The customer is always right!

The customer IS always right! Unfortunately, this is NOT a customer – yet! As a consultant tasked with pleasing an aggressive sales team and understanding requirements from perspective customers, one often hears from the sales team that the customer is always right. What is often missing to the sales team is that the perspective customer is NOT yet a customer. Until one identifies requirements and arranges a payment or contract for certain deliverables, the perspective customer is a prospect. During this time, it is the task of the consultant to ensure a clear understanding of the identified requirements and the potential deliverables. This way the team ensures that the statement, “the customer is always right”, is reasonable and true for the customer, consultant, and sales.