Home | About | Contact

You Said What?

---

About once every other week, I attend a meeting of web professionals that want to talk about new skills and techniques related to the web design industry. Usually it's one of those events that you walk away from really anxious to get back to your computer and do more research on a particular topic.

This past week was no exception, however the excitement wasn't due to technology. Nope this week the topic of customer service and how to deal with a bad client.

Let me be honest with you and say that we have all had our share of bad clients. Although for me it's been few and far between, they do exists and a lot of time it boils down to poor communication on both my side and their side. But with that said, at no time, no matter how disturbing the client can be do you ever get into name calling and needless banter.

The story was told by a fellow designer, that such a situation did occur to him just last week and that he was "happy" to be dumping this client. Happy to dump a client? I don't think I've ever uttered those words, nor have I ever "wanted" to loose a client. The incident that he described was what I would consider a "misunderstanding", or lack in clarification of details. We've all run into it, "I thought you wanted this" or "I thought you were going to build me this". In this case it turned into "I'm building you this and I'm not changing it".

I still do business the old school way: The client is ALWAYS right!

As I explained to this gentleman, maybe this small change wasn't "technically" the correct thing to do, but it was the best business decision. I've found that counseling the client on the correct ways of doing things is always a good idea, and it's also the only way to gain insite into what they might be thinking from a business perspective. Remember, at the end of the day, this business owner wants his website to look and act a certain way because they believe this will gain them the most business. Just like you have bills to pay, so do they. Meeting each other somewhere in the middle usually works, and if it doesn't then keep them happy and coming back for more.

Time to walk away

With that said, there are times to walk away, and for him maybe this was that time. One thing I won't tolerate is unprofessional behavior. You know what I mean, language that isn't appropriate and throwing people under the bus at the drop of a hat. Which brings me to a really important point, never ever ever talk about someone else on the clients team behind their back. I've seen this go terribly wrong and actually won a contract because the other agency screwed up so bad by trying to be buddy buddy with certain members of the team. What you don't think will hurt you probably will so in this case it's usually good to be Switzerland.

I've only walked away from one client in my life and that's because the working conditions were unbearable. Name calling, accusations, lying, etc... You know all the things your mother told you never to do, yeah this project was full of them. I still delivered the project and the documentation, I just never followed back up with them for follow on work. Sometimes sacrificing ones dignity and quality of life isn't worth giving up in order to make a buck.

In the end my fellow designer admitted that maybe he overreacted a tad, but he still wasn't going back for more abuse. That's probably the right decision, especially if your heart isn't into it, and we all know you have to be fully invested in order to produce something extraordinary. However, I thinks its and important point to remember that the customer should always be treated like a professional and all of their suggestions should be considered. You're there to provide guidance and knowledge of the industry, but they ultimately pay the bills. So listen carefully to them.

Current Projects

In Production