I was on the phone the other day with a great friend of mine, who is also a "sometimes" client, when I had an "ah ha" moment. In this particular case, we were talking about what some would say are radical changes that the commercial real estate appraisal world is going through. It doesn't really matter what industry we we're talking about, because the concept is pretty universal.

Here's how the conversation came about. You see there are some pretty standardized ways that appraisers build their reports. For years they were put in the position of designing what was needed to be in the reports, although there are certainly standards and even industry rules of thumb that played a big role. Point is, over the years the product that they delivered was essentially one of two things, a somewhat abbreviated appraisal report and a much more complete appraisal report. In recent years, as banks made up more and more of the client base for appraisers, it has become apparent that there needed to be some flexibility in the appraisal reports. Sometimes the problem to be solved seemed to require something different than what the appraisers were accustomed to providing. So in this context my friend said; "Something really does need to change. Those providing the services are akin to people going to a restaurant and being told they have to eat an eight course meal when frankly all they wanted was a snack." Yep, that's when it hit me. Don't some of us in the professional services business act this way sometimes?

It often seems that there are two schools of thought on this. There's the school that says most of the time everybody around you is wrong, frightfully horribly mistaken and your job is to tell them what they need. Alumina from this "school" believe that people don't know what they want and so it's your job to steer them in the right direction. And while that's not totally wrong, I associate more with the school that says, give them what they want not what you want. And I'll bet most of you would agree with me because it sounds obvious, but I can tell you in real practice many of us fail.  And it's not so bad to fail, but it is bad to fail because we didn't give enough consideration. We shouldn't fail because we think we know more than the people that are using our services. Hands down, I believe the users of any service know more than the providers about what they need. Now that's not to say that the providers of services don't have the knowledge that the people they're providing to have. That would be just silly. Of course they do, otherwise there would be no business to be had. But when you're hit over the head with user responses and data that shows you might be delivering the wrong thing(s), I can't imagine why anybody wouldn't stop and try to solve the issue.

Now I'll be the first to agree that many, many times your customer may not know what they want until you show it to them. That's a whole different story. It's all of our jobs to introduce new things, new opportunities and new ways of doing things. What I'm talking about is when people and companies are either ignorant or think they're that much smarter than the very people they claim to serve. Having a healthy customer relationship is a two-way street. It requires both the provider of goods and services and the user of those goods and services to have honest, open dialogue about what they think is useful and valuable. Both the provider and the receiver want the same thing - to develop relationships that demonstrate appreciation and hopefully support each other's financial/business success. The service providers want to be viewed as knowledgeable experts who are ready and able to help them choose the right products and services, and that's where the two schools of thought many times collide. But it doesn't have to be like that.

The best service providers would never do as my friend described and make you eat more than you want. The best service providers give you options based on the deep research they have put into your needs and present options. I know his comment made me stop and think and I hope it does the same for you.

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