Anyone ever 'sacked' a client?
Anyone ever 'sacked' a client? I did today. They were more trouble than they were worth.
I advised them on where to buy a cheap redirect domain, because they wanted a cheap redirect domain and because I won't compete with £3 a year for full mail and web forwarding.
But the company who host the redirect 'went dead' - email is the only way to contact them and they don't reply anymore.
And we were expected to sort this out. But it can't be done, because as I said on this board earlier, a dead business can't talk.
He always questioned everything I ever told him as if it were a con and probably wouldn't have spent much more money anyway. He annoyed me so much I told him to seek another designer.
It's never happened before, but when you have a lot of clients, you can ditch one if he's ultimately detrimental to your business overall. If you don't respect yourself, you can't do business.
You shouldn't and can't become a client's *****. They have to respect you. Unless... your business has one big client that provides a vital percentage of your bottom line, which is Web Design Hell. So cast a broad net on the Net, everyone.
Re: Anyone ever 'sacked' a client?
Quote:
Originally posted by phantomflanflinger
Anyone ever 'sacked' a client? I did today. They were more trouble than they were worth.
I've sacked one to date, and have let a couple others die off. The one that we sacked was actually my most profitable job ever, but finally i just had to let them go.
The job lasted for sixteen months. During that time we dealth with five (!) different project leads on the client side, each with their own vision of what the site should be, as well as the president of the organization routinely stepping in to add her two cents to the project. The total amount of the change orders on the job was almost twice the original cost of the job.
We finally had the client sign off on a list of "final changes" for the site to go live, completed all of them, and then the client came back with another four pages of changes. These weren't copy changes or minor things, it was "can you move the navigation to the left hand side of the page rather than along the top, and we'd like to change the architecture of the site, and while were at it, we need to consider our dial-up users, even though the signed and approved site strategy document was for a full-Flash high-bandwidth site."
The biggest problem we were running into internally was a perception along the client's organization and others, that we, as the agency, were just not getting the job done. The roots of the problem were far more complex, but the perception was that we were screwing up and not delivering. We decided as an agency that letting the client go was the best solution for the sake of our professional reputation, rather than get into a quagmire of finger-pointing and blaming each other for failure to deilver.
Once we made that decision, we happily packaged up several CD's with all the source files and documentation and sent them along to the company's in-house team. I've been a much happier person since then.
Sometimes it's just not worth it.
d.
Re: Re: Anyone ever 'sacked' a client?
Quote:
Originally posted by dlowe93
We finally had the client sign off on a list of "final changes" for the site to go live, completed all of them, and then the client came back with another four pages of changes.
Hey, it wasn't that architecture firm I was talking about in my post that you were working for, was it? - Man, reading that's like deja vu. All this, after their 'rep' (who we sussed after a while had no final decision-making authority what so ever, had come to our offices - twice - to beg we continue on the project, despite him acknowledging his boss was a complete nutter) we let them go.
That was what i was talking about when I said that they'll use your time as a chalkboard for their own whacked ideas - that, and they'll demand as much time as they desire for their petty ideas, not as much as you can afford.
Designers must take control of the project - have the final word. If you do not, and do not make it clear that you have the ultimate say, you could (could, not definately) be setting yourself up for a bad realtionship, designer/customer-wise.
Re: Re: Re: Anyone ever 'sacked' a client?
Quote:
Originally posted by hurricaneone
Hey, it wasn't that architecture firm I was talking about in my post that you were working for, was it? - Man, reading that's like deja vu.
No but what is it with architecture firms? I had a similar experience with one that just turned nutty. Fortunately i was just doing site strategy and stepped out of the project before things got ugly.
This site was, ironically, for an Art and Design College. Seriously, the joint has a couple hundred faculty members, and practially every one of them saw themselves as a "chef" at some point in the process.
Two words: Ug-Ly.
I was happy to walk away.
d.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Anyone ever 'sacked' a client?
I used to work in the architectural industry as a drafty.. before I found Flash 3.
... ever received comps on the inside of a cereal box? That's an experience I had..
Cheers
James