How to handle difficult clients
zimtik.com
zimtik.com
Sounds weird that I can generalise like this but I've got 10+ years under the belt and I can say hand on heart that I've had maybe 3 "slightly difficult" clients in all this time. I've dipped out into the commercial world about once and almost instantly was bombarded with assholes, so retreated back into the place I know and love.
My figuring is this: the people who work for them aren't there to get rich - salaries are pretty crappy - they're there because they're fascinated in wonderful things and histories. So that endless bullshit drive to focus entirely on making vast sums of money is largely (not entirely!) removed. On the whole the sector is thoughtful, kind, considered. As a result (or because of!), it's a sector with excellent diversity, lots of working mums, lots of older people, lots of enthusiasm, lots of drive.
I'm never gunna get rich because museums aren't rich. But I do varied, fascinating work and the people I work with are almost always nice people. That to me is a huge thing and has positively affected my mental and working life.
My small work experience made me start to think that the problems in most jobs is that it fails to provide a few core needs and thus everything collapses. People stay there because rent implies regular checks but they hate everything and it becomes a shark pool. People will fight not to click on a mouse. This is all because of depressive work context. Doesn't take much to make people joyful and thus just motivated enough and bring fluid daily lives back.
> This is a curious rule and it took me a long time to learn because in fact at the beginning of my practice I felt the opposite. Professionalism required that you didn’t particularly like the people that you worked for or at least maintained an arms length relationship to them, which meant that I never had lunch with a client or saw them socially. Then some years ago I realized that the opposite was true. I discovered that all the work I had done that was meaningful and significant came out of an affectionate relationship with a client. And I am not talking about professionalism; I am talking about affection. I am talking about a client and you sharing some common ground. That in fact your view of life is someway congruent with the client, otherwise it is a bitter and hopeless struggle.
From graphic designer Milton Glaser’s essay, Ten Things I Have Learned
It's of course a hard conversation to go through, but we didn't expect what we're facing. I'm glad I'm not there but here's what happened according to the participants:
Before he was entering the meeting room, he was smiling and greeting team members in our office, just like any grandpa. During the meeting, our manager first did some small talk, then told him we have to raise the price. The next second he was outrageous, start cursing loudly and slamming things. Everybody was so scared, and the meeting was an immediate failure as he successfully low-balled us in the following rounds with nobody daring to object. The second he walked out of the meeting room, he was the same kind grandpa again, smiling and talking to the team members like nothing just happened.
We then realized it was his tactic, but it's effective nonetheless. I rather not work with rude/manipulative people like that, but sometimes people just hide things too well, I guess I'll never know.
However, we have to because this deal is less and less attractive over time compared to other projects and the management would eventually fire the client (we won't get fired since there are other projects) - before that, the head of the project should at least attempt to talk with the client and try to raise the price (plus there are obvious lock-ins for a giant software project and they can afford the price).
- Prospect says the project "shouldn't be too hard" or something to that effect.
- Prospect has a strong idea about how long the project will take.
- Prospect replies to email in a way that indicates they didn't really read (or perhaps comprehend) my message.
- Prospect uses language that is too formal for me (or not formal enough).
- Prospect seems obsessed with price before we've even discussed the project.
- Prospect tells me that they have had bad experiences with consultants in the past.
- Prospect seems to run their business in an overly reactive way (vs a proactive way)
- Prospect refuses to engage in a Why Conversation on our initial sales call.
- Prospect can't answer Why questions to my satisfaction (and won't/can't put me in touch with someone who can).
- Prospect and I can't agree upon clear business goals for the project.
- Prospect insists on what I believe to be unrealistic goals for the project.
- Prospect insists on what I believe to be an unrealistic timeline for the project.
The most insightful thing that the founder of a company I used to work for decided to do was...take on less customers and grow slow and steady. This won't work for everyone or in every industry but it worked really well for that company. In B2B you can really screw yourself over if you have to deal with toxic customers. Not only can it clog you up and bind lots of resources but it can also create a horrible working environment in your own company. There was usually an initial discussion with the potential customers and if something felt off, we wouldn't take them on. The mantra I've seen at many other companies seems to be "more customers = better" but for me adding more customers without thinking too much about who you deal with is similar to trying to fix software by pouring in more hours on a death march.
So if you can afford it, always think long term not short term, don't be afraid to say no to customers and reject them outright and also don't be afraid to drop customers later. It's called customer relationship management for a reason. Try to think long and hard before starting a relationship. The second benefit of screening really hard is that you usually have very good relations with the customers that you do pick and keep. And they are usually quite happy and refer you to other potential customers. And those are usually high quality referrals because they tend to deal with people who won't turn out to be toxic, too.
This reminds me what stuck with me after reading Shape Up, at a time when it was presented as the replacement for our Agile framework at work. What these methods have in common is a ritualized way to manage disappointment and help management to accept the loss of something they really wanted.
We've found it's changed the conversation about what to build into one framed by investment and return, which has helped to take a lot of the emotion out of the discussion and decision-making process (and is also a much sounder basis for decision-making than, for example, how long things might take, or simply caving to the loudest voices[0]). So, yes, you could say it helps us manage disappointment but, whilst true, that's somewhat reductionist. What it's really enabled is an effective working relationship between our technology team and the other value-generating areas of the wider business.
In turn, the primary value that's delivered is to ensure our development teams are working on projects that (are much more likely to) add real, strategic value as we build our platform and products, as opposed to just chasing individual client requirements - requirements that would deliver short-term cash, but which would tie us in knots and lead to dead ends that would destroy our ability to scale our business.
(Of course, we don't do Shape Up in exactly the way described in the book: rather than cargo-culting, we've tailored the process to fit our business, which is a very different business to Basecamp. Happy to offer more detail if anyone is interested.)
[0] It certainly gives us a way to manage and involve those voices though.
Sure, would love to hear more about your use of Shape Up. What have you found that has worked in your context that goes beyond the initial framework, for example? :)
- As I mentioned, our business is very different to Basecamp's. We're a technology driven MR and insights consultancy that is increasingly platform and product focussed. As such we have four or five different customer/stakeholder groups, each with their own requirements. Our betting table is therefore larger, and includes representatives from each of these groups, as well as our product managers, and some technical representatives. This makes the meeting tougher to wrangle but does give everyone a voice. Like Basecamp, the CEO and I have final say over what the teams actually work on, but we've only overridden a betting table decision once.
- Our pitches include an ROI estimation. It's not particularly detailed, and we originally used something like t-shirt sizing. We now just give an estimated range. This helps us to have a more dispassionate discussion about which work to prioritise.
- We are about to implement a change to the way we shape pitches, to break this up into two phases which run across two cycles. The first phase will focus on clarity about the problem we're trying to solve, the value of solving it, and our investment appetite. We'll then make decisions about which pitches we want to take to the second phase, which is a kind of extended validation, and will be where more research is carried out, and proposed solutions are roughed out. This should help us more effectively manage workload around pitch preparation, and ensure pitches are ready for teams to start work on at the beginning of cycles where they are prioritised.
- We have regular check-ins with business stakeholders throughout each project, and they are involved in decision-making around any changes of direction or scope, or trade-offs that need to be made.
- We have strong guidance in place for the teams around where they should be throughout the cycle: e.g., when they need to stop adding functionality, and focus on delivery; derisking each project, which should happen early, when UX testing should occur, etc.
- We do sometimes reprioritise our strategic roadmap to ensure that we are adding necessary functionality to our platform in order to bid for and service high value client projects; such projects still get oversight from the betting table and could, at least in theory, be deprioritised if there were serious objections.
It's not all been plain sailing though. For example, we still struggle to appropriately shape small batch projects, and getting people outside of tech onboard with creating pitches is an uphill battle, though one we are slowly winning.
That's the job but it can be one of the hardest parts of the job.
Then for the next project, you know the pushback you're going to receive so (perhaps unconsciously) you have this bias toward a lower estimate.
If you're not a regular employee the incentives are even worse. If one contractor tells you a week and the other tells you a month, which one will you hire? When you're billing for time and materials, and that's pretty normal, it hardly matters to the contractor if a deadline is missed because most clients know switching mid-project will only add to the delays.
Some really shit jobs would expect weekend work to make the difference but with this job market: f that!
I've given up on deadlines for projects; now we just have contributors work on small deliverables (that they usually define) that build toward the goal.
Not having deadlines makes learning about a new unknown unknown a lot less painful.
I would say, there is a implicit stick with that: that you go away. Because someone who stays calm, when anger is rushing around, is someone you usually do not want to go away, but want to side with. So I am not sure how easy it is to follow that advice. You either are cool, because you have the confidence, or you are not. Just speaking softly, while being scared inside will probably not have the same effect.
And my biggest difficulties with clients was lack of technical understanding on their side, combined with too much ego to show that.
(Me showing the requested new feature): "You got that and are happy with it?"
"Sure, sure"
But no, they didn't and they messed up and it was supposed to be my fault. And in a way it maybe was, so I learned that communicating with tech illiterate is a very hard, but important skill.
This is a technique taught to public administrators.
Ever watch a townhall or council meeting? Elected politician is grilling some agency head. They'll respond in cool, soothing, calming tones. Pretty much like a hypnotherapist.
Then they'll talk and talk. So long that by the time they wrap up, you've forgotten your question. Mostly running the clock.
Once you're made aware of this technique, it can be maddening to watch.
With great power comes great responsibility. De-escalation: good. Obfuscation: bad.
The way to deal with any difficult situation is to remain objective. The reason why some people are better than others is that some people are more able to take the emotion out of it. If a client shouts at you, it can get your back up, make you see the red mist and cause all kinds of problems. If, on the other hand, you can detach, then it becomes simply a matter of, "I'm sorry but I am unable to work for someone who shouts at people to get things done."
Sometimes you have to suppress the justice we feel, "How dare you speak to me like that..." and just keep it as their problem. Same thing with bills that aren't paid, you don't carry on working because you feel like you need their affirmation, you say, "I'm sorry but I have stopped work until my last bill is paid. If you don't pay this soon, I am likely to accept other work"
To get angry when there is a mess-up is not to be difficult. Difficult clients are more like abusive partners. They create the situations that allow them to exert abuse e.g. ask you to drop other clients, then ask for an impossible deadline, then assign side tasks all the time while pretending they don't know this will impact the deadline, then withholding payment, while saying that $1M is just around the corner.
Oh, they were so difficult to work with!
Another lesson: Never, ever call someone difficult to their face. (That's what my general contractor did to me.) That was often the tell that they didn't realize how difficult they were to work with.
We've also not taken on clients because there were warning signs which, while not as liberating because you weren't tied into them in the first place, is also very satisfying.
If there's a client who looks like they might be difficult, but the project is really interesting, we may apply a variety of taxes, such as the "arsehole tax", "whingeing tax", and "ego massaging tax" that help us maintain calm if that person starts ranting.
I wonder how do you learn to do that.
Then you can just do the simple (but not easy) work of softly explaining a difficult situation. Like an actor in a movie.
If you start to think about "if this goes to court I'll be ruined!" or "I can't believe I wasted 3 months of my life for these jerks" it becomes really difficult.
Some of the most difficult clients are the richest or could be just freeloaders.
Some require exceptional service and immediate response times and are willing to pay for it.
Some want to use their behavior to pay less and blame it on you. It's very hard to filter out between those two.
> Do you want the "difficult client" to walk around to other prospects, warning them about how you tried to scam them with an outrageous price?
It's not a scam. Freelance contracts specify an agreement between me and a client. I can charge whatever I like and they can say no—everything is transparent. I'm not obligated to charge the industry average. In fact, I also vary my price depending on the client: a big tech company gets a bigger bill than a small local business, for example.
> are you hoping that they might accept your outrageous price
No. I just don't want to work with them. Also, it's not unusual for attractive clients to back out because they don't want to pay my normal rates—they're on the high end for the industries I work with. But that's not a scam either; I charge what the market will bear and I have no shortage of work (just the opposite).
There are ways of turning down projects without being insulting, and without offering outrageously high quotes. For example, you can say "I'm spread out too thin with all my other projects right now, sorry".
> It's not a scam. Freelance contracts specify an agreement between me and a client. I can charge whatever I like and they can say no—everything is transparent. I'm not obligated to charge the industry average.
This is your opinion, not the opinion of the "difficult client" that you're presenting the quote to. If you offered me a quote that is outrageously expensive, I will assume you are trying to scam me, and I will tell other people that you tried to scam me. Now, my question to you is, is it a desirable outcome for you to have a "difficult client" going around telling everybody that you're trying to scam people? Yes, you have your opinion that you didn't try to scam them, but they'll be going around telling people you tried to scam them nonetheless. To me it seems like this outcome should be avoided when possible.
> Also, it's not unusual for attractive clients to back out because they don't want to pay my normal rates—they're on the high end for the industries I work with. But that's not a scam either; I charge what the market will bear and I have no shortage of work (just the opposite).
Offering a rate that you believe the market will pay is distinctly different from offering an outrageously high rate that you believe the market will not pay.
I’m sure some of these people do react this way. They are, after all, assholes. That’s why I didn’t want to work with them in the first place. I can’t deny that it’s a possibility, but it doesn’t seem to have have resulted in any reputation issues.
I'm not a lawyer, but there are documented court cases in Finland where "two entities entered a contractual agreement over an agreed price", and then later the court determined that the price was outrageous and therefore it was actually fraud. For example, a door-to-door salesman selling house renovations to elderly people for 10x prices. Now, perhaps this is not fraud in the jurisdiction where you live, but it is definitely fraud in Finland.
> selling house renovations to elderly people for 10x prices
is illegal if the targets were elderly (or disabled), but not if you are just regular Joe and definitively not to business. In fact that's how politicians usually "help" their friends here, so laws are quite muddy probably on purpose
You literally can set arbitrary price to your time and at worst there won't be anyone willing to pay it.
This checks as long you give your rate/price upfront. This would be a scam if you DO the work and THEN charge non-market rate/price.
If you go for a quote for a simple android app (iPhone is not that popular here) you are quite likely to get more than 10x difference in quotes from various studios.
So there's logic in it. Money does balance the difficult clients too. Since they require more work too handle.
Yeah, I don't get this either. Isn't putting together a proposal with a fake high price for someone you don't want to work really awkward and a waste of time for everyone? It's like a power-trip meme in freelancer forums.
"I don't think I'm a good fit for this project" is fine. Even when there's nothing wrong with the client, variations of this answer are fine when you're too busy, the deadline is too tight, they're using unfamiliar tech, it sounds risky, they want you to work in a way you don't want to work etc.
It doesn't mean the price is fake. If your client is difficult, you know you'll have more phone calls, spend more time on interacting with them than with the code, would need to give them more support, haggle on the requirements and changer requests. All that cost time. And since I don't like to do those things, my rate for "having a call with the client" is higher than my rate for "developing the feature". Of course, clients doesn't need to know my internal pricing, so he would either get my "x2-3 normal hourly rate" or "xX normal project price" depending on the type of project.
It's very sensible and normal to quote more if you expect higher admin time and other complications that carry risk e.g. many stakeholders to get agreement from.
Given enough money, I would be thrilled to work for the worst client I can imagine. There are very few cases where I would flat out refuse to work with a client, regardless of money. And in those cases, I would be scared to death to just say: “sorry, I feel it would be better not to work for you, although you want it”.
I've heard in some cases doing this in the face of red hot fury can make things worse and you shouldn't be afraid to suspend the meeting and reconvene after a short break. Of course that needs a manager with enough of a backbone not to throw their team under the bus by sitting back and letting the client tear shreds off them.
I've worked for a number of agencies over the last 10 to 15 years. The myth is you need to hit grand slams. Big clients. Big budgets. And tolerate anything.
If that works, it's an outlier. What you need is a solid string of singles and doubles. Sure occasional triples and home runs are great. But as the stakes go up, often so do the unreasonable expectations and demands. One bad client can easily cost you more - time, energy, focus, team satisfaction, etc. - than that revenue. So what looks like big gains are in reality a loss.
TL;DR - Success isn't about the clients you get, it's about the ones you avoid (or worst case fire).
For whatever reason these customers do not want to walk away from us. We think they actually like the product. It's ultimately just a scope problem with regard to "done". Large swathes of the project are completed and in production right now.
Perhaps the key here is incremental delivery. Our management keeps coming back to that conversation. It is fantasy to pretend like you can predict the exact completion date of a product like ours. We started having the business value conversation with our customers and I think this is the best path to success. Keep the stakeholders focused on how much better things are getting for the business (i.e. on weekly status calls) and they will be less likely to get wrapped around a fence post over an arbitrary total project completion deadline.
I think the magic spell kicked in when we let the clients tell us what priority order of incremental feature delivery they would prefer. I believe this gave them a sense of control, and we've been able to hit these smaller targets with ease.
We did have conversations about firing some of our customers (i.e. over scope creep and bad requirements delivery), but we also know how important perception is with many of our clients (banking).
The higher order effects of incremental delivery are what I am most interested in. It seems to calm everyone down a lot compared to the anxiety that builds as a big drop dead date looms. I can't imagine many software projects that couldn't be run in this manner. The quality of life of your team will certainly improve in my experience. It's almost like we could deal with any customer as long as everyone is willing to take it 1 small step at a time.
> many of our clients (banking).
I have been a couple of times on the other side of the fence, feeling like difficult vendor olympics, same industry. Difficult, like in wondering why the f#ck we are having so massive performance problems with our parallel computation engine, only to one day realize that the vendor has decided that it is a Very Good Idea (tm) to send computation requests to the engine not parallel, but in series, and not asynchronously, but synchronously. Yep, lots of rewriting there.
> For whatever reason these customers do not want to walk away from us. We think they actually like the product.
Sorry to be blunt, but it is unlikely they like the product. In the best case they hope that the product will be okay one day. Internal politics are much more likely reason why they do not walk away. In that case someone would need to admit they made a mistake. As long as there is hope, they can just blame someone else (most likely you, that is:)
I think I need to add a couple more possible reasons here. One is that your customers know at that point how painful project it was to just make a decision on the vendor. Likely just that part of the project took years. They are very reluctant to start that from the scratch. Second one is that they very likely already have a good grasp on the competing vendors. Almost surely they were evaluated during the process you were selected. And they were not chosen. Either they were much more expensive or your customer is even less confident that they could deliver something in time. So they are stuck with you. And pissed. And of course, the requirements were written in committees after committees where everyone had more important things on their mind, so they should very much be pissed at themselves, but I think that level of self awareness is quite rare in the decision making bodies.
This is a site of stories (some are probably fiction), of independent contractors (mostly designers), about difficult clients.
Small thing, but the details are important sometimes.
Embrace them. They are the ones who make you / your product better.
Without the "difficult clients" you will not improve fast enough, you will become complacent and will be out performed by others.
Now *ç%%/&% clients are a different issue, but I would not call these difficult.
Then the customer says "unacceptable", then he calls my boss, then I'm in for hard time. Then I burn out.
The thing is, all of that is fine and dandy as long as your management supports you. But if somehow your management is on the line too, then you will work during the week end.
If you are employed, then you need to get acceptance of possible outcomes from your management, before going into that talk.