Ungrateful Clients 1

[655321]

Has anyone else experienced completely ungrateful clients, who seem to have no idea what we do for them and little respect for our profession?

I don't know how many more meetings I can sit through with our clients slobbering all over the attorney and the architect (no offense architects) but never a kind word for the engineer... and we are the ones that actually take their ill-conceived ideas and make them work.

What I am doing wrong?

 

[MortenA]

It would be a wonderful business if it wasn’t for the customers

Best regards

Morten

 

[PSE]

Made me smile MortenA, a star for you. 655321 It may very well be that you are doing nothing wrong. If you are able to satisfy the clients requirements. I have encountered unhappy customers irregardless of whether their requirements have been met or exceeded. Talking to the sales/marketing guy afterward brought an interesting potential insight. "You as an engineer represent a dose of reality in the otherwise grand vision of the customer. No one really wants an engineer around until something goes wrong. Then you get to fix it!"

Regards,

 

[Gymmeh]

"No one really wants an engineer around until something goes wrong. Then you get to fix it!"

Aint that the F#$%!#N' Truth.

I think the biggest problem is not always the client but the sales person that blows so much crap up the client's b-hind. Then as the engineer you have to try to fix something they forgot to consider or tell them it defies physics.

I had a 2 sales and 2 people on the phone for a client wondering why something I designed could not do what the sales man said, why it cost so much, and why it was not completely design with all the small details worked out- in the quoting phase, why it was taking so long (sound familiar to anyone)...(A Dilbert cartoon popped in my head) I laughed...(not the best move)...then the salesman and client started yelling at me…… and I bit my tong and just nicely…I did a lot of sweet talking and BS’ing and sugar coating the failures of the salesman.

Later I got a phone call from two of them apologizing for yelling at me and that it was a really large job they didn’t want to mess up. I nicely told them that is why we quote things to know what can be done for what cost, and alternated options can be explored if the price is not right.

I realized, isn’t this the job of sales people?

 

[csd72]

Gymmeh,

Yes that is why I dont like having slaes people. They think their job is to promise the earth to the client, afterall they dont have to make it work! A good sales person should manage client expectations rather than elevate them - but sadly these types do not seem to exist.

655321,

Get used to it. The respect for our profession isnt particularly high, partly because our predecessors have let engineering services become a commodity. When someone hires a lawyer or an architect, they dont pick it on price they pick one that has experience in what they want them for - not so for engineers.

csd

 

[KENAT]

Yeah, my favourite was when we got given a set of 'build to print' drawings for some tooling. Our customer was one government office while the drawings came from another government department. Trouble is the drawings weren't finished and definitely weren't checked for accuracy.

So we tried to spot some of the biggest problems and corrected them as best we could during build, documenting it with waivers etc.

Various people at the customer complained that the tools still didnt' work properly and took too long to make! It eventually got smoothed out but was pretty annoying at the time.

We eventually got to design our own tooling which was a bit more fun, but not before some other people at the 'customer' tried claiming the revised design as their own, even though I'd suggested the basic idea before we tried building to their prints!

As to sales people, my last place got rid of the 'sales' team. The managing director and heads of relevant manufacturing departments took over the non technical/build to print type work while we in the design office took over the design build/integration/technical sales.

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

 

[csd72]

KENAT,
I am not familiar with the term 'build to print' what does this mean?

 

[epoisses]

HAH! sales is the ONLY corporate activity that cannot be outsourced! (said epoisses the salesman)

655321, if your customers don't seem to have respect for your work, maybe you should just pump up the invoice!

Re customer expectations, well a good sales person hates receiving complaints from customers whose expectations were not met, because in a decent ISO9001 environment this is when the sales person gets spanked. I prefer to be on the pessimist side, but maybe that's just atypical me.

 

[csd72]

sorry epoisses,

I mistook you for a real engineer!

csd

 

[KENAT]

'build to print' Basically means when you are making something to someone else's drawings without scope for changing it. It was the term used in the UK Defence industry anyway.

HAH! sales is the ONLY corporate activity that cannot be outsourced!

Not so, there are companies that are just sales organizations and sell other companies products for them. This is especially common when breaking into a new market/country. Now for things requireing face to face meetings as part of the sales then yes, it's difficult to ship it to a different country but different company, sure.

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

 

[Ashereng]

Hmmmmmm.

I have some slightly different views from my esteemed colleagues.

1) The job of sales is actually very important. Without them to "tout" your engineeringness, you won't have the contract, to not meet, in the first place. Sales' job is acutally quick difficult. They have to somehow "gloss over" the shortcomings of engineering, in order to instill confidence in the client, so that they send their money your way instead to the competitor.

2) The client is the client. Whether he/she is happy or not is not the issue. Whether the next order comes in the door is the issue. If that means the sales guy has to do his thing, and engineering doesn't get its props, so be it.

3) At the end of the day, you get paid, your boss didn't tell you to pack up, and you go home. All in all, part of the job. N'est pas?

"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."
Albert Einstein
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

 

[MadMango]

What I am doing wrong?

You're not considering changing careers to that of attorney or architect.

"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."

Have you read faq731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

 

[TenPenny]

A good salesperson is on the side of the customer when dealing with the factory, and on the side of the factory when dealing with the customer...managing the expectations of both. A good sales engineer is a rare, but valuable, beast.

 

[Engineeeeeeeeer]

Well said ashereng.

[In my field of engineering/company] The sales guys have a difficult job, by not having all the info from the client (who doesn't know) at the sales stage and have to make guestimates based upon experience.

The engineers have a difficult job interpreting what the sales people have sold and also what the client wants, all within the budget.

Most of the time it works, and as the saying goes, if it wasn't difficult, anyone could do it.

 

[jmw]

Salesmen like to sell what the client wants to buy, not just what the company makes.

Console yourself that Salesmen sell to the limit of engineering to get them out of trouble....

If you don't get all these problems to solve it is because the salesmen don't trust you to be able to solve them.

Table money is the amount of money (for bells and whistles) the customer would have spent but didn't because the salesman didn't sell them to him because...?

So the limit is, as suggested above, the laws of physics and the customers bank account. A good salesman will explore both and leave you to deliver the goods.

OK, you see the salesman as a postman delivering the goodies you make to the happy client. The client sees the salesman as Father Christmas and you as the elves out back.
If the client doesn't order, Management see the whole lot of you as expendable, the only question is, in what order (and how close to Christmas).

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[epoisses]

"Salesmen like to sell what the client wants to buy, not just what the company makes."
Actually it's the client who will buy what he wants to buy, not just what the company makes. So we'd better make what he wants to buy or there will be no cash coming in.

655321, getting back to your feelings of frustration because of ungrateful clients: believe me (salesman AND engineer, still!), don't let your job satisfaction depend on grateful customers. Some customers think it is strategic to always whine and ask for more. Some are just to blind and obsessed with themselves to see the sh** you go through. Be satisfied with the invoice and with the next PO. If the customer is nice to have a chat or a dinner with, that's just an unexpected bonus.

 

[imok2]

I believe that most people don't have any idea what an "engineer" does because the term is so common and varid. I dare you to ask some people what the difference is between an Operating Engineer and a Building Engineer.
For that matter, the difference between engineering fields such as aerospace • agricultural • architectural • automotive • biomedical • ceramic • chemical • civil • computer science • electrical • engineering physics • environmental health and sanitary • geological • marine • mechanical • metallurgical and materials • mining • nuclear • ocean • petroleum • systems • textile • and transportation. I believe the answer of respect and being grateful lies in your performance demenor and integraty and the fact that your proud to be an Engineer

 

[KENAT]

So I thought I posted this already but arguably...

They're paying you to do it, how gratefull do they need to be;-)

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

 

[655321]

Money isn't everything Kenat.

 

[Gymmeh]