What do you do when a customer offers to pay/contribute for a feature request?
Strange one here, not sure how common this is but it's the first time it's happened to me and I really don't know what to do.
A customer really wants a feature built and they are offering to pay/contribute for the dev work required. It's a sensible feature that I think we'll definitely build in a few months time (I've already told him that) as I can see it adding a ton of value to our customers.
But he wants/needs it now so he's offered to pay for it?
My questions is:
- How would you approach the conversation?
- Are there any repercussions to doing it?
- How would I quote? (purely time based or the value of the feature)
Thanks!
I would o it without getting any direct contribution from your customer, thus having no future obligation to him.
Consider, however, creating premium support plan, and offer your customer to upgrade to that plan for the next year. That plan should include option to build features per request, following accepted New Feature per Request Policy. Therein you should put that the customer renounces any right to income which your company would get by enabling other customers to use it.
Great Question.
If you are at early-stage...take the money...assuming it is of any helpful amount!
Perhaps add to a premium plan.
If one wants it that bad...be sure you understand why!
There is probably more gold in that feature.
Agree with Greg. Definitely check why they want it so bad. Don't just do it. You may get better insights about the problem, and chances are that other clients have similar problems, so you can use it to better sell your product to the next client. Ask them what they are using now to solve the problem. Observe the process how they are solving it.
If you've already planned to do it, that means it's aligned with your product. It's not like you're building an excel sheet and they want to edit video files. So it's just a priority change.