I recently chaired an Initial new client meeting, this is a meeting where the design team sits down with the client and jots down the “Wish List’. During this meeting, one of the customer’s representatives said to me that my company was actually their second choice, and their first choice argued with them then refused to work with their budget. This made me wonder how many consultants actually listen to their clients.
In my design process I listen to my customer's wish list, and then make product recommendations accompanied by budget analysis for the recommendation. This is usually where the actual budget is announced and compromises begin. The goal is always design for the future with today’s money, and about 90% of the time this is somewhat feasible. The other 10% the people are completely out of touch with reality, and you can tell before the ink hits the consulting contract.
Is Anybody Listening
This is not the first time I have witnessed or heard of such behavior. My company just finished a project when the project manager met with the Chief of Police for a local ISD. This particular Chief was very involved with all intrusion alarms for the ISD and preformed all of the programming as far as codes and cards were concerned. He said that he met with the architect and security consultant and wanted the new school to have a Caddx system like all the other schools; however, when the specs were produced it reflected Bosch equipment. The Chiefs recommendation were completely ignored and cost the ISD $1,600.00 for Software and Hardware just to maintain programming when they were already set up with Caddx. I wonder who dropped the ball. Was it the consultant or the Architect? My bet is the consultant.
Final Thoughts
People want to be listened to and want to feel as though their input makes a difference. So it is very important to keep those people happy, especially when you want any type of lasting relationship. This industry is not that forgiving and a reputation can be made very quickly. It is vital that you make it a good one. What do you think the Chief will say when it is time to design the next school? Do you think that he will have any favorable comments about the architect or the consultant? Fortunately, we had a pass due to the fact that we were going off of spec and did not know of the existing Caddx infrastructure. Had we known, you bet we would have installed caddx. This particular system did not utilize any of the advanced features that Bosch offered and swapping out with Caddx would have actually been preferred. I know that you probably have heard a facility manager or other administrator charged with maintaining the security system talk about how useless something is due to poor design and I would love to hear about them.
