Is it your fault if your clients suck at what they do?
Let me tell you a weird but funny story. (It’s worth reading, trust me) Over the weekend, I was chatting with a web developer friend of mine who shall remain nameless. For the sake of this post, we will call him Herman. Late Friday afternoon, Herman was working away in his office when he got a phone call from a number he didn’t recognize. Hoping for some new business in a slow economy he answered the call against his better judgment. What he found on the other end of the line was not a new lead but instead a very, very, dissatisfied customer. The twist to the story is the customer on the other end of the line wasn’t his, nor did she even own a website.
It turns out this Ann Coulter like figure, was in fact a CUSTOMER of one of Herman’s previous web development clients. So things don’t get too confusing, we will call this angry lady Rosie O’Donell for the remainder of the article. Anyway, it turns out Rosie was irate because she had hired a contractor to assist with some remodel work at her home. The contractor had taken her money, started the work, and had disappeared for weeks without notifying her or returning her calls. Her house was now a disaster, her money was gone, and she didn’t know what to do.
Why was she mad at Herman though? Well, Herman had created a very nice and professional website for his client, the contractor. In fact, the website was so good and professional that Rosie hired the contractor without meeting him in person. The website was so professional, that she thought she was working with a large construction company and was incredibly surprised to find out it was one man show and he was a part-time handy man working out of his home.
Rosie’s argument was that Herman had helped the client misrepresent himself. Herman’s argument was that his client was a nice guy and he has no control over how he performs his business. Herman, like most of us, was hired to help his client create a professional image. This story really got me thinking though. As web developers and marketers, we often try to position our clients above where they actually fall in their market. Are we doing consumers an injustice? In addition, should we be liable for misrepresenting our clients? Is it wrong for us to help companies try to look better than they actually are? Should we actually be positioning them on par with comparable competition?
This is an interesting story that brings up some intriguing questions. Let me know what you think! I am anxious to hear thoughts from other marketers and web developers on this story.
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Ethics – that’s the thing. Whether it’s websites or radio commercials (I do both) or consulting with a client about their marketing I often repeat the phrase “truth in advertising.” I’ve met a lot of people who would gladly help the client say anything they want as long as the cash came in.
But that’s a whole other blog entry…
Love the Rosie photo, by the way. Was that before or after wax?
Just as Sam Jones said, I think it has to do with ethics. If you know that you would be misrepresenting your client, then you need to take some measures to prevent doing that or terminate the job altogether. Of course, everyone has a different idea of what is ethical, and eventually the client will find someone willing to misrepresent them.
That said, while it’s a good idea to know at least a little bit about the people with whom you do business, you may not realize that you’re misrepresenting your client when you build the site.
The bottom line here is that we can’t be held responsible for how our clients behave. How do we know they aren’t misrepresenting themselves to us?
Everyone wants to seem better than they are and that is just how it goes. You can trust marketing from any company. That is why I like social media. You can’t directly market via social media or else you will get owned and with social media the cream rises to the top while the shit sinks.
I think considering this as an ethical question is off base. Is it unethical for Armani to sell a $3000 suit to someone just because they happen to be a jobless douchebag? No. It is up to each individual, or in this case each individual company, to live up to the image they present. That is their ethical question. A web designer is just providing a paid service. As individuals, it may be a -moral- quandary for web designers to decide whether they want to help misrepresent someone. But that should not be confused with ethical.
Here’s another question. A big company like Comcast certainly has the money and the image of a reputable company. But they are coming under fire for shady practices regarding customer service, fair billing and fair treatment in terms of their internet service. Should their website be crappy also, just so people know what they’re getting into?
I think this is just a clear case of another consumer not bothering to do their homework and blaming others for not bailing them out.
ps – I do realize that Comcast’s website is actually pretty crappy. But it’s not cheap crappy 
You can rent a Ferrari for a day and try to get girls with it. So a girl falls for that and sues the rental company? NO, the girl is herself responsible for her own decisions.
We are not responsible for this. And besides, my terms of conditions include a statement “The Client is solely responsible for the content of the website.” And they really are!
Herman’s client (hopefully) did not ask him to include things like “100% satisfaction guaranteed” or “#1 private contractor in the whole wide world, promise.”
What are you going to do for a less than average customer? Do a full table-based design? Misspell words? Use ugly or low resolution images? Specifically state that this client is not the market leader for services advertised? This is a very slippery subject. It would be up to the courts to determine if the misrepresentation was fraudulent. Anyone working in marketing would likely get charged before designers started taking heat
What a great story and a subject I have pondered myself. We are an SEO company and our goal is help drive organic search traffic to your site. Often we are working with smaller clients looking to compete with much larger companies. Are we giving a false impression by getting them ranked higher in the search engines? I would like to think we only take on high quality customers but the thought is interesting. Thanks for a very thought-provoking question.
Great story and very interesting discussion.
Personally I think the developer should feel no guilt for his part. When I look at a company’s website I usually look for potential to mark them down, not to actually get credit.
If the site is shoddy then I’m wary. If it passes muster then that’s great, but I’m not going to base my purchasing decision on that. You’ve earned some brownie points, but you’ve not sealed the deal!
If the woman is silly enough to think that a slick website equals a slick operation then she clearly isn’t looking at the big picture. Just because a salesman drives up in a nice car doesn’t mean he’s peddling a good product. It probably means he’s just a good salesman and he realises that appearances and first impressions are important. But as a customer you place too much stock in this at your peril.
A bit late on this thread but I was just at the Spokane AdFed breakfast where one topic about freelance work was in this vein- how do you present your image to clients- realistic and full disclosure about limitations or bigger than life and able to do whatever you need?
It’s an academic discussion until a web developer/company actually gets sued for “misrepresentation” then you might see web developers thinking along the lines of public accounting firms. In a broad sense- acct firms review information provided by the client about their own operations and value as a company. They assemble documents, based on client-provided info, that create a framework for interested parties to gain insight into the stability of the company and the likelihood that it is conducting business in an efficient and profitable way. To some degree this is what a website developer is doing. Obviously I’ve left out many critical details to create a tenuous analogy, but lawyers never let details get in the way of a profitable lawsuit!
This is what contracts are for. It should be a lesson to all doing business that a comprehensive, signed contract is so important. I have two clauses in the contract I use that are relevant to just what we’re talking about.
On a related note, I refer to a point made by Anton. If you gave them a shoddy website, couldn’t they sue you for making them look bad?
So you do your best and make them sign a contract that says you are not held liable if they give you misleading information.
Interesting discussion!
I had a clinet last year, a plumber, who runs his own small business to very high standards. I built him a new website that he was thrilled with and that got him new work. A job well done in my opinion.
A few months later I received an enquiry from a potential new customer. Discussing his requirements, he made it clear that he wanted something professional “but not as professional as that plumber’s site in your portoflio.” I asked why and he said that the site made the plumber appear to be too expensive, and he didn’t want to put people off with his own new site if they thought he was too expensive!
This was the first time I’d ever heard any such argument, but it’s definitely made me think harder about what is “appropriate” design for any given client.
Matt,
I’d be interested to see what aspects of your plumber’s site made him look too expensive.
I have a similar situation in that I’m working on a religious group’s website, but they don’t want the site to look too much like a church.
@Sam, I really don’t know. The person who said it looked too expensive couldn’t really give me a good reason why, so I guess it’s just subjective opinion at the end of the day.
I think what they meant was that most other plumber’s sites aren’t very well designed, often knocked up in FrontPage with tables and poor colour schemes. In my research I also found that to be the case.
Maybe what this customer meant was that because the site I had designed didn’t look amateur like other plumbers sites, it automatically looked expensive. That’s the only theory I have to be honest!
It’s interesting how simple colours can affect a user’s perception of the site. I think it was in the book “The ZEN of CSS design” that I read how just using a certain colour can subconsciously invoke a mood or alter a perception.
For example (off the top of my head) :
Purple : conjures thoughts of royalty and thus quality
Green : Nature, environmentally friendly
Red : Confident, bold, aggresive
etc etc. And these perceptions change depending on which country you live in as you are probably bombarded with different brands which again alter your perception of each colour because of their use in different logos.
So getting to the point – perhaps it would be possible to totally change a user’s perception of this plumber’s website just by a few colour changes. If the site had a lot of black and purple (rich colours associated with quality) then would they think it was more “common” if the colours were changed to bright blue and yellow, which apparently has a cheaper feel to it by brand association (IKEA, Best Buy)
In fact this article seems to sum it up better than I can (with examples)….
http://www.usabilitypost.com/2008/09/29/a-guide-to-choosing-colors-for-your-brand/
…and that’s how I get a good number of my clients – “knocked up” sites with poor colour schemes.
But I guess that’s off the subject.
It sounds like some web designers/developers are just doing their jobs too well.
What a great problem to have.
So the customer is so impressed with the site that she hires a contractor sight unseen and expects everything to go 100% fine? Does she also see ads on TV, newspaper, and radio and believe that candy is “bursting” with flavor, or that a product “cleans like a white tornado?”
The developer’s job is specifically to provide a design that attracts customers.
Now I’ll have to add another clause to my contract.