Geof Harries

On our company page of this website, we talk briefly about the culture of Subvert. From listening to other people's opinions to charity donations and outsourcing tasks to delivering both speed and quality, we have a number of core beliefs that keep us on track.

Something that I've been thinking about as of late is how we can make people, that is, our customers, happy. Or if they're already happy, even happier.

It's usually not that difficult to make somebody else happy. The challenging part is swallowing your pride and humbling yourself before them; to become their servant. Is servant too strong of a word? I don't think so. "Servant" is perhaps an unpopular term these days, which is lousy, because the underlying meaning is very powerful when you consider it in the context of a service-based business.

We, as a company, perform many duties for others. We consult, we plan, we design, we build, we ship and we manage. We help others improve their businesses through our knowledge of software, websites and digital marketing.

To me, all of this sounds like servitude. And none of it is beneath us. It's who we are and what we do.

Which leads me to the making of happier customers.

We firmly believe that Subvert should do whatever makes our customers happiest, as long as it's not completely unreasonable. Of course, knowing where that border of irrationality lies is something you need to figure out for yourself and your own company.

We've made some mistakes over the years, but in each case, we've tried to learn from those errors and improve ourselves. Happy customers are earned, one at a time. It's not the quickest or most glamorous way to the top, but it's genuinely satisfying.

Doing something nice for somebody else - for instance, not billing for every minute they engage you, fixing something that only you know is broken at no extra charge or not stopping work simply because the project budget has run a bit over - will do wonders for your reputation.

Small gestures like this go a long way towards customers recommending your company to others and them returning to you at a later date.

Everyone always remembers how they were treated.

Would you prefer to be the bad experience or the fond memory?