When Your Exit Strategy Dream Is My Customer Nightmare

Summary

Your Exit Strategy Dream Is My Customer Nightmare Published on: 2025-07-04 07:40:00 by Stefano Marinelli6 min read Photo by Ilias Gainutdinov on Unsplash I've always been a believer in human relationships. Whenever possible, I always prioritize direct dialogue. I've never been a fan of abstractions when it comes to relationships. Just like in the IT world, I am convinced that you can usually solve much more with a direct conversation than with a thousand intermediate steps. Too many layers, even if theoretically sound, just complicate things. And this is one of the reasons I've always tried, as much as possible, to avoid overcomplicating the relationship with my clients. It's why I have always sought, as much as possible, to engage with businesses where I can speak with people, not "offices" or "departments". Take the example of the roof repairs on my house: I spoke with the people who did the work. They did an excellent job and even fixed things I hadn't mentioned because, in their words, "a satisfied customer is a customer who will call back". A few days earlier, "large, structured" companies had sent completely different quotes without even looking at our roof. "The people we send will assess it then, but we'll instruct them to do what's in the quote". It was schematic, inflexible. Probably efficient from their point of view, but not from mine. Replaceable by AI? Of course: X square meters of roof, Y job, Z per square meter -> cost is €W. Without anyone truly caring about what my roof might actually need. For this very reason, I dislike talking to salespeople. It's one thing when I'm buying a product (with verifiable features, etc.), but it's different when I'm buying a service or a consultation. Salespeople do their job, which is to sell. And they try to sell what they don't have, what they don't know, and what I don't need. The better they are, the more they sell me things I don't need. And, frankly, I don't like that very much. This is why I prefer to talk to ...