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Demanding clients can be costly.
25th August, 2010 by Steven Waldberg
Ive been in business for the past 13 years and I really thought I could read clients personalities before starting a job.
It kind of goes like this. You have an initial meeting and they have gone through your website and they love your work. Theres a warm and fuzzy feeling during the meeting, all smiles and handshakes at the end and you feel a proper brief has been obtained. Lets call this brief a basic website design. I might add that they have also contacted 5 other web companies and really want to use our company cause they love our look/style BUT the other companies have quoted 30% lower. Ok, you take the plunge and reduce your fees and expect a quick design turnaround, client approval, coding of the site and they are on their merry way. A win win all round.
This rarely happens, just because a client is a small start up on a limited budget do not be fooled by this. Its these kind of people ( and Im not saying that this is the rule) that tend to be the most demanding, picky and critical kind of customers. They tend to feel that because they gave you the business now then they have the right to add and add to the brief. What was once a 4 or 5 page website has now turned into:
1) can you just tweak my logo a bit
2) can you just add another page
3) implement a full CMS ( cause they remember saying this in the meeting - but it is no where on the quote notes or web briefing document).
4) can you just add a tiny bit of animation in the header
This means a line must be drawn into the sand and you must take control over these types of clients as they will keep on demanding and it WILL cost you money.
However nice they may be you cannot let them walk all over you and your design team.
Hope this helps.
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Was wondering if you have any recommendations for setting up an official Estimate document? Or what your process is to avoid these situations?
Posted by Jenifer Bulcock on 1st September 2010