Turns out being perfect is hard. Seth Godin wrote about the problem this morning in a post titled, ‘The problem with perfect‘. He explains, “When was the last time you excitedly told someone about Fedex? They’re perfect. The only time we notice them is when they screw up.”

Architel’s service offering, far from perfect, is very similar. If we are successful and our client’s network has few and fewer problems instead of heaping praise on us; often our client’s will begin to question our value. In some cases they will contact our CEO and ask if they can get a list of trouble tickets and support requests so that they can ascertain the value of our service. Ironically, it is only through our failure do our client’s perceive our value.

Our goal in 2008 is to add, what Seth calls, ‘texture’ to our service. By dividing our customers among four delivery teams our hope is that we can increase ‘interpersonal interaction’ between our staff and our customers and at the end of the day offering a perceived value built on people instead of failure. Seth suggests there is hope for companies like our or like FedEx, “I think our Fedex delivery person is interesting. I like her. I talk to her. And yes, it changes my decision about who to ship with. I also think that Spicy Mina is an interesting restaurant. So far from perfect, it’s ridiculous. But I talk about it.”