Subj: Web Builders & Customer Relationships

Joanna and Helen are both basically talking about the same problem: Working with customers, or potential customers, who assume that building a Website that does exactly what they have in mind is not much of a challenge. Certainly working on commission is unacceptable, unless the builders of the site are also responsible for site marketing (online and offline) as well as order fulfillment and customer service to assure that any customers to the site become repeat customers. Did the people who built the company's office or store work on commission? No. Why then should anyone else, unless they actually hold a stake in the company, and are willing to gamble with stock options? (I would rarely recommend working "on options" to anyone, by the way).

Unfortunately, however, many of us will have to live with the fact that we are in some ways like a doctor at a party who inevitably gets buttonholed by some idiot telling them about a pain in their ear and expecting a free on-the-spot diagnosis and cure. One must simply learn how to deal with these people in their own way, whether it's a polite brush-off or a more forceful dismissal.

Helen talked about "using a contract to pin down what a customer wants". If you're in the stage of writing a contract, it's because you know what the customer wants. If you don't know what the customer wants, then you should be writing a contract that covers requirements analysis and/or functional specification definition as part of the project for which you are charging. Customers should undoubtedly be billed at whatever your 'standard' rates are for time and materials accordingly.

If you're writing a contract for a development project but still don't know what the customer wants, then I think you shouldn't be writing a contract at all, because you don't know what the project is. And if you can't get that information from the customer before you write the contract, why should you expect any better cooperation after whatever contract you come up with is signed? Successful e-commerce projects are not built by techs working in a vacuum--they are built by techs working with business analysts and as many users of the system as possible (customers, suppliers, etc.) to make sure the system does what it's supposed to. Half the work is in defining what the system's supposed to do in the first place!

As for the idea of five-day training program to teach potential customers the ins and outs of Web development, ask your CFO about this idea and see what he/she says. In my opinion it's an idea that will cost your company a lot of money and time. And who has the time for such a program? If your customers have the time, I'd make sure to get paid in advance, as they have too much free time.

Instead you might try to get your customers involved by asking them to troll the Web to find sites that they like--they may even be able to name some offhand. Then ask them what and why they like those sites. This should help them begin to sketch out ideas on what they're after. You should have some training documents from previous customers on "How to Operate Your E-Store" so the customer understands the responsibilities expected of them. You could also compile some documents on Web development costs, timelines, and complexity so people understand there's usually more to building and running an e-commerce operation than is promised in any "free cyberstore for just $19.95 a month" offer.

Of course it's not impossible for most of us to define a price for a simple brochureware Website or a bare-bones e-commerce site. The problem is that most customers want much more than that, and sometimes they don't even acknowledge they want more than that until you start talking to them about specific functionality and appearance.

--WebGunForHire, 07/00

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