New Category: Difficult Clients
I'm introducing a new category today: Difficult Clients.
And no, I haven't been suddenly thrust into a working relationship with a difficult client for the first time. If only.
Difficult clients are a fact of life. Problems that may seem minor to the outsider, will make any web producer smack their forehead in recognition and fight the urge to crawl under their desk. I didn't want to sound like I was complaining about the client as a person, because most of the time I'm not. Ok, I definitely was about the client who asked if I knew when my dying grandmother was going to pass, because I really needed to get her site done before that.
This morning I read a fantastic piece from A List Apart: In Defense of Difficult Clients by Rob Swan, and I suddenly have some clarity. A snippet:
These clients represent the ultimate test: They require that we explain why frames are bad. Why cross-browser compatibility is a serious issue. Why the use of “click here” is considered inappropriate. Why we now consider the web to be a medium in which vertical scrolling is acceptable. They test our knowledge and they test our patience.
We all know why our methods are best practices, but can we justify them? Because there’s no getting unjustified statements past these clients, and there’s no bamboozling them with buzz phrases and marketing spiel. You have to justify each of your points in plain, simple English, whether it’s a usability concern, a standards issue, or a design choice.
Painfully familiar, no? But isn't that the case with anything you hold dear? Rob points out that the ones who are most likely to complain are the smaller clients, the "shopkeeper on the corner" clients. The more a client is paying, the greater then chance they will take your word as gospel. That certainly feeds into another internal dialogue I've been having about raising my rates considerably.
After learning to deal with these antediluvian clients, you’ll breathe a sigh of relief next time you’re dealing with an “easy” client. They’ll be infinitely more convinced that you know what you’re talking about, and I wager you’ll have increased confidence in what you’re preaching. Even if they never question your decisions, you’ll have the kind of self-confidence that puts a smile on your face.
Difficult clients who require education represent the ultimate test. Before we devote all of our time and efforts to producing all-singing, all-dancing websites for Fortune 500 companies, let’s see if we can spare the time to keep the local shopkeeper happy. Go on. The path to enlightenment is never easy, but you never know: you might even enjoy the challenge.
And so from this I plan to start posting some of the challenges I encounter with my clients. My hope is that that these challenges can serve to educate why best practices are important (and your web designer isn't insisting on them to be difficult), and how I (and maybe you) as a web professional can learn and grow from the challenges presented by difficult clients.
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I'm looking forward to your series. May I suggest one category to cover? I find the most common "difficult client" is the one who does not provide content. I explain over and over that I design around what they're going to say, but graphics, text, etc. is so slow in coming.
I've seen some web producer's sites that indicate they don't do one single thing for a customer without a signed contract and 100% of the content, but for many of the people I've dealt with, this is unreasonable. They're small business owners, too, often don't know hooey about having a site and need a lot of hand holding.
Your thoughts?
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An excellent point...in fact, one that is vexing me right now. The whole content issue is very loaded for web producers, and often creates a series of problems. I'll write about that soon, and I'll welcome your input.