Client Rant
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- Spookytim
About three weeks ago I was commissioned to do a book cover. The book had just won a major literary prize so the publisher client wanted to pull out all the stops and get it done really quickly. Despite being really busy, I jumped on it like a randy puppy, delivered a number of rough visuals and asked for feedback. Feedback took a few days because the client had gone to America on business. I can't proceed with the feedback.
Then she's back and gives me feedback so I turn on a sixspence to work up about six visuals to cover all options. I send them and explain that I need feedback to proceed to the next stage. I get no response. I call, no-one there, email again... nothing. That was on a Monday. Tuesday, email again, just checking they were recieved. Wednesday, tried calling, emailing again, nothing. Thursday, I call again and email ... this is a rush job after all... and I get an email back saying "I've been away for a few days, I'll get back to you tomorrow".
Friday afternoon, no response. I get the right hump about and call up to say that either I get some response or I shelve the project and get on with all the other things on my schedule. Someone in the office there advises me that my client has been off work moving house but will be back the following week.
Monday, nothing.
Tuesday, a call. Some feedback. Finally. It took three minutes maximum. "I like visual number four. Move this bit down, thats all".
Great, but there's still a whole heap of intricate illustration to do and I have other deadlines for other clients now to contend with.
Friday, just now, my client calls, sounding a bit flustered that she hasn't had anything back off me yet, and time is passing, and she has meetings and presentations to do and could really do with this artwork being finished sometime soon please.
Oh really? Maybe if you hadn't totally gone off radar for nearly two weeks all total, we might be a bit further down the line with this and on schedule for all your important sales presentations ffs.
How do clients develop this audacity that allows them to make huge foolish delays and then hope to bundle all the pressure and guilt onto us once they realsie the artwork is late?
Makes me fuming fucking crazymad.
Rant Over.
- Spookytim0
tl;dr
- skt0
this isn't news.
- YAYPaul0
Clients pay the bills and they know it. Bitches.
- ian0
Spooky, all clients believe that they are the most important client you have at any particular moment in time, and as such they refuse to believe that you may actually have other work to do for other clients. Its a pain in the arse but a sad fact of life in this industry.
Do you need a hug?
- Bluejam0
at the end of the day, clients rarely grasp the full extent of what we do, likewise, we rarely grasp the full extent of what clients do.
sometimes it just pays to get yer head down, do the work as best you can and come out the other side knowing that you did it the right way.
- emecks0
I'm working on a template for any job that allows me to be a smug "told you" bastart in the event that this happens.
The idea is to outline what I deliver, when I deliver and which steps are required of the client prior to me being able to continue. Was thinking to do it timeline fashion in flash so that if the dates that they react on move back so does the day that they can expect the final work to be done by...
- Spookytim0
To Ian's point... Thats the real crux right there. Clients are always amazed, and noticeably shocked when I explain to them that I am not working on their project right now because another needs my attention. Its a real affront to their sense of importance. I can hear their brains mulling over whether that constistutes an abandonment of contracted duties and creative negligence.
I am slipping back into my old ways. I can feel it. I went through a terrible period at the end of my design time in London where I would be unable to refrain from shouting at clients to Fuck Off and never approach me for any work ever again. Not a good business strategy.
- monoboy0
What Bluejam said.
Nothing worse when you've been really accommodating. Be upfront about the risks of rush jobs and add a 'rush' fee to soften the blow of doing all nighters. Happens all the time. Tis all about educating your client and nothing works better than increasing your fees.
- Spookytim0
To Emecks... Don't. Don't go down that route. I will dig out some examples of my own attempt to do this. You think you are going to make everything water tight, but your client will amaze and astound you by finding a totally unexpected way to fuck you and the job over. So version two of your water tight contract will fill that hole, and lo, soemthing else will occur.
After about two years of trying to fence them in, the agreement that clients were expected to sign before I would work with them was about 6 A4 sheets of solid 10pt on 11pt type. Each page to be dated, signed, and named by the client.
It became my own private hell and I really advise against doing it Emecks. I'll find an old pdf and show you how absurd my contractual timeline bible became in the end, and never, not once did it make my life any easier.
- johnnnnyh0
Spoolytim you are not alone in this. Infact but for a few minor details your post is interchangeable with my life at the moment. Mutiple big projects - insane deadlines - no reponse for feedback everything backing up. I have taken to working methodically on one/two pieces per day, and using the delay in feedbakc to further one or other of the outstanding projects to a point where they need feedback.
Your post helped me realise it's not just me, then.
All I can say to help you is that you are not alone in this.I see this as part of the pain of running ones own business.
- ian0
What I try to do is create a sense of time for my clients as much as I can, just to show that its not an instantaneous process. For example, when do edits, I will do the edits and wait (even if its just a half hour on mall edits) before sending back to the client. It gives them the idea that even small changes take time to do and they can't expect everything they want when they want it. And it helps me to remain sane.
- Yes, good advice. I also do this, and I am sometimes "out of the office on a shoot" to punctuate the process...Spookytim
- ... the amount of shoots I go on is hysterical. I'm waiting for a client to get curious about it and ask where the results are.Spookytim
- Yeah, its a simple way to reinforcing the notion that work takes time. You still feeling angry or you ok?ian
- Ah, I'm okay I guess. Amazing what a bit of music can do. Cheers for asking.Spookytim
- jaylarson0
Similar story:
I have been working on this web site for this cow dealer. I received some great feedback here and planned to implement the changes on his site. This has been going on since August and hopefully soon I will be able to fire him as a client. I just need to get his site up.I finally was in contact with him in early February and told him what I was going to do. I followed up a bit and never heard back from him until 2 days ago saying: "I need to get my site running. Can we do that quickly?". Good thing I have received money along the way as I don't know if I will ever receive much more. I think I will give him an email today saying yr sites up (which is fugly) and end it. If he asks why, I will simply say I have too much on my plate right now or I like to work with clients that talk to me more than once every two months.
Idiot.
- Fariska0
Just arrived: Working on this flash piece for a consumer electronic client. Designs signed off one month ago. We're already late on this one beacuse the video company who had to do a video did it badly and had to be redone, and today arrived some other feedback that disrupts the already signed off designs.
And my boss had to go there and chase them for feedback, otherwise i guess we would have stumbled on it on monday, or even worse, when the piece was ready and waiting for the final approval.
- creative-0
Not a week goes by when I don't feel like tombstoning one of our clients
- Spookytim0
It is comforting to know we all suffer the same outrageous nonsense though isn't it. I'm heartened to read these tales of woe. Being neck deep in shittle, alone, is somehow much worse than being neck in shittle amongst friends.
- Sep0
But we all know how to deal with those frustrations, right? You keep your mouth shut, let the anger build and build, until you can't keep it in any longer and you explode in a violent rage preferably directed towards them who have absolutely nothing to do with it.
You have kids?
- Ah no, My little girl is sweet and happy and I would never take it to her.Spookytim
- Dr_Rand0
I killed your client