A Guide to The Wonderful World of Clients and How to Deal With Them

A Guide to The Wonderful World of Clients and How to Deal With Them

We all get those wide diverse range of clients. From the easy to handle, to the awkward and complicated ones. The clients that make outrageous and or even unreasonable demands. Those that upset your staff, you or the whole workforce, those that don't exactly make working for them a "pleasure". And since there's so many of these clients, and they come in so many different ways and make so many different of these unreasonable or outrageous demands. Here's a few real life examples and how to deal with them when they come up.

After all, the customer is always right, right? Yeah right!

Here's a hint: Try to say no more often!

Client 1: Mr I'm Not Really Sure What I want.
Sometimes you get clients that aren't really sure what they want. They have a constant change of heart and say one thing on a call to you but then change what they want in an email some time later. These types of clients aren't bad clients, but they can take up a lot of time since you've already arranged something for them, put it into place and then have to cancel that work and or rearrange it for them.

How to deal with them:
If possible, try to get everything in writing what it is they want done before taking their order. After this, you should reject any major changes. Sometimes you have to think FOR people.

Client 2: Mr, Hey What's That Over There? AKA Mr I Assumed This Was Included.
Sometimes you get those clients where you deliver the work and then they say, hey I thought I was getting this as well. They try their luck in getting extra things from you based on some weak argument that if they could see it, it means they should have it too.

How to deal with them:
Again, that's why you should list out all the work you are going to do for them before they do it and get them to agree to that before the work is carried out. Only agree to doing work that's out of scope of what you would usually do with an upfront cost.

Client 3: Mr I Needed This Done Yesterday!
These types of clients usually have a general lack of awareness of the space-time-continium. They think that just presenting you with the idea of what they want is enough for you to do it in a day or so. They don't realize that some things take time to complete.

How to deal with them:
Be honest, transparent and straightforward with them about the work that needs to be done and how long it takes. Always tell them a little longer for safety sake and that way they'll be grateful if you can achieve and deliver that work before the time you said it would take. If they expect the impossible, educate them to the reality!

Client 4: Mr Everything Is an Emergency!
Sometimes you get a client who thinks they are your one and only client and that you have nothing else going on in your personal or working life and should devote all the time you have to them. They think that they are more important than other people and therefore you should give them 100% of your time.

How to deal with them:
Gently and kindly remind them that you do have other paying clients as well and that you treat everyone with the same respect and gusto. Make clear the time table to them and the deadlines to complete and deliver the work. Show them a copy of the current work report and what's been done so far and how long the rest will take until all is complete and delivered.

Client 5: Mr We Don't Have a Deadline - Oh wait, Yes We Do and It's Tomorrow!
Sometimes some clients are very demanding that they need the work done fast. So fast in fact that they expect you to stay up all night without any sleep while you work out their order. These clients often don't have a solid grasp on reality and what it takes to complete their order.

How to deal with them:
Show and tell them that there is a timeline that you need to work from and that it takes x amount of time to complete their work before taking their order if possible. Remain strong footed and well grounded in rejecting requests if it's not something you can do unless they are willing to pay extra for that.

Okay well that's 5 for now. I actually have about 15 of these to do but as always, I'll do them in bite sized chunks for you. And it's bite sized chunks that my stomach is craving right now so I'll do the rest after some dinner later on.

Do you ever come across clients like these? How do you deal with them?