RE: FN-FORUM: Angry Pickle

date posted 11th November 2007 08:00

Jon wrote:
> One of my clients is beginning to make me supremely angry. He
> perpetually haggles on costs, always complains of having no budget,
> doesn't understand or value design, and has a knack of revealing
> deadlines hours before work is due. He's also rude, a shockingly poor
> payer and is by no means one of my more financially reliant clients.


Hi Jon - as you have not yet ditched the client in question, presumably =
they
provide a useful supply of regular work?=20

If you don't need the work, then by all means follow one of the =
suggestions
for giving them the polite heave-ho. I am a firm believer that
business-to-business relationships should be based on mutual respect; =
none
of this "The customer is always right" rubbish from the =
retail/restaurant
trade- it just doesn't work in the B2B services trade.

There is another, better, way though!

We were in exactly the same situation last month. A client that provides
regular work at a reasonable rate, but who is inevitably a royal PITA =
and
poor payer, called a meeting to discuss moving a project forward. The
project was on-hold, awaiting payment of a 5 months overdue (!) =
milestone
invoice. The client's e-mail hinted that they wanted to see XYZ more =
work
before they would consider paying.

On the way to the meeting, I considered my options.=20

1. Give in to his demands ("The customer is always right") and =
continue
work on the project without the milestone payment: not going to happen!
2. Ditch the client there-and-then: a possibility, but unprofessional =
IMO
and didn't make financial sense.=20
3. Put my foot down on the specific problematic areas, present =
resolutions
and proceed only if the client was in agreement.

The meeting started as expected - a torrent of abuse in all directions: =
the
design he'd signed off several years ago was hideous, the work we'd done
would have taken his cousin 20 minutes in FrontPage and 4 hours was =
daylight
robbery for re-designing and re-building the dynamic Flash banner as =
DHTML.=20

There was no way in Hell he was going to pay a penny until XYZ (all out =
of
spec) changes were made and approved by him. The Usual.

I let him finish, then told him calmly, but firmly, that there would be =
no
further work on the project until the milestone invoice was paid, =
including
13% statutory Late Payment Interest, and that work beyond spec would =
cost
extra. If this wasn't acceptable to him, I recommended he get his =
cousin, or
another supplier, to do the work instead!

My client looked taken aback by my ultimatum, tested to see if I was
bluffing (I wasn't!) .. then agreed to the terms. Up-front payments and
strict delivery to spec. from here-on, plus a cheque there-and-then for =
the
full invoice amount, including LPI.=20

In some ways, it's quite liberating to have a difficult client. It's the
friendly clients you get on well with that you feel obliged to let get =
away
with spec changes and late payments. If you are genuinely prepared to =
turn
the client away, then you are in a position to call the shots, =
potentially
resolving the problem.=20

Simply walking away without giving the client a decent chance to =
"repent"
is, to me, unprofessional and slightly cowardly!

Cheers, Ben

PS: After our showdown, the troublesome client also hinted he'd like me =
to
work for him in the future! Sometimes you have to be firm to establish
client-supplier respect. ;)


--
Ben Johnson, Neogic Web Solutions
// design . development . managed hosting

w | http://www.neogic.com
t | +44 (0)1242 808 262
e | [EMAIL REMOVED]