Working with Vendors

I have worked with couple of vendors in the software industry and i see there is common working style in most of the them and i feel as a customer we need to make sure and have better understanding on what they are doing and is that the right way to go.

Most common things i observe in most of the vendors :
1. Try to bluff the customer.
2. They don't have facts in hand before they talk on anything.
3. They think customer is a layman.
4. They just promise or say whatever comes out of their mouth at that moment.
5. They try to hide the facts most of the time.
6. They try to still keep up their words on the facts even after they realize after sometime that they were wrong on what they are talking.
7. Irate and good customer with their minimal knowledge.

Things to do to make customer happy :
1. Accept your mistakes and provide them options on how to fix them.
2. Listen to the customer before you come up with conclusions.
3. Bluffing the customer does not work all the time.
4. Work according to the expectations of the customer then you would have strong long term relation ship.
5. Companies need to shuffle their employees according need and response of the customer in the beginning.
6. Don't wait till the customer totally gets frustrated and the project gets scrapped.
7. Try to be always in customer shoes before you try to do anything.

Successful Implementation

You can see the success in your implementation when the following happens :

1. You end user accepts the system.
2. They like the system.
3. They start using the system.