June 9, 2008

When clients get burned

Filed Under Writing |

The following is a true story. Names have been changed.

I’ve had many experiences as a freelance web designer, most good, some not. But even the worst don’t compare to my experience with “Bob” and his seemingly single-handed attempt to give web designers everywhere a bad reputation. He did a great job of taking people’s money and ruining not only their websites, but their perception of the web design industry. In the end, that was the only thing he was good at.

“Bob” and the damage done

Bob worked as a freelance web designer for a group that helped small businesses get online. They hired him to do several small to medium sized websites for their clients. I was hired to work for the same group after he was apparently let go, and my first few jobs were to fix what he broke. He was still in business at the time; now I believe lawsuits are pending, and I hope for all of our sakes that he gets run out of the web design field for good.

How Bad Was It?

After working with several of Bob’s former clients, I started to get the bigger picture. Complaints about Bob ranged from hysterical to downright creepy: Calls at 8pm at night to discuss the project. Other phone calls never returned. Showing up at a client’s place of work and ranting about the power-hungry government.

The worst was a client with a shopping cart. After taking their money, Bob set the shopping cart up under the trial period special that the cart company was offering. When the trial period expired he was nowhere to be found to turn the cart back on.

One of the best questions I received was “What are your office hours?” I responded, “I work a typical day, 9-6, why?” “Well, Bob would call me at 8pm and want to talk until midnight about my website, and that was just crazy!” I told them, “I’m finding out from you and other clients that there were a lot of things about Bob that were not…” (Both of us in unison) “Normal!” This little joking conversation helped to put the client’s fear aside for the time being.

The Current State of Bob

Frequently the group will call me with a project, and preface the conversation with “This is a Bob client.” I know immediately what this means: my customer service skills would be needed to smooth over this new client, and to reassure them, most of whom Bob was their first web designer, that we are all not like that. Most if not all of us are responsible and want the best for the project. This is our livelihood, and one bad job can cost us countless more, thus we are invested in 1) making the project a success and 2) making the client happy.

And so it was that I fixed all of his sites, and made the clients as happy as I could make them. The group would pay me to get the sites functioning properly, and to make small design tweaks to make the client happy. In the end they are satisfied, but they are still stuck with Bob’s designs, which were all mediocre compared to the price paid.

I continue to check in with them from time to time, just to say hi and to see how everything is going with the site. I’ll offer as much free advice as they want, if for nothing else than to let them know web designers are good people who care about the success of their business. After all, my success depends on theirs.

What Can You Learn From This Experience?

When a client comes to you who has been burned before, a special touch is needed. This includes giving the best customer service you can give, followed by listening intently. The listening part I found to be most important of all. I would let them talk, sometimes even vent, about their experience with Bob. Then I listen to what they needed to get the site functional, and to what they needed to make them happy, i.e. small design changes, advice on what they could have done differently, or advice on what else they can do to make their site a success. Sometimes this lead to additional paying work, which felt great.

I am positive that Bob is an isolated case. Amazingly, his business website is still live (although with many, many broken links and incomplete content…surprised?), so it appears he is still out there, working hard to bring me my next client.

Anyone else have a story like this? I would love to hear it!

Comments

2 Responses to “When clients get burned”

  1. Bob2 on November 11th, 2008 3:10 pm

    Hey, I feel you man. Unfortunately, my name is Bob too and I am a web designer (hey not the same guy though). In this business I see a lot of people getting the shaft on projects, completion, etc etc. In a couple different companies I have worked for, I have had to come in and clean up the trash the guy before me left behind. Sometimes it couldnt even be fixed, it required a complete restart.

    My first freelance client I ever had gave me a lot of trouble. When we first started the project she told me about a prior contractor she hired who in the way she described was a nightmare. I reassured her many times about how not all developers & designers are the same. We are all human after all.

    After about 3 months into the project it started getting ridiculous with the lady. She would call me in the evening, wanting to discuss the project after a glass of wine, or call me on weekends and talk to me about it for hours & hours. At first I would discuss this stuff with her, and give her my support for free (her being my first client and all I wanted it to be as good as possible), but after countless hours of wasted time I had to tell her “I cant continue to discuss business with you unless I can bill it into the project bid”.

    Well, on top of that, she wanted all the prices stripped to the bare. She wanted constant updates to the site but didn’t want to pay for the cms. She wanted a price before the updates, only problem is she would send me revisions, and then revisions to the revisions. I remember changing out the copy on the home page 4 times before she was happy with what she had written. After the phone calls, the emails, the updates etc 4 times it took around 5 hours to change the text, but my initial charge to her was only for thirty minutes of time.

    I guess what I am saying is, I wish designers like bob would meet clients like mine. Life would be a lot sweeter.

  2. jon on November 11th, 2008 4:51 pm

    Hi “Bob,” nice to meet you. I made some of those same mistakes when I was starting out, but as long as you learn from the experience it’s ok. Sounds like the other “Bob” just didn’t learn at all. It would be easy if the bad designers got clients that suited them!

Leave a Reply