Business Identity

[orion_joel]

Hi All,

Got a quick question that maybe someone may be able to answer for me.

Do you find that you end up with customers trying to control the conversation, which in turn leads you to feel like your business is losing some degree of it's identity?

I have a little idea on where it is leading, however would be interested in some unbiased opinions.

Regards

[vangogh]

The truth is your customers do control the conversation. You can help shape it, but ultimately it's them in control of what's being said.

Are you asking because others are talking about your business in a way you don't prefer? Or is this more specific like one customer trying to negotiate a price and setting the boundaries?

We actually do have a lot of control over what's said about us. And that happens by being who you say you are. If you claim to be the lowest price in town then you need to be the lowest priced in town. If you claim to have great customer service then you better deliver great customer service.

Why I say the customer controls the conversation it's because what they say about you is going to carry more weight than what you say about yourself. It's also because they'll see through any lies you tell. What they say about you is going to be based on your actions. It'll be based on what you do and not what you say. I think too many businesses think they can tell us something about themselves and it's how we're going to see them.

Stop telling me my call is important to you. Just pick up the phone and answer the call. You can tell me 1,000 times while I'm on hold that you think my call is important. I'll only believe it when you hire enough people to actually answer the phone in a timely fashion. If you leave me on hold more than a few minutes it's obvious you don't care about my call and that's the conversation I'll be having with others.

If you want to keep your identity then you have to live up to it. You have to be consistent with everything you do and you can't make false claims. Be honest about who you are and keep showing people that you are what you say you are. If you do that then won't lose your identity.

[Harold Mansfield]

It depends on their demeanor. There are some people out there that know what they want, how they want it, and want to know if you can do it, and they will pay your fee without hassle. I love people like that because there is no BS.

Some others want to control everything from how you work, to what they will pay. If you let people like that dictate to you, you do lose some of your identity and if you start a job with them controlling you, they will control you throughout the relationship...just like any other relationship.

There is a fine line between between "The customer is always right" and letting the customer walk all over you.

The bottom line is, you are providing a service and no mater how difficult someone is, ultimately, you are in control of what you charge them for the difficulties.

[huggytree]

never had a customer really lead the conversation. its usually equal or me who leads

they explain what they want
i ask the questions and they answer
I give a rough price

I do have customers who want to tell me how to do things. Depending on the degree I either work with them or say no thanks

usually they want to supply something which is substandard or something technical.
they are typically the cheap customers and my rough estimate scares them away

overall im happy with my customers...the more rules i make and the fussier i become only weeds out the bad customers leaving me with the good ones.

[orion_joel]

Thank-you for the replies, great responses, and from these responses i do think that i have re framed my thoughts a little.

There are possibly two directions the question can go, The first is as the question is asked, and this is in direct relation to discussions between you and the client. What i am seeing is that maybe this is a place you want the client to control the conversation, and while maybe not have the final say, at least give decent input. When it gets to the final say whether you go ahead or not, this is where you define if you maintain your identity or not, by accepting their conditions or resetting them by your own business standards to maintain your identity.

The other one is clients talking to other clients. This is potentially the harder area to maintain your identity, and more so to control the conversation. This is a very important area though and keeping things consistent here relies on maintaining your standards and levels of service, just as Vangogh says, don't tell me about it, just do it (re answering the phone). I think it is when you provide an inconsistent image, that you will start to lose control of how people talk about you. While the actual case may be that you never really have control providing the right information in the right way will help you to some extent.

Would be interested in hearing any one else's opinions as well

[Steve B]

I'm sorry Joel, but I'm having trouble following what your concerns are. Can you give an example?

Control the conversation in what context? How can a customer controlling a conversation lead to you losing your business identity? I've certainly had customers who talk a lot and perhaps I felt weren't listening, but I never walked away worried that I would lose my business identity.

[vangogh]

Steve the idea (in Joel's second point) is that when your customers talk to each other (without you involved) they can frame things in a way that represents your business how they like and not how you want.

I'll use Verizon as an example. Seeing their commercials the story they want to get across is that they have the most reliable network. They show you the crowd of people representing the network in most of their commercials. Let's pretend that despite the claims their network is spotty at best and completely unreliable. As customers sign up for the service they realize how bad the network is and start telling friends. Before the internet this might not have been a big deal as more people would see the commercials and pick up the message that the Verizon network was reliable. With the internet things spread faster and further so a few unhappy customers can more easily spread the word that the network is in truth horrible.

The conversation then is the reliability of the Verizon network. In that conversation Verizon is saying one thing and customers are saying another. What happens when a person is thinking of buying a new cell phone and plan. What impression will they have of Verizon's network?

The reason I say your customers control the conversation is because people are more likely to believe what others are saying about you than what what you say about yourself. In the example above people hearing both sides are more likely to believe Verizon's network is unreliable since other customers are the more trusted source.

The identity Verizon wants you to see is they have the most reliable network. If customers are saying en masse that their network is unreliable their identity becomes that they have an unreliable network. The way to keep your identity is to live up to what you claim. As long as Verizon's network is reliable the majority of their customers will tell others it is reliable.

Pre-internet you could say what you wanted about your business (true or not) and it would be more believable since it was unlikely people would ever hear a different message than the one you presented. Some companies still operate that way. They think that they can tell you anything they want about themselves and that's the only conversation people will have about you. The reality is that the internet makes it easy for just a few to spread a different story or conversation about you than the one you want.

[orion_joel]

In reality when i posted the question, i did not really know what i was asking either. What i was asking was really the question that has been posed for me to write an article about and i was trying to figure out what it meant. Through the conversation here i have not only figure out what the question means, but potentially even more so what the best way to form the article that i am thinking about for the question.

Steve, Vangogh's example is great, seriously i could probably not have done so good myself. One thing that i think i have come to understand though is that you actually do want customers to participate in the conversation as much as possible. Even to the extent that at times they are fully controlling it. However what this inevitably means is that you need to be providing a very clear and consistent image of your business and how you frame the image you provide.

[Steve B]

One thing I'm stuck on is the vagueness of the term "conversation". Is it the initial conversation when a prospect calls for information? Is it a conversation during the sales pitch part of the relationship? Is it a conversation during the scope of work definition period? Is it a conversation when there is a complaint about something?

I still don't see how losing your identity comes into play.

It just seems too broad of an issue for a decent article.

[phanio]

I would suggest you forget about controlling the conversation and just listen. Even if you want to define your identity - if your customers are re-defining it - you might as well go along. Let you customers control - then find a way to measure up or (in the verizon case) fix it.

I would rather have customers telling me what I should be then try to push something on then - regardless if I can deliever of not.

Regardless of what you think your identity is - without customers you have no business to form an identity around. Listen to them - let them control - then deliever.

[orion_joel]

Steve the "conversation" as such is all and none of these conversations. It is kind of like the main feed of twitter, it is a conversation, but a conversation made up of many smaller conversations. Or in other words the conversation is as a whole what everyone is saying about your business.

As such only some of this conversation you are going to hear or read, and a smaller portion actually have any input in. This is also where i disagree with you Phanio, while i do agree that listening is a very important role for anyone in business to play, i do not think that you should let your customers redefine your identity. If i was to listen to my customers in this way, my business identity would be redefined from a provider of quality products and services, to Mr. Crazy Low price Computers. If i listened and acted on what i hear, i would be selling everything under cost, and providing services for nothing because i sold the product and should show them how to read the user manual. This may be an extreme, but it is essentially what i would be leaving open to happen. So as it happens to maintain a profitable business, you do have to ignore some of the conversation about your business, or the industry you are in, in general.

While it may be true to some extent that unless you give the customer what they want you wont have any customers. You cannot blindly walk into giving the customer what they want without considering the impact on your own business. So if you do listen and provide in explicitly, you may actually have no business to build an identity around because you have gone broke.

Where i am starting to see this is coming to its own is in the fact that you need to have a balance, between giving information to build the conversation, and then listening to the conversation and taking what you need from it.

[vangogh]

Steve the conversation is really what other people are discussing with each other and saying about your business. It's not really about you pitching to the prospect or closing a sale.

People that aren't you talk about your business. It's that talk that's the conversation I'm referring to. Say one of your customers is talking to a friend about your business. The friend might be asking questions like how your system has worked. Does the fence keep the dogs in the yard? Were you pleasant to deal with? Were you responsive to questions? And many more questions.

Lets say all your marketing material says how friendly you are and what great service you offer. That's the conversation you hope two people are having about your business. If in reality you didn't offer great service then the conversation your customer and his friend are having is more likely going to be about your poor service than it will be about the good service your marketing material claims.

The conversation isn't anything to do with you. It's about what others say when talking about your business. If you think about Joel's original question say you do offer great service in practice (which I know you do). For some reason one customer decides they don't like you and so start telling others your service is lousy even though it's not. It's possible that the story or conversation of your business having lousy service spreads more than your claims of great service. In that way your business could be identified with poor service even though the reality is you offer great service.

[Steve B]

I'm referring to the first portion of his question that does relate to direct conversations: "this is in direct relation to discussions between you and the client."

I get the other part about the way your clients talk about you with others.

[vangogh]

Joel added that question, but in general that's not what people mean when they talk about "the conversation" In that first case I think it's more about negotiation and sales and that wouldn't allow a customer to change your identity in any way.

[orion_joel]

I really think that the question has evolved as part of this conversation.

I still think that there is some ways that your identity can be affected through a customer controlling a direct conversation with you though. For example maybe you identify your business as providing top quality products, and this is what you try to sell. However if you start getting customers coming to you, to get prices, and then pushing you for cheaper alternatives, then you could potentially lose that identity of being a quality supplier, and have people start to see your business as a supplier of cheap alternatives.

This may not be as a direct result of your conversation. But if you give in and sell the cheap products, it does not matter who asked for it, that customer may have begged you to supply the cheapest one available, but it still comes back to you supplied it and customers have short memory's when they want to. The conversation they will be having with their friend will be that you supplied it, and it was cheap and it only worked for 3 weeks.

[vangogh]

I think in those cases you have a lot of control. If people are coming to you and trying to get you to offer lower prices than you want all you have to do is say no. If your identity changes as a result of you delivering products cheaper and cheaper I wouldn't say it's a result of your customers. I'd say it's a result of you not staying consistent with your brand.

It's possible that the conversation (by others talking to others) about your company says you will lower your prices when asked that would still be on you if you are indeed lowering prices when asked.

If you are holding firm to your prices and people are still talking to each other about how you lower them when asked then it would be an example of customers having a conversation that may be changing your identity. You'd have to do what you could in that case to change the conversation.