The Customer Isn't Always Right.But Here's How to Do Right by Them

Three seasoned founders share their approaches to managing tricky client relationships.

- BY KEVIN J. RYAN

"Being anchored in kindness and empathy has been the very thing that has driven our success from the earliest days of our company." KUOG's Paul L. Gunn Jr.

Customers are the lifeblood of your company, but trying to keep them happy at all times can drain resources, threaten profit margins, and sap employee morale. And sometimes, managing one client relationship comes at the expense of another. When that happens, you may want to rethink which customers are core to your business, and which you might have to walk away from.

To help navigate the thorny topic of managing customer relationships, we brought together three founders whose companies made the Inc. 5000 in 2024: Paul L. Gunn Jr., founder of KUOG, a logistics company that works with the defense industry; Madeleine Niebauer, founder of vChief, a staffing firm for placing interim executives; and Ryan Sprance, co-founder of Awestruck, a marketing agency focused on the travel industry. We started by asking: Who are your customers, and how do you maintain a high level of service?

"If we walk away from a client, it's usually due to a core values fit. If we're not culturally aligned, or if you don't treat your people with respect, we can't be there." vChief's Madeleine Niebauer

GUNN We work with federal clients including the Department of Defense, but our customers are really the end users. Work takes on a personal meaning to me because my brother served in the military. I think of the customer as someone with a brother or a spouse or parents who want them to get home safely. What can we do to help make that happen? It's a call to service to support someone we may never see.