I’m no “Mr. Fix It” by any stretch of the imagination, so last week when I found my toilet running excessively long, I placed a call to my plumber. He came out on the scheduled day and time and immediately went about the business of assessing the situation at hand. He told me it was an easy fix, that he had all of the necessary replacement parts in his truck and that he would be done and gone in 30 minutes or less.
At the 45 minute mark I asked how the repair was going. He told me that he had completed the repair I called for and was now working on something else that “didn’t look right” but wasn’t broken. He added that this additional repair would be at no charge. I politely but assertively told him that I wished he would have consulted me on the second repair because I needed to get to my office. He looked amazed and shocked upon hearing my comment. Unless the toilet was in imminent danger of malfunctioning, that other repair shouldn’t have happened. I was quite pleased that what I had called for was successfully rectified.
In a similar vein, you are under no obligation to shore up each and every dilemma with your clients. I recall one client I worked with who told me that only one of several intervention strategies I offered actually worked for her. Nevertheless when we terminated our work together, she told me she was quite pleased and would refer others to me. We both parted happily.
If someone approves of your product, service, recommendation or whatever, allow them the latitude to just simply be pleased with it. Doing or providing more – particularly if it wasn’t requested in the first place – may very well not be greeted in the way you had hoped.
More may only mean more – to you.
