Forum Moderators: LifeinAsia
I don't believe I am the only one who suffers from controlling clients.
My question is: how do you cope with clients who seem determined to ignore your professional advice and force you to create ugly or poor-performing websites?
Once I stopped being married to my own ideas of good design, I was much less frustrated with clients who I consider have bad taste. And, I have had clients teach me a thing or two along the way by being open to their suggestions and going with them.
When it comes to seo decisions, however, I draw the line and insist they allow me to do things my way. They normally don't have enough knowledge in that area to have an opinion anyway.
-webwoman
how do you cope with clients who seem determined to ignore your professional advice and force you to create ugly or poor-performing websites?
Depends how egregious the offense is. Not too egregious:
"This isn't what I'd recommend, but yes, we can do it that way."
"If we do it the way you're suggesting, here are the possible ramifications: ...."
If they get into areas where you have drawn a line and won't go (i.e., unethical SEO-related things), then you have to tell them that they need to find a new developer if that's the direction they want to go. Sure, you miss out on their revenue. But it sure is nice to sleep well at night. :)
And yes, as webwoman suggested, document things. Save all your emails or faxes or whatever. Make notes of what you said during phone calls. You'll enjoy being able to say "On June 7th, here's what I said about this in an email I sent you: ..."
On a related note, the company where I work has made education our primary goal for 2004. We're being proactive in educating clients and potential clients about what works on the web, and what doesn't. We're posting self-written articles about good web design, bad web design, making a site search engine friendly, etc. We realize we're giving away some of our knowledge to the do-it-yourselfers, but we also think it will lead to the more educated type of client that we want to work with in the future.
On the other hand, if they believe that you are an expert at helping companies achieve their goals on the web, then you are in a much better position to get their attention - and approval - when you say "No, that's not good for you."
Of course, some are just idiots ;)
If it's an important point, make sure it is covered in an email, preferably more than once. This should cover you from "failure to inform", when they want to blame you for their decision. They are paying, in part, for your professional advice, but if they choose to ignore it, they can pay more later:)
People that want to personally manage in areas they nothing about are almost certain to become a major problem. Just a matter of time till they walk up to the cliff - and push YOU over.
(Sorry, but I can't resist a good pun. ;))
It seems to me that most clients have ideas about what they want, don't they? Some of their ideas are great, but many of them are dated or misinformed. I find that most of my work is educational: explaining the options, costs, and benefits. I try to frame it all in terms of the business impact of each decision.
What I'm still working on is how to deal with situations in which one person on the client side is put in charge of a job. I find that after educating this person, other people on the client side (often the boss) try to get involved. I often don't have direct contact with these others, so my contact person ends up being in the middle, having to educate the critics in his/her office. This puts my contact in a very uncomfortable position and things can get out of hand.
How do you all deal with that? Yes, my contract does specify who has final authority, and says that changes after sign-off on each stage will add to the cost. (Have you noticed that cost is a pretty good inhibitor?) Still, if the boss isn't happy, that can be pretty messy. Especially if the boss is unhappy because he wants a mid-1990s-looking Web site.
I often don't have direct contact with these others, so my contact person ends up being in the middle, having to educate the critics in his/her office.If you're successful at "educating" your cantact, offer to speak to his boss with him. Since you probibly understand the issues better than your contact, you should also be able to explain them better.
Especially if the boss is unhappy because he wants a mid-1990s-looking Web site.If you ignore all the practical aspects of a site, the boss happens to be right. All they have to go on is looks--that's all they understand because marketer ruled in the earier days of the Web, and marketing is easy to understand (at it's roots): "catch their eye."
In passive medias (TV, radio, print), it works. The problem is the Web isn't passive: people search. Only once they found do they enter a semi-passive state of reading what's in front of them. Even then they use perfriaral vision to avoid and ignore what's irrelivant, and if they don't like what they find, in an instant they resume searching.
Right now I'm trying to convince a psychiatrist of this and failing because it's counterintuitive. One would think that a doctor, being a scientist, would be easy to convince because of all the emperical data. The problem is getting someone who thinks they know how people work to even look at something they think is wrong. Reminds me of the whole issue of Darwinism: it's no longer a scientific hypothosis--it's now a religion.
And then there's "don't alienate them by looking cheesy" (or having a splash page or Flash intro with flying letters)...
Isn't marketing about communicating a message that touches the customer in an emotional and or rational way that encourages them to do whatever it is you're selling?
An extreme example would be the infamous Blink or scrolling text. Sure, they catch the eye, but the message they send is "I'm an amateur" and "RUN!"
What are you working to convince the good doctor of?
Isn't marketing about communicating a message...you're selling?Ultimatly, yes, but marketers are only as good as their tools; if the tools are outdated and broken they won't be successful. And many time they don't even know they're failing.
What are you working to convince the good doctor of?On how users look at a page. She want's to put meaningless stock art of feel good smilling faces. I'm trying to convincer her that people have trained themselves to not even look at fluff and only look at what's relivent. In a study I read which tracked eye movement, people even ignore irrelavent ads for things which they otherwise had an interest.
One mistake I think I've been making is not offerring an alternitave (relavent ads and self permotion).
If images are useless, why do ads in magazines generally have them and pay big bucks for them?
The photos, colors, layout, even fonts used on a site as having an emotional impact that the viewer may not be aware of, but these things help determine the viewer's attitudes toward the site.
That's why it pays to have a good designer work on your site, because it takes a specialized set of skills to manipulate these visual/emotional cues.
Although I don't know exactly what the doctor wants, she might be right.
If I were designing a doctor's site, I'd want to move visitors toward feeling positively about her, about calling and coming to see her. The site design can help create that feeling.
I remember the trainer in a usability course I took saying that they couldn't convince a client that their way was better, so they got him to agree to run an experiment. One half of the site's customers were directed to a site that gave users options about what to do next at every step (the user experience team's version). The other customers were directed to a variant of the site that pushed them along a rigid path: first you see this page, then the next page, then the ... with no options (the client's version). The results were embarrassing: The client was right! His really rigid version got a lot more sales.
Sometimes clients are right and our general principles fail us.
Even if a client wont listen I still work with them, because sooner or later most will realize why they hired you to begin with. Then when the complements start rolling in about how nice the site is, they will come back to you later for an overhaul.
How do you get paid for all that wheel-spinning? Do you assume it will come back later in continuing work?
Was the site you finally designed and she liked a combination of her ideas and yours?
Mumbledawg, do you simply charge by the hour, perhaps giving an estimate of how many hours it might take? I'm curious about how you arrange it so the client pays for their waffling and changes.
When we provide a proposal, we say something to the effect of: This is our best estimate for what the project will cost and when it will be complete. On rare occasions, the final cost will be higher than our quote. This is typically caused by changes to the project's scope that were not known at the outset. Our ability to meet the stated deadline depends on your timely response to any questions and requests for information we make during development. etc. etc.
Just spell it out for them in plain language. The ones you scare away are the ones you wouldn't have wanted to deal with anyway. Most reasonable people understand that if you hire a contractor to build a 3-bed, 2-bath rambler, and then halfway through you decide you want a 5-bed, 4-bath mansion instead, it's gonna cost more money.
Then i sead the magic word : "emagine, i walk into you office, book a 6 day holiday to the bahama's in a 3 star hotel. You name the price and i agree. The next day i come back and i want to upgrade to a 3 week guided trip trough Tailand sleeping in the only 6 star hotel in the world and want my private butler the entire trip. And i expect all that for the price we agreed on yesterday. What's not going to work.
If you make them compare your situation to their own the are more lightly to understand. The client was a little irritated, still wanting to sit frontrow with backrow tickets but there's little arguing here. Plus you can maintain a good relation with the client.
Hope it helps.
I *do* have an example of how not to explain something.
Someone thought I should just say my programming work was done and be satisfied with "good enough."
When I explained why the programming would take a week or two, I used an example I had learned about from them.
They had told me about a man who had taken 7 years to finish his doctoral dissertation in computer science because he was having trouble getting the software to work.
What I hadn't thought about was that the person I was dealing with had told me the story because they thought it was silly that someone would take 7 years to get a degree. They hadn't been to college and they weren't familiar with anything technical.
So I changed my example: Imagine your car won't start and you have it towed to a mechanic. Would you be happy if they worked on it for 2 hours and then declared the work done--even if it still wouldn't start? That one they got.
Most reasonable people understand that if you hire a contractor to build a 3-bed, 2-bath rambler, and then halfway through you decide you want a 5-bed, 4-bath mansion instead, it's gonna cost more money.
Which is exactly why I use the contractor's version of QuickBooksPro for my web business.... because a "website" by any other name IS a "mansion" or a "ranch" or a "Painted Lady" or a "shotgun"....
Think about it. Pages = rooms; SEO = the stainless Jenn-Air and other top-of-the-line appliances/fixtures in the kitchen; ease of use = the conservatory with plants which only grow in the tropics. Or whatever....
Eh - so I'm a bit batty this time of night....
Simple.....it is my way or the highway. You either follow the advice of your web designer/SEO or you go elsewhere. I really don't much care which way you decide!
If they refuse to play by my rules I ditch them.....they are usually so shocked when that happens they come crawling back their tails between their legs.
I will do whatever my Attorney advises, I will do whatever my doctor advises, I will do whatever my CPA advises.....I don't think for a second I know better than these professionals.....if my clients think they know better than me in my field......then it is time they looked elsewhere!
Thanks
First off, the money you make from doing a bad website is extremely short-term when compared to the reputation it brings. Second, customers lie to save face. Here's an example:
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[bad website owner]: Hey, what do you think of my website. I just had Mr. X design it for me.
[customer/friend/whatever]: Wow that looks great (secretly thinking: what a piece of crap! Never use Mr. X)
[customer/friend/whatever 2]: What a piece of crap. You should have that redesigned, it looks horrible. Whoever this Mr. X is, he's a terrible designer.
[bad website owner]: Oh, uh ... yeah I told him that he's not finished with it. I'm thinking of switching designers, he doesn't seem very good.
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Like it or not, when you design a website you are advertising yourself - and no I don't mean a stupid "page designed by" link, those are tacky as all hell and I'd never use them. I mean the fact that people are going to ASK your customer who did their website, and they are going to say YOU. If the site looks like crap, that person is making a mental note never to use you.
Refuse the work ... tell the customer that a lot of what they requested may have been popular a couple of years ago, but it's considered really tacky now in the industry (make a joke about Leisure suits if they frown) and offer your own suggestions on how to make their site more appealing today. If they insist on doing it their way, REFUSE to do the work - tell them that you have a reputation in the industry that you need to maintain, and you can't go backward on technology/methods because it makes you look like you're not up to date in the industry.
'Once had a client who had their nose so far up my ---- that the job turned into one of hell over a span of months. A job which I charged handsomely for in dollars turned into one which at the end ended up at about $4.00 per hour when you consider all the hours I'd spent. Sad, but true.
Funny thing is, looking at the site now, I realize I could've done it in less than a week.
I agree with all that's been posted, but above all, make it clear in the beginning that the CLIENT needs to heed to all your emails and forms of contact. This was a problem for me since I found myself actually repeating myself once, twice and thrice over and over again.
'Did I get played? I don't think so.
Was I too nice and cordial? hmmmmm, yup!
