www.inkthinkerblog.com — Do you ever have just one of those clients? You know the kind: you like them, you’re interested in their project, you dig their company/products/philosophy/whatever — but they drive you crazy. Yeah, I have one of those right now. I genuinely like these people, but I’ve about had it. I alluded to this situation in October when I cited “the client who can’t make deadlines” as my favorite client from hell.
Dear Client:
MONTHS ago, you asked me to do a website evaluation. Your team loved it and you asked me to rewrite the whole site (which, incidentally, is the goal of these website evaluations), and to do it fast. “No problem,” I said. “I just need this information.” I sent a Word document with explicit questions/requests like “What’s the correct spelling of product A?” and “Please send me your client testimonials” and “What exactly does this product do?” Pretty basic stuff. Six weeks later, still waiting on answers. Answers are promised and never materialize.
I’m working with a PT assistant. No I’m not, I’m working with the owner. No I’m not, I’m working with the partner. No, now I’m working with the owner again. Now I’m back to the partner. Now no one is returning my calls. I still don’t have the information. Oh, wait, the information is coming? Oh, wait, it’s not, because when I follow up to ask where it is, it’s like the first time I’ve asked — even though I’ve been asking for WEEKS. Literally. And “weeks” is an understatement.
Finally, I get almost everything. DAYS later, “Where’s the copy? When are you going to send the copy? We’re on a tight deadline here.” Uh, apparently not since it took you 2 months to answer my questions and forward me documents you’ve claimed to have in your posession since we first made contact about a year ago. And mysteriously, when I ask, again my people vanish. Finally, I submit the copy. “Great, we’ll have feedback to you tomorrow. We’re on a tight deadline, you know.” Uh-huh…
A week later, I call and say, “Hey, so you mentioned sending feedback, but I haven’t received anything. Did you decide that you don’t want to make any changes?” “No, no, I’ll have them to you tonight.” Nope, you didn’t. Next morning: “Sorry, here’s [3 of the 9 sections]. I’ll have the rest to you by X time.” Nope, didn’t do that either. And you still left one out when you finally did get to it. And then, you opened it when I was on the phone and it was clear to me that, despite the fact that you’ve had it over a week and were harassing me to send it (even though you still hadn’t answered all of my questions), this was the first time you’d looked at it.
Why do you do this to me, client? I like you so much, and I really like how much you pay me, but I don’t know how much more of this I can take. Please try to get it together. I don’t want to have to fire you.
Love,
Kristen
P.S. I appreciate it when you thank me for my patience, but I’d appreciate it more if you stopped acting like everything is an emergency and then disappearing for weeks on end, only to materialize and act like you HAVEN’T been blowing off my questions about YOUR PROJECT. It’s not patience; it’s reluctant tolerance, and I’m almost out of it.
Contents Copyright © 2006-2014 Kristen King
Tags: client relations, freelance client, flaky client, rant
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Hi Kristen,
I get these clients now and then. I can smell ’em coming, though. So here’s how I structure the deal: 50% up front; 25% when the first draft is delivered; 25% on final acceptance. I price it so that I’m happy with the 75% and don’t care if they never get back to me with correx for the final. They think they’ve saved themselves a few bucks by doing the tweaking themselves (or not–I don’t care). I come out ahead because I don’t have to go through endless phone tag at the end.
My advice? Take the money you’ve got so far and don’t waste your time chasing the client for information.
Oh, honey, I did that. But with these people, I just don’t think there’s enough money in the world! :] We are going to need to have a serious discussion before I am willing to take on another project for them, one that includes some sort of trip to Hawaii when it’s over as a reward for my not killing anyone.
:]
kk
Aaarrgghh, I, too, hate it when clients say, “hurry, hurry” and I drop everything to work on their stuff, then when I email, oh, a month or two later in November to ask WTF?, they say, “oh, looks like it’ll be out in February.”
Urge to kill….
I hear ya! All talk and no follow through. Everything’s an emergency when it’s in your hands, but when the tables are turned suddenly everyone’s on vacation/maternity leave/lunch hour. Good riddance!
Ha. Do you work for lawyers? Because this sounds very familiar…
I agree with Dick’s comment above. Payments in progress sounds like the only way to go. Otherwise you risk making the untimely discovery that throwing the laptop at the wall is a bad thing. Both are lessons I’ve learned the hard way. ;-)