How To Deal With Demanding Clients

I’m doing my job as a web designer and programmer for nearly 8 years now and with time I’ve found some repeating problems with my clients. They can be a huge pain in the ass if you don’t know how to handle them.

So here are some pointers for you to consider before you decide to take that project you are so blissfully waiting for.

You have to make sure the clients follow these pointers otherwise you’ll lose a lot of your nerves during the process. How will you make them do it? I don’t know,… you can lash them with a wip as far as I care. You’ll have to figure it out by yourself, but remember to be self-confident at all time.

I’m a designer not a writer!

Few years ago I was making a design for a client who needless to say didn’t know what the hell he wanted to put on his website. When I showed him the design he was happy with the look of the website but something bothered him. He asked me what is this Lorem ipsum text on his website? I explained to him that was a dummy text which I put on to simulate the content. He looked astonished and said to me that he was expecting real content.

I told him he has to provide me the content and he responded: “I thought you’ll write the content?!”. Let me make this clear, I wouldn’t write him a content even if I had anything to write about. It is not designer’s job to write content. What I know about his company is enough to make suitable design and that’s it. So the lesson here is to make your clients aware of your job requirements.

Again, who is the designer here?

When client comes to you with a demand to make him a website design you naturally expect that he trusts your design skills (otherwise he wouldn’t hire you). Great! Maybe, if you don’t get demanding client who thinks he can do your job better than you.

I’ve worked night and day to make the best possible design which would suit my client’s requirements and finally ended up with very nice design. And then what happened? He started to interfere in design components, asking stupid questions, but saying he likes the design.

But then came the fearsome phrase that every designer hates to hear: Just one more small change! The client has started to throw things and suggestions to my design so that in the end the whole page looked like some neighbour’s kid made it in 10 minutes.

So what can you do if you find yourself in this situation? Try to explain your client he hired you to design his website and that his suggestions doesn’t fit into the design and that he should explained these things to you before you started the project, then take your time and try to include his ideas but charge them extra.

I don’t work for free!

Many clients want websites for couple $100. They complain about how their nephew can do it for $50. If he’s so good just let him make it. I guess quality doesn’t matter. At some point they will realize that good website is best left to the professionals.

Conclusion

You have to remember not to let the clients pressure forces you to work for unfair payment. Some of them can be very aggressive persuading you to his terms. You can always just walk away anytime you think the pressure is to big or the job isn’t worth the money.

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