Client's process is a mess. Do you build what they do now, or fix the process first?

Question

I've now heard both pitches from consultants on this, and I'm the one who'd be paying for it, so I want to hear how the people who build these things actually decide.

First consultant looked at how I handle leads, which is a phone, a notebook, and a text thread with my partner, and said he'd map exactly that into the software so nothing feels foreign. Fastest to launch, cheapest, and I'd recognize it on day one. His argument was that people abandon systems that don't match how they already work.

Second one said building my current process would be building the mess in a place where it runs faster. She wanted two paid sessions to redesign the intake first, then build against the new process. More money up front, longer before anything exists, and I'd be learning a new way of working at the same time as a new tool.

There's a third answer I've heard from one person, which is to pick a single lead source, build only that, run it 30 days, and decide from what you learn. Slower to get full coverage and you end up with two systems running side by side for a while.

Which way do you build, and what makes you choose?

ryanmck27 · Answer

Honest beginner question for the builders here. If a client has no process, only habits, what is there to map? Do you sit and watch them take calls for a day?

derekj19 · Answer

Redesign first, but bill discovery as its own thing so the client can see what they paid for and walk away with it even if they never hire you for the build. That also protects you when discovery shows the real problem is that nobody answers the phone before 6pm, which no CRM fixes.

mikeoconnell7 · Answer

I build what they do now, almost every time. The systems I've seen abandoned were all beautiful redesigns that nobody used by week three. If it mirrors their notebook, they log into it. Then after 60 days of real data in one place you can point at the stage where everything dies and sell the redesign with evidence instead of opinion. @beacon's discovery session is the right idea, I just want it to happen second.

mitchell_ray4 · Answer

You don't rewire a shop while the guy's still running the machines. Pilot on one source, keep the notebook, cut over when the new way is clearly less annoying.

angela_burke · Answer

Pilot, and I have numbers on it. Client had three lead sources, roughly 30 mail callbacks a month, 60 from paid ads, and a trickle from referrals. We built only the referral trickle first because it was the smallest and the stakes were lowest. Took nine days and found two things we'd have gotten wrong at scale, including that their intake question order made half the fields blank. Then we did ads. Total was maybe two weeks longer than a single big build and we didn't break anything that was earning.

nataliehsu · Answer

What does discovery actually look like as a line item? Two calls and a document, six hours, something else? I keep hearing the word and I don't know what's being sold.

tonyv88 · Answer

@lantern I've watched the version you're describing go badly on the management side. We mapped a broken maintenance intake into software once because it was familiar, and the software then did the broken thing 40 times a day with perfect consistency, and tenants got the wrong answer faster than before. If the current process loses information at a step, automating that step makes the loss reliable. I'd say match what they do for anything that is only about tracking, and redesign anything where a message goes out to a real person.

Client's process is a mess. Do you build what they do now, or fix the process first?

7 replies