Why We Say No to Customisation (Even When Customers Are Ready to Pay)

1. Purpose of this document

Many of our prospects and customers say some version of:

"We are ready to pay more. Can you build this just for us?"

This document explains why MyOperator usually says no to customisation, even when customers are willing to pay, and how every customer-facing team member should explain this confidently.

It is not a script to hide behind. It is a philosophy that keeps MyOperator a strong Business AI Operator rather than a custom software vendor.

2. Our identity: platform, not projects

MyOperator is built to be a platform that thousands of businesses can use in a predictable, reliable, and scalable way.

We are not in the business of doing one-off projects.
We are in the business of operating the core communication and AI layer of a business: calls + WhatsApp + AI agents.
Our job is to build highways, not private one-lane roads for each customer.

When we behave like a platform, everyone benefits:

Customers get a tested, stable, and improving product.
Our teams can focus on building better capabilities, not maintaining custom patches.
We can give fair pricing to all customers, instead of hidden complexity costs.

This is the foundational reason we avoid customisation. Everything else follows from here.

3. What we mean by "customisation"

Before we go further, it is important to be clear:

3.1 What is not customisation (we happily support this)

These are standard configurations and are part of our job:

Setting up IVR flows, call routing, business hours, and call recordings.
Defining WhatsApp templates and journeys using supported flows.
Configuring integrations using existing connectors (CRM, helpdesk, etc.).
Adjusting settings, user roles, reports, and dashboards that are already available.

This is implementation, not custom product development.

3.2 What is customisation (we normally avoid this)

Building a new feature that is not on our roadmap, only for one customer.
Changing the product’s core behaviour in a way that is unique to one account.
Creating one-off integrations that have to be maintained only for that customer.
Hard-coding exceptions: special rules, special pricing logic, special flows that no one else uses.

In short: anything that creates a separate “mini-version” of MyOperator for a specific customer.

4. Why we avoid customisation – even if the customer is ready to pay

4.1 Reliability and stability for everyone

Every custom change increases the risk of:

New bugs and edge cases.
Upgrades breaking in unexpected ways.
Performance issues that are hard to trace.

The more custom branches we have, the harder it becomes to guarantee uptime, call quality, and AI performance for everyone.

Saying no to customisation is saying yes to reliability.

4.2 Avoiding a “Frankenstein” product

When you keep saying yes to small, paid customisations, the product slowly becomes:

Inconsistent: different customers behave differently for the same action.
Confusing: support and sales can’t clearly explain “how it works” anymore.
Slow to evolve: every change has to be tested against many one-off cases.

A Frankenstein product is bad for current customers, future customers, and our own team.

We want MyOperator to stay clean, predictable, and simple.

4.3 Speed of innovation

Our differentiation is not “we will build whatever you ask for”.

Our differentiation is:

We learn from patterns across thousands of businesses.
We ship improvements that benefit everyone.
We build AI-powered capabilities that get better with scale.

If our product and engineering teams spend time building and maintaining custom code:

We ship fewer improvements to the core platform.
We delay features that would help 1,000+ customers, to serve 1.

Saying no to customisation lets us move faster on the things that matter most to businesses.

4.4 Fair and transparent pricing

Customisation often sounds attractive because the customer is ready to pay more.

But in reality:

One-time fees rarely cover the lifetime cost of maintaining custom code.
Customisation for one customer often leads to hidden complexity that others indirectly pay for.
You end up with awkward situations where two customers pay the same but get different behaviour.

We prefer a clear, fair model:

Choose the plan that fits your usage and complexity.
Pay more if you use more (seats, conversations, channels, locations), not because we secretly forked the product for you.

This keeps our pricing consistent, explainable, and scalable.

4.5 Focus of our teams

We want our teams to:

Build powerful standard journeys and templates that work across industries.
Design AI agents that improve over time for all customers.
Improve documentation, stability, dashboards, and insights.

If we open the door to “pay us and we’ll customise”, two things happen:

Our best people get sucked into short-term project firefighting.
The roadmap slows down and morale drops because the work is reactive, not strategic.

Saying no to customisation protects the focus and energy of our teams.

4.6 Better AI and data outcomes

MyOperator’s long-term strength is in our data and AI, not just telephony.

We use patterns from calls, WhatsApp, and agent behaviour to improve AI agents.
We want consistent, structured data flowing through the platform.

Excessive customisation creates data islands:

Different flows, different labels, different behaviours.
Harder to learn across accounts.
Harder to build generic, powerful AI models.

By keeping the product standardised, our AI can learn faster and perform better for everyone.

4.7 Healthier, more honest customer relationships

When we refuse customisation, we are also being honest:

We are clear about what we are and what we are not.
We don’t overpromise short-term fixes that hurt long-term outcomes.
We position ourselves as a platform partner, not a desperate vendor.

Some prospects may walk away. That is okay.

We want customers who:

Value a strong platform over a one-off project.
Understand that standardisation is what gives them reliability and lower TCO.
Want a long-term partner, not a custom dev shop.

5. When we do consider limited customisation or paid services

Our default answer to customisation is no.

However, there are a few clearly defined scenarios where money, scale, and strategy align, and we can accept payment in a structured way without compromising the platform.

Think of these as exceptions with rules, not as negotiations.

5.1 Paid service plans (implementation & configuration only)

We do charge for additional services when they involve doing more work within the existing product, not changing the product itself.

Examples of what can be covered under a paid service plan:

Advanced implementation and onboarding (multi-team, multi-location setup).
Complex IVR and routing design across departments and geographies.
Bulk data imports, number mapping, and configuration migration from legacy systems.
Building reports, views, and dashboards using existing analytics features or APIs.
Designing and configuring AI agents and WhatsApp journeys within existing capabilities.
Training sessions, playbook design, and internal process consulting.

Key principles:

The product remains standard. We are selling time and expertise, not a fork of MyOperator.
The commercial model can be per-hour, per-project, or via pre-defined service packs (e.g., Starter Implementation Pack, Advanced Rollout Pack, AI Agent Setup Pack).
These services can be delivered by MyOperator’s internal teams or by certified service partners (see 5.3).

When talking to customers:

"We cannot change the core product, but we can absolutely invest more time with you – as a paid service – to configure it deeply, design better journeys, and train your teams so you get maximum value from the platform."

5.2 Paid productised capabilities (build once, sell many)

In rare cases, a customer may ask for something that is both:

Very important for them and
Clearly valuable for many other customers or a large segment.

In such situations, we may decide to bring that capability into the product roadmap and allow the customer to:

Co-fund or pre-pay for early access, or
Commit to a certain scale of usage that justifies prioritising the build.

Even here, the rules are strict:

It must pass all four tests:

1. Multi-customer value.
2. Strategic fit with our Business AI Operator roadmap.
3. Sufficient scale (large ACV or strategic segment unlock).
4. Explicit product sign-off that this is a standard feature, not a one-off.

Commercially, the customer is paying for priority and adoption, not for a private feature. Once built, the capability is part of the standard platform.

How teams should position this:

"We do not do one-off custom builds, even if they are paid. In some strategic cases, if what you’re asking for is already aligned with our roadmap and is useful for many customers, we may build it into the core product and you could be one of the early adopters. That decision is taken by our product leadership, not on individual deals, and we cannot commit timelines from the sales side."

Your role is to collect and qualify such signals, not to promise them.

5.3 Service partners: when very custom work is still needed

There will be customers whose needs go beyond what we want to own as a product company:

Deep process re-engineering specific to their organisation.
Custom internal tools, workflows, or dashboards that sit around MyOperator.
Industry-specific applications built on top of our APIs (e.g., custom CRMs, field-force apps, internal ERPs).

For these cases, we rely on MyOperator Certified Service Partners.

How this works:

MyOperator provides a stable, well-documented platform and APIs.
Partners sign separate services contracts with customers (sometimes referred by us).
Partners are free to build highly tailored solutions around MyOperator – including custom dashboards, middleware, integrations, and adjacencies.
MyOperator remains responsible for the core platform, uptime, and standard features; partners own the custom layer.

How to explain this to customers:

"MyOperator itself focuses on the core platform and standard features. For very specific, custom workflows or tools that are unique to your organisation, we work with certified service partners who can build on top of our APIs. That way, you get the best of both worlds – a stable platform and the flexibility of custom work – without compromising the reliability of the core product."

For customer-facing teams, the rule is:

When you hear "we want heavy custom apps or deep one-off workflows", think partner, not product.

5.4 New-category / strategic build programmes

At the very top end, there are a few potential opportunities where:

A customer or partner wants to build an entirely new business line or category on top of MyOperator.
The upside is very large (multi-crore per month potential) and opens a repeatable play for thousands of other businesses.
Both sides are willing to think in multi-year horizons with clear commercial structures.

In such cases, we may explore strategic build programmes, which can include:

Dedicated cross-functional squads (product, engineering, design, success).
Joint GTM, co-branding, and revenue-sharing or minimum-commit contracts.
Deep product expansion into a new vertical or geography.

This is never something a salesperson or AM can promise.

What you can say:

"What you are describing sounds less like a feature request and more like a new category or line of business. That is something we sometimes explore as a strategic programme with select partners. I can document this and share it with our leadership team to see if it fits our direction, but I cannot commit anything from my side."

If leadership decides to proceed, any payment structure (upfront fees, committed MRR, revenue share) is designed at that level and treated as a company-level bet, not a standard deal.

5.5 In one line: when does money change the answer?

Money does not change our answer when we are asked to fork the product.

Money can change our answer only in three controlled ways:

Paid service plans – more of our time and expertise to configure and implement the standard product.
Paid, productised capabilities – when what is being asked is already aligned with our roadmap and valuable to many customers.
Strategic category programmes – rare, leadership-owned bets where a partner helps us open a new category on top of MyOperator.

Everything else stays under the default rule: no one-off customisation, even if the customer is ready to pay.

6. How to talk about this with customers

This section is written directly for sales, success, and support teams.

6.1 Core framing to remember

Use this simple framing with customers:

"We are a platform, not a custom software vendor. To keep MyOperator reliable, fast, and fairly priced for you and thousands of other businesses, we avoid one-off customisations. Instead, we focus on powerful standard features and configurations that we can support and improve for everyone."

6.2 Simple metaphors you can use

Highway vs private road

- "We build highways that many businesses can drive on safely and quickly. Customisation is like building a private road for one company – it is expensive to maintain and slows down work on the highway."

Car model analogy

- "Think of MyOperator like a car model. You can choose a variant with more features, but you cannot ask the manufacturer to rebuild the car’s engine only for you. That’s how we think about our plans and features."

Electricity analogy

- "We are like your power supplier. You cannot customise how electricity is generated, but you can choose how you use it in your factory. Similarly, we keep the platform standard and let you configure it to your process."

6.3 Conversation pattern for handling customisation requests

When a customer says, “Can you customise this for us?”, follow this 4-step pattern:

Acknowledge and understand

- "I understand why you’re asking for this. Can you tell me what outcome you want to achieve with this change?"

Reframe outcomes

- Move from "build this feature" to "solve this business problem".
- Often, the problem can be solved with existing capabilities.

Offer configuration-based alternatives

- "We cannot change the core behaviour in that way, but here are two ways we can configure the system to get you close to your desired outcome."

Set clear boundaries

- "As a policy, we do not do one-off customisations, even as a paid project. This is how we keep the platform stable and fair for everyone, including you."

If you believe the request truly represents a repeatable need for many customers, you can add:

"I will document this and share it with our product team as input for our roadmap, but I cannot commit to any timeline or guarantee that it will be built."

Never promise or imply custom development.

7. Handling typical objections

Objection 1: "We are ready to pay for it. Why won’t you do it?"

Suggested response:

"I appreciate that you are willing to invest. The challenge is not the one-time payment. The challenge is long-term maintenance, testing, and support of a custom version. That cost is very high and, more importantly, it affects the reliability and speed of improvements for all customers – including you. We have chosen to be a strong platform instead of a custom development company."

You can add:

"What we can do is work with you to get the outcome you want using our existing capabilities and configurations."

Objection 2: "Your competitor is ready to build this for us."

Suggested response:

"That’s a valid point, and it probably means they are taking a more services-heavy approach. Our focus is different: we want to give you a stable, productised platform that keeps improving over years, not a one-off project that depends on specific engineers and custom code. If having a custom-built system is your top priority, we may not be the best fit. If having a reliable, evolving platform is more important, we’re the right partner."

It is okay to disqualify customers who only want custom projects.

Objection 3: "This is just a small change. Why can’t you do it?"

Suggested response:

"It may look small on the surface, but any change in core behaviour has hidden costs – design, development, testing, documentation, and future maintenance. When we multiply this across many customers, the product quickly becomes inconsistent and hard to maintain. That’s why we follow a strict principle: only build what we can support and improve for everyone."

Then immediately:

"Let’s look at how close we can get to your desired outcome using existing options."

Objection 4: "But we are an important/large customer."

Suggested response:

"We value your business and the scale you bring. Precisely because of that, we want you on a strong, stable platform – not on a special fork that becomes hard to maintain. For large customers, what we can do is work with you on deeper configuration, integrations using existing APIs, and phased rollouts – but still within our standard product framework."

If it truly looks like a strategic, scalable opportunity, escalate internally instead of committing.

8. Behaviour checklist for customer-facing teams

Use this as a quick reference.

Always do

Explain our platform-first philosophy confidently.
Shift the conversation from "feature" to "outcome".
Exhaust configuration and standard integrations before even thinking about product changes.
Document recurring patterns you see across customers and feed them to the product as input, not as commitments.
Escalate only when all four strategic conditions (multi-customer value, strategic fit, scale, product sign-off) seem realistic.

Never do

Never say or imply: "If you pay more, we will build this only for you."
Never promise a product change or custom development on a call or in an email.
Never bypass product and engineering processes to "get something small done".
Never sell MyOperator as if we are a custom dev shop.

9. Summary

We do not refuse customisation because we do not care.

We refuse customisation because we deeply care about:

Building a reliable, scalable Business AI Operator platform.
Serving thousands of businesses, not just a handful of custom projects.
Giving customers a clear, fair, and long-term value proposition.

By holding this line, every person in a customer-facing role protects:

Our customers’ long-term success.
Our product’s clarity and power.
Our brand as a confident, expert operator – not a feature factory on demand.

Use this document to guide your conversations, push back with confidence, and stay aligned with what MyOperator is ultimately building.

Updated on: 26/11/2025