The Unhappy Client

We've all had them. The clients, the projects, that no matter what you do, it just doesn't work. Maybe it's an SEO campaign that simply doesn't perform, no matter how many angles you approach it from. All the things that work for every other client seem to produce nothing at all for this one. Maybe it's a web design that the client is never happy with, despite your attempts to do everything that they ask for. Maybe it's an email campaign that fell flat on its face, or a custom software application that takes twice as long to debug as it should. Sooner or later, your one-happy client relationship turns ugly. It happens to everybody, because that's the nature of the beast.

So what do you do in these cases? To an extent, that depends on the job, on the client, and on your company's philosophy. Our company will do our best to save the client relationship in almost all cases, by offering them a few months of free SEO, a make-good email campaign, etc. Mostly, we try very hard to open the lines of communication with the client.

STRATEGIES FOR HANDLING THE UNHAPPY CLIENT:

1. TALK TO THEM. Nothing takes a client from "unhappy" to "furious" faster than feeling as though they are being ignored. If a client has expressed their dissatisfaction to you, then someone needs to get back to them as soon as possible and assure them that their concerns are being looked into. Even if the first call is just to tell them that you've got someone looking into the situation, and you'll call them back as soon as you have more information, that can go a long way toward calming the client down.

2. Research the concerns. When you do call the client back for the in-depth discussion, make sure you've got all your facts straight, and have them at your fingertips. Know the terms of the contract, know exactly what was promised and when, know if they are current on payment or not. Read through past correspondence, paying particular attention to any concerns they have expressed, and whether or not those were addressed properly. And always, always make sure that you are willing to accept responsibility for any problems on your end. Don't make a bad situation worse by not really knowing what's going on; the client will feel that you're lying to them, or that they've been passed off to someone whose job is just to shut them up.

3. Know what your options are. This comes directly from #2 above. If you know exactly what was promised and what's been done, you'll know what you can do from here. If you've more than fulfilled the contract, and the work is satisfactory from that perspective, then there might not be much more that you can do. If you've fulfilled the basic terms of the contract but the outcome was NOT satisfactory, then you should be ready to offer them a solution which will lead to the result that was promised. Know if you can offer them some "freebies", and if so, how many, and how long it will take to set things right.

4. Know when to get out. You've done everything you can, and the client is still not happy. You gave them free design work, but they're never happy, or they keep changing their minds. You've created a neat little software application that does precisely what they requested, but now they want more, or different. You've revisited their website(s) once a month for 6 months, trying to find a better way to optimize, they've got great rankings, but no traffic. Maybe they have great rankings AND traffic, but no sales. Whatever the case, there comes a time with some clients when you just have to admit that it isn't going to work out. Hopefully it doesn't happen very often, but it will happen sometimes. When that time comes, get out. Do it as gracefully as possible, be tactful, be apologetic that things could not work out, but get out before you lose more time and money on a project that is doomed to failure.

Sometimes the unhappy client has good cause, sometimes they don't. Both types of clients need to be treated the same way though, whenever possible. Be attentive, be concerned, be responsive, and be helpful. Don't burn any bridges, you never know what might happen in the future. Yesterday's unhappy client just might be tomorrow's referral. It's happened to me!