my clients away, it lets them see the world in a different way for the first time. I don't think I'm great at it, shows how rarely this is really done for large institutional customers.
- johnnycarcin 10y agoI am in a pre-sales position so I am already typically on the clients shit list. Unlike most of my counterparts, I have lived in the world of ops and development and know how fun it is to get a call at 3am when something is down. I use my past experiences to explain to the customer why I would do things a certain way or why I think something might not be a good fit. I listen to what the customer has to say (something many in my field seem to not understand) and try to come up with something that fits well for THEM, not for my bank account. I have had multiple people from various companies I have worked with tell me that they really appreciated my honesty and I typically get great customer satisfaction reviews, even if the project doesn't go that well. To me it really is as simple as don't be a dick.
- djmill 10y agoOnsite engineers for UAT and rapid bug fix turnaround. Most bugs reported from customers, during UAT, are fixed by the next morning for another round of testing. This is not always the case, but for most issues, we turn them around in less than 12 hours and the customer is blown away. This happens ~4 times/year for major releases.
- jdmichal 10y agoUsed to do the same for customer deliveries. At the beginning, it was embarrassing to even have issues come up at all. But then we realized that there was no way we were ever going to completely duplicate their environment, and something would always come up. We'd have to resolved by the next day, if not the same day. That's when you learn that customers don't care that there are problems; they care that there are solutions and that you are there to provide them.
- u42p37yYYRjvhD 10y agocare
- eli 10y agoWhen they send us an email, even a reply to a mass email, a real person reads every message and follows up. Simply thing, but people are routinely surprised.
- thiyag 10y agoThe funniest thing I got in a package was a pair of earplugs that Moog Music included in their Minitaur bass synthesizer's box.. I found it hilarious
- caseysoftware 10y agoAt my last company, when someone sent a solid bug report, made a good pull request to our docs, or asked for swag, I'd send them some gear with a handwritten note and my card. People went crazy about the handwritten note and got thank you notes for the note! I think it was so different that it was a cool surprise.
- reubenswartz 10y agoI wouldn't say "blows them away", but apparently, customer service is generally bad enough that these things often provoke a pleasantly surprised reaction: 1. Make it clear that solving their problem is paramount. Not your policies, not getting off the phone ASAP. Sometimes it's something you can help them with directly with your product, sometimes you can't, but just treating them like a person you want to help instead of someone to hang up on is apparently unusual. (This is also a good fit for a lot of the techie folks on HN.) 2. Send a handwritten note. My handwriting is terrible, practically illegible, but people like that I took the time to write to them with pen & paper. Ironically, I didn't do this for a long time, because I thought it would look cheesy, but I gave it a shot and realized I like the little bit of gratitude it brings into my day-- that's really why I do it.
- samrocksc 10y agoWE DOCUMENT OUR API'S
- GordonS 10y agoNot all in caps, surely?
- rgbrgb 10y agoOn our real estate listing / brokerage site, we have a "GET MORE INFO" button on every property. When a user hits that they'll get an automated response with a title report, but then our agents will follow up the same day with a short note about the property and any additional info we can find. The human follow up tends to be a magic moment and if our agents are able to provide some juicy info, the customer usually sticks with us for their purchase.
- mattbgates 10y agoI am the web developer/web designer that usually picks up where other web designers left off or "disappeared". They usually leave without a trace or they leave their client with a broken website. I also take them from being charged a fortune down to being charged a much fairer price. I know I could probably continue to charge them a fortune, but I just don't do that to people. I tend to go after people who are on a "shoe string" budget. I mean.. I charge them enough that I'm being paid for my time, but I am willing to work with their budgets. I also offer something that I find most web people don't: I offer them good customer service. I answer my emails within 24 hours and I pick up my phone usually when they call or I get back to them asap. I try to give them a reasonable price and I expect payment upon delivery of my invoice. I have just a few clients, but I've never had issues. And most of the time that is what my clients have confirmed that I have offered that no one else offers: customer service. It's just being extremely supportive. They want to know that someone is there when there is a problem. There is nothing worse than the feeling of running a business.. and knowing that you are screwed or worse -- you have to pay someone you don't know a fortune in an emergency situation.
- ankurdhama 10y agoAsk them the questions (about the project/problem) that they never asked themselves.
- lon124 10y agoWhat a great question. I find it's always the little things that do the trick! Here are my top 2: I have a simple motto: I aim to save my clients money. This can work in lots of different ways, shaving a day off development here or there, coming up with cheaper solutions, even outsourcing little tasks to UpWork or automating them via an existing web service. #2: At the end of each week, I like to send a quick summary email. I got that tip from another freelancer. Even though clients have access to online project management, it gives them additional reassurance and they go into the weekend with a sense that you're doing good work on their behalf.
- williamwrites 10y agoNot a developer but love technology: I began my organization skills by deconstructing simple BASIC games when BASIC was around as a pre-teen. Now, I'm hired to organize physical and electronic records, establish filing systems, workflows, and make physical records match the electronic records. Create presentations that gather audiences' attention while not taking over from the speaker. Desire to break into business analysis and have performed the work but not enough to make it official. Past life created billing reports and client bills for a law firm. That took their THREE day billing process to less than one day on a sneakernet Access DBMS I designed. Have also created feasible project and organizational budgets for humanitarian nonprofits. Created an ad-hoc computer class for uneducated adults. Was told, "I've learned more with you in 15 minutes than a whole week at the community college." I purchased those computers for $4.00.