Comments on: 10 Things I Hate About Clients!

By: whatever

whatever — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 23:27:11 +0000

lol lol.

u think working as a free lancer is bad? try working as a wedding coordinator. horrid horrid self obsessed evil bridezilllas who will probably be divorced within a year anyway

By: Bill

Bill — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 15:28:14 +0000

I have a client that I’m retainer with. They said there will be more work coming your way we’re going to need quick turn arounds on if you can bring more people into the fold to help you roll out these projects that would be great. The client never asked if this going to be an extra fee for the other people and naturally assumed it was part of my retainer amount. Had I agreed with there demands I would have working for peanuts be because the extra people would been subtracted from the retainer amount. I finally told the client if they wanted more body’s on these projects it’s going to cost extra. Then they said “well we’ll have to use somebody else and burden you less if you can’t turn these projects around quick enough” I said great! Go ahead! How’s that for loyalty! Cheap bastards!

By: brad

brad — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 18:15:25 +0000

i was asked by a friend to design a logo for her friends company over the summer, i contacted the woman, got the (very vague) design brief and sent her 5 designs, she chose 2 and asked them to be merged, sorted i though. but no, she then gave me what was basically a re-brief, i told her that this was an added cost but i would be more then happy to do it. at this point she started to question me charging her for my services when i had been told i would be paid. after about 30 emails sent with invoices and a 30% reduction in my fee for quick payment she still hadn’t paid me, so i got the addresses for her, the business partner and their registered office and sent letters to all 3, i got payment 2 weeks later, not the full amount but it was only 20% less and i couldn’t be bothered to argue over such a small amount.

By: Tabby

Tabby — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 12:08:32 +0000

This is an interesting post. I see the humor in it, but I find it to be fairly unprofessional to rant about past clients in general. I think it’s perfectly acceptable to put a “Client Ettiquette” post in to encourage future clients to cooperate. But otherwise, this has kind of the same experience, in my opinion, as an indirect statement that is directed towards only one or two people but made to an entire room full of people, leaving the “innocent” ones, so-to-speak, wondering if “it was me.” This isn’t the kind of client base I want to have, and I encourage all of my clients to read my blog.

Not that your rants aren’t true. But some of these things point out more of an issue with dipolomatic and good contract writing than it does, really, with the client having some sort of an issue. For many home grown businesses, it takes these kinds of failures to get the contracts tight. Rather than being annoyed, you could see it as an exciting moment to create an even better contract.

In these situations, what is the real problem? Sounds like honesty with the client(s) is probably what’s lacking here. Honesty without an emotional undertone. “In order to work with me, you’ll be required to pay a deposit, agree to a mock-up and stay within scope of that mock-up, etc” It’s the freelancer’s job to know what it takes to build a website, especially when the client doesn’t know what s/he is doing. So its an error in process to assume the client should know. If you receive an “IDK” response from a client, back it up a bit and give them more data in order to help them make that choice.

It’s called Customer Service. A client of mine is a Customer Service Guru and I’ve learned a lot from her: http://www.lisbethcalandrino.com/

By: Eddie Haydock

Eddie Haydock — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 16:13:23 +0000

Client: “It’s not what I had in mind.”
Me: “What did you have in mind?”
Client: “I don’t know.”

By: terra

terra — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 13:08:59 +0000

the “can you copy this” one seriously pisses me off. it basically means the client has a) no original ideas and b) is getting me to do the work. he does absolutely jack squat. and yet i’m acquiescing and grovelling to him because he’s the one with the $$$.

By: Dzyner

Dzyner — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 21:37:02 +0000

Recently I had a prospective client ask if I would do some designs for them on spec so they could decide between another designer any myself. I did not and the other designer did. Guess who got the job, not me. Here is the kicker, neither of us had a meeting with this client to discuss the project in detail. This was all over email. I guess I’m more bothered by the other “unprofessional” designer who did do the spec work than I am the client who asked for it.

By: C.line

C.line — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 15:28:47 +0000

Excellent!
I’ve just experienced point 2, 4, 5, 6 and 9… for a same project!
Oh my god, client are so unconscious…

By: J

Fri, 08 Oct 2010 15:11:20 +0000

Clients that start a response with ‘I love the design, it’s really good, exactly what we were looking for’ and then spend half an hour coming up with bad ideas on how to change it

By: Ishtar

Ishtar — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 07:39:24 +0000

No kidding! I got a client who scores 10/10!!! All the drama and excuses and haphazardness that leaves you doing twice the work than you initially bargained for!

Somehow I am pulling through, and in doing so, I ‘ve learned a valuable lesson: Never work with clients of a certain nationality (I am not going to say which).

I was really frustrated, but reading this humourous post really helped!