The Customer *is* always right

The customer is always right and should be listened to most when you feel aggrieved.

I publish some shareware called BrainStorm. In fact, I've been publishing it, on and off, for over twenty years. For most of that time, I've played the 'we know best' game. We have decided what goes into the product based on a combination of what we think is right and what we think we should focus our limited resources on.

A few years ago, we started asking groups of users what they thought. The feedback was humbling. And we set about making hundreds of changes to the product and the website.

Well, after all the largely user-driven changes we thought we'd done enough to appeal to a wider audience. So, eleven days ago, on the verge of launching the latest version, we asked a bunch of regular users for their tips on how we might reach this wider audience. We suggested they consider pricing maybe, or ways of stimulating more 'word of mouth sales'.

Despite the hundreds of changes, and some really profound improvements to functionality we didn't get a lot of advice on how to sell more. But we got an avalance (20,000 words-worth) of suggestions on how to make the program even better and how to improve the website (we were ready to admit to deficiencies in that direction).

In between licking our wounds, we were forced to admit that we have built the equivalent of a beautifully-engineered car which is almost too ugly to put in the showroom.

The people who've discovered its power and elegance love it, but BrainStorm isn't a love at first sight thing. We'll still make the announcement and we'll continue to win converts but the brutal truth is that the customer is always right. In this case, they've been kind enough to tell us that we need to not only be good, we need to look good as well.

It might sound obvious to you but we couldn't really understand why a few icons, which have nothing to do with functionality, would make such a difference to our success. But the people telling us are our customers. Fans, if you like. Friends even, although we've never met any of them - they're scattered around the world.

To them, we say a big "thank you". And, in future, we'll really try to listen.

Comments

[Stuart Bruce]

Jackie, there is a BrainStorm blog - follow the link on the left on the home page.

[David Tebbutt]

thinkerlog in the blogroll is the one to follow.