Contribute Fridays: How Do You Deal With Client Conflicts?
Today’s post is dedicated to two fellow freelancers, dealing with this right now.
How do you deal with client conflicts? Do you:
- Try to talk the problem out and continue working with them?
- Try to offer some free work to calm them down?
- Try to pass the project off to someone else?
- Quit returning their calls when they start acting completely unreasonable?
Do you have any experiences/tips for dealing with conflicts?
Photo courtesy of David Kingham
About the author
Amber Weinberg specializes in clean and semantic XHTML, CSS and WordPress development. She has over 10 years of coding experience and is pretty cool to work with. Amber is available for freelance work, so why not hire her for your next project?
always tough to deal with client relations that have gone sour. hopefully the number of these situations can be mitigated with:
1) good client selection – don’t work for everyone that needs work done. as a freelancer, sometimes it’s hard to turn away work, however, if you see or hear of any red flags.. better to pass on the work.
2) planning to the last detail.
3) open and consistent communication – even if there’s not much to report, make sure you and the client are on the same page from time to time. the interval of these should be regular, especially for larger jobs.
having said all of that .. sometimes things still go awry. the suggestions above were:
- Try to talk the problem out and continue working with them?
This seems like the best solution. Face to face meeting and a firm handshake would be preferable in this situation. Come to the meeting armed with possible solutions to the problem(s). it’s not rocket science to us, but to clients, they might not have a clue as to how things actually get done. Be prepared to educate on your processes and general best practice.
- Try to offer some free work to calm them down?
Tough call; offering free work sets a poor precedent for future relations. If the problem is clearly on your shoulders and you completely missed the ball on a big concept, then this might be OK, but never give away work unless the client knows you’re doing so.
- Try to pass the project off to someone else?
This would be a bad idea, unless you’re completely not the right person for the job. (see mitigating bad client situations above). if they need a php/mysql guy, and all you do is photoshop, it’s probably not going to work and you and the client both probably should have seen that. if the job is within your skillset, then it’s often worthwhile to have someone work with you, to get the project back on track. helps to bounce ideas off someone else, and brings a fresh set of eyes to the situation. i wouldn’t advise giving up control though. it’s your freelance reputation. unless you want to be known as the freelancer that quits projects when things get tough.
- Quit returning their calls when they start acting completely unreasonable?
again .. see above =)
as in most businesses, if a client has an excellent experience, they might tell one or two people. if they have a bad experience, they are likely to tell 10 or more people. for this reason alone, you want to win them over.
freelancing is tough as sometimes you’re not sure when the next job might come through. when things get bad, phone calls and emails will seem far more impersonal. arrange for a face meeting. in the face to face, you should facilitate the meeting. go over the project goals, what has been done, and what is yet to be done, all at a high level, before you get into the greasy details.
it’s much easier to get that loving feeling back when you’re face to face with the client.
good luck! let me know how it goes @transcendwebs on twitter.
I think conflicts are great! When you do resolve them you are always in their good praises. I think timeliness and getting the job done right matters a lot when conflicts arise. When the client knows that you are there for them when they are in a great need of help, that’s where they build trust in you and most likely tell many other people of how quickly you resolved their problems. They will most likely become repeat Clients. I dont pray for conflicts but embrace them when they do happen. It might seem like a pain, but its work you already know. So the fix paid or not , is something that you know already.
Live long.. design strong
@Bruce Great tips! I’ve only had one or two major problems myself and I ended up having to hand the site off (family health problems so I couldn’t work on the site)
@Knite That’s a great way to look at the situation, as long as the client isn’t looking for a fight. The situation from what I hear, the client is completely unreasonable. You know those people, who set out to fight no matter how good of a service you provide.
Yeah Amber I know those types of clients. I make sure to charge them a PIA (pain in the ass) Fee as well. I guess that’s why contracts are so important to make sure that you are covered from all sides. I had a lawyer hand write my contract out and made some specific rules for those irate clients.
Hey Amber, yea, it’s rare but sometimes you get the nightmare client – late with content, late with payment, slow to respond, feature creep, and despite all your planning and the fact that someone passed off the client to you with fair warning, you still take the work and give it an honest shot.
i’ve had one or two like that. i’ll do whatever i can do keep them happy to the “end” of the project, and try not to burn the bridge. next time they need work, unfortunately i happen to be busy, and pass on the work. if the client is really a nightmare, i might not suggest any other developers or designers, so that i can save someone else from the same pains.
again, good luck to the freelancers out there having to deal with this! hope it works out.
@transcendwebs