I always tell our designers to treat our customers like family. Treating customers like family DOESN’T mean agreeing with them and rubber stamping their ideas. It means having their best interest at heart, doing your best, and actively trying to prevent them from making a mistake.
Were a family member of mine going to make a mistake, I would try very hard to encourage them to make better choices.
When you care about people, you are honest with them without hurting their feelings. Sometimes when truly bad ideas are being considered, tough love might be needed. The old adage that “the customer is always right” doesn’t apply to family. We care too much about them to just sell them things.
I know that sometimes this approach isn’t what customers are looking for. Main Line Kitchen Design has even gotten a few poor online reviews from people that were frustrated by our designers being honest with them. That’s OK, because the majority of our customers get better kitchens because of our approach, and their homes and the relationship we build with them are advertisements for our success.
Some of our customers take pride in the choices they made though they were originally against them.
One couple I worked with was certain that they wanted an island. I was so against the tight space that was going to be created that I asked them to work with another designer, if that was what they really wanted. After thinking about it and looking at the drawings they reluctantly decided to keep working together and take my advice. After their kitchen was completed, they were incredibly happy and proud of the result. They laughed with friends, family, and even the contractor proclaiming that they were “almost fired by Paul!”
These are the customers that write the 100’s of glowing 5-star reviews Main Line Kitchen Design has received. People that we helped get a different and better kitchen than the one they originally wanted. They know that the kitchen that they love and are living in was the product of us working together, and that they would have gotten a very different kitchen had we simply give them the kitchen they originally asked for.
Looking forward to treating you like family.
Here is a link to ours:
https://www.mainlinekitchendesign.com/about/
and a story written by my mother about the happiness her 1960’s kitchen brought her:
https://www.mainlinekitchendesign.com/general/kitchens-familys-best-memories-made/
