The Epic Battle Between Standardization and Customization: How Client Services Can Score a Win-Win

The tug-of-war between standardization and customization is here to stay—and that’s a good thing. Instead of trying to win an all-out battle to make your vendor give you everything you think you’ve ever wanted, or yanking the rope out of your clients’ hands to ensure they know who has the ultimate control, accepting that both sides will keep pulling is exactly what’s needed. It’s a healthy competition, with little wins for both sides along the way.

If one side becomes the all-out winner, however, it’s likely that you’ve achieved a Pyrrhic victory—where the losses overshadow the win. Did your company really win if you lost the customer or solidified yourself as the market's future legacy product? As a customer, did you win if you cracked the integrity of the product or increased ongoing costs far beyond the benefit? In this battle, you need someone who can referee and mediate both sides of the issue, and that is exactly where your client services team should be utilized.

The Role of Customization in Business

Many companies, especially in the start-up space, entertain a high degree of customization requests.

On the upside, it shows their willingness to be a partner, not just a vendor. It also aids in their own innovation, allowing them to fully realize the potential of what their products can be. Customization helps solve real problems and ease real pain. Every client has different needs, motivations, and drives to make their work smooth and optimized. Being able to anticipate change requests can set your product apart.

On the downside, it’s easy to put too much energy into work that simply isn’t a priority. Engineers and analysts are often asked to focus on customizations in addition to their core responsibilities—this adds fuel to the burnout fire. Costs can quickly escalate, time gets wasted, and scalability suffers due to a distracted focus on trying to create a product that does everything instead of having a product do what it promises exceptionally well.

I've seen both sides get justifiably frustrated when standardization and customization is out-of-balance. Vendor teams think customers as just "customizers" and customers see vendors as factories supplying a steady stream of "no" to every request. Maintaining balance is key.

The “No” Factory: A Cautionary Tale

I once had a competitor that developed a reputation for being a “no” factory. This was a difficult pill for their clients to swallow because the product they were investing in was supposed to be flexible and customizable. However, the vendor was resolute that clients would only get what was standard—and standard was only what they as the vendor decided it would be. Their standards were best practices because they had built them, after all.

As a result, the vendor managed to keep costs relatively low, which was a great selling point, but the clients were always unhappy. “You’ll eat your food, and you’ll like it!” comes to mind. These clients had a lot to say, and often it was to me, the competitor who was very willing to hear them out. They were tired of the constant, reliable, steady stream of "no’s" being stamped, packaged, and delivered with consistency.

As a competitor, I used this to my considerable advantage. I had something to differentiate our offering around. Did that mean every one of my clients would be receiving orders from the “Yes” factory? Absolutely not! Operating in the extremes doesn’t work. We are seeking win-wins, after all. What that meant for my team is that we weren’t going to just say no - we were going to bring clients along with us through agreed-upon ways to assess change from the get-go.

We discussed this in our sales meetings, in our negotiations, and in our Statements of Work (SOWs). We created a standard and understood processes to handle change, including governance. The clients knew that we understood their businesses might require changes and we were showing them that we were not afraid of it.

We learned that it is so important to have these conversations early on - before the client even signs. They need to know that some approved changes will come with higher implementation and ongoing costs because they aren’t standard. We needed to educate the client on the difference between system-level customization and surface-level personalization and the processes to follow either way.

In our case we, we wanted our norm to be that regardless of the request, we were going to have a process to respond to it. Whether it was a reduction in their bucket of support hours, or governance controls paired with upgrade cycles, our goal was to process all change requests in a controlled and repeatable fashion.

To sweeten the pot, we also told them that if their customization request was something all our clients would benefit from, we wouldn’t charge them for it. Now every client had a little more motivation to make requests that would benefit everyone.

This approach helped us position ourselves as a partner to these organizations. We started with empathy and worked to employ a transparent set of rules and expectations that we could all work within.

That said, some clients pushed so hard, even with boundaries and agreements in place, that the relationship was impacted. Occasionally, clients throw their weight and try to operate in the extreme, and this, again, does not work. One side controlling or holding the other side hostage is not a win. It is a fail-fail as the relationship degrades.

The Client Services (CS) team has their work cut out for them but plays a key role in representing both the client and their own company.

Representing the Client

It seems obvious, that Client Services must represent the client but if a company is using CS to keep clients at bay and always function in a blocking and tackling role, then control is more important than value and they aren't actually representing the client.

Companies that do intend to use the CS team effectively, pay their CS members to genuinely represent the client's interest. If your company already has a CS team (customer success managers, account managers, business relationship managers, etc.), they have most likely already determined that client success is a good thing and worth pursuing in a tangible way.

In representing the client, the CS team must dedicate themselves to truly understanding where the ask is coming from, how much it’s hurting the client, how happy the change will make them, and assessing the long-term impact if the customization is implemented. CS needs to truly understand the issue so they can adequately share what they are seeing. They need to assess the risk and push their company to ensure they have the customer’s success in mind.

Client Services must also navigate the politics of their organization and push product teams and leadership to consider customizations that may not have been initially planned. Time after time, I have seen teams say no because “that’s not how we do it,” completely missing the boat on what had long become an industry standard.

At the same time, CS need to protect their client from themselves! Some requests aren’t good - they break standards, oppose best practices, or will be costly for the client and lead to greater unhappiness down the road. I’ve seen clients come to me needing to get off their current system because they had customized it so much that the vendor stopped including them in new versions. Another potential client told me they would change all of their practices to align with ours if they could just get off their old system, which was customized so heavily the cost had become unbearable. The CS team must, with great diplomatic skill, educate clients when there is danger in their thinking.

Representing the Company

Client Services must also understand their company’s motivations and communicate them effectively. They have a responsibility to keep costs low, protect the product that was sold, manage the time of finite resources, and maintain the integrity of the system while reducing technical debt. They must keep a steady pulse on how the request will be received within their company.

If they work for a “No” factory, they can help apply pressure from the inside but should carefully communicate the current state to clients, reminding them that they bought into a product or service that is scoped and priced the same for all customers.

If they work for a company with a black hole of requests that never get addressed, they will need to be transparent with the customer that changes can happen, and they will push for it (if they actually will), but it will be challenging with how the product is delivered today. Empathy for the client’s challenge is crucial, but you cannot degrade your company—even if you know the decision not to customize is misplaced.

Research is crucial—as a representative of your company and its product/service, client services must investigate whether the requested change already has a workaround, has been asked before, or would benefit more than just their client. This means developing great relationships with your subject matter experts: analysts, engineers, architects, and other specialists. Have your go-to people to solution and strategize with. Understand if it’s a good idea or a bad idea and be a champion either way. You are seeking out the truth in the midst of what might be possible.

If the request is a good idea, poll other customers informally to see if the change would be beneficial for them as well. If you find something that everyone could use or that would increase value, you are doing your company a service by championing that change.

Representing a best practice, a closed gap, or a key function that hasn’t been discovered or has been overlooked helps your product/service to grow in value – the fruit of which is success, retention, increasing loyalty, and more clients. I've seen many instances where one client's request became a standard and even a best practice, later implemented for all clients. Clients are often the most ideal source for new ideas and product improvements so we should always be on the lookout for them.

Finally, in representing your company, CS must bring the clients along in your defined processes and procedures. Ideally, your contracts/SOWs speak about the change process. Ideally, you will have some type of governance process in place to navigate requested customizations that would impact more than just the requesting customer.

Ideally, there is some kind of agreement or standard by which assessments, pricing, governance, implementation, etc. can follow so that both customer and organization feel like they are all operating in good faith and are trustworthy. If these standards are lacking, then you are likely experiencing more frustration than you need to and applying that inward pressure to develop the rules will be a great first step.

Conclusion

The battle between standardization and customization is ongoing, and it's a delicate dance that many organizations struggle to master. However, it doesn't have to be a source of constant friction or frustration. With the right approach, this tug-of-war can be transformed into a dynamic process that drives innovation, strengthens client relationships, and enhances the overall value of your product or service.

Client Services are uniquely positioned to be the arbiters of this balance. They are the bridge between the customer's evolving needs and the company's strategic priorities. By leveraging empathy, transparency, and strategic thinking, CS teams can navigate the complexities of customization requests with finesse. They ensure that customers feel heard and valued, while also protecting the integrity, scalability, and cost-effectiveness of the product.

In this ongoing battle, winning doesn't mean one side triumphs over the other. True victory lies in finding that sweet spot where both the customer and the company can claim success - where customization meets standardization in a way that enhances the product, delights the customer, and drives business growth. It's about creating a collaborative journey where every customization is carefully considered, every "no" is justified with empathy and reason, and every "yes" is aligned with broader business objectives.

So, as you navigate this complex landscape, remember that every interaction, every decision, and every negotiation is an opportunity to elevate both the customer experience and your company's market position. Embrace the challenge, leverage your expertise, and lead the way in transforming the battle between standardization and customization into a collaborative, value-driven journey. In doing so, you'll not only meet the needs of today but also pave the way for long-term success and growth for both your clients and your company.

Robert Hall is a seasoned Chief Customer Officer and Founder of EverydayCX, where he leverages over two decades of experience in customer success and operations within the SaaS and healthcare technology sectors to drive transformative business solutions. A Bronze Star-decorated combat veteran with a Master’s in International Marketing Management, Robert combines strategic acumen with a dynamic approach to customer engagement. His insights into customer experience strategy are rooted in real-world applications designed to foster sustainable growth and operational excellence. Follow Robert for innovative ideas on elevating customer experiences and driving business success.