Part of what I do in my business is web design. More and more lately I've been having this issue with new clients that goes something like this:
1. We meet and discuss their needs.
2. We agree on the scope of the project and that I'm able to do the work.
3. I explain how I charge on a date-based system, with the first payment being the deposit or 1/2 of the setup fee needed to start work.
4. I send them a payment link and they pay the deposit, understanding that the second charge will be debited two weeks later.
5. About a week in, or sometimes, the day of the second charge, I get a somewhat frustrated client asking to see the work done so far on their project.
Here's the problem, in my business it often takes about 1.5 to 2 weeks just to do most of the research and discovery required to even start the design for their website. I'm not one for doing rushed work as that tends to result in shoddy results–and poor ROI for clients. I also split time across multiple projects each week, so each client isn't getting a full workweek of time allocated to their project.
Today, I had a client get very frustrated with me about his second payment coming out in two days. He, understandably, is frustrated because I've not shown him anything. He's also been burned in the past, and is just recently cutting ties with another agency over lack of communication. While I've been very communicative with him about the project status, he expressed frustration over not seeing any part of the process up until this point–it's been 1.5 weeks...
I explained to him that I am sending a logo design presentation later today. And tried to reassure him that things are going as planned, with the setup generally taking 60 days from kickoff meeting to leads coming in.
There's a lot I'm leaving out for brevity in terms of my full onboarding process, expectation setting, etc. But this is something that I don't want to be a hinderance or even a sticking point in the future. I've considered creating artificial "waypoints" where I ask for the client's input on things like logo design, color choices, fonts, etc. But it's hard for me to justify doing it when my clients hire my business expressly because they're not technically or design savvy. My promise to them is that they can fire themselves from having to do their marketing stuff. They focus on their profession and we focus ours. The relationship is more doctor-patient than consultant-client. We prescribe a predefined solution to our customer's problems based on our expertise.
Have you faced similar challenges in your business around managing relationships with customers? How did you overcome it? Do you have any suggestions for me?
1. We meet and discuss their needs.
2. We agree on the scope of the project and that I'm able to do the work.
3. I explain how I charge on a date-based system, with the first payment being the deposit or 1/2 of the setup fee needed to start work.
4. I send them a payment link and they pay the deposit, understanding that the second charge will be debited two weeks later.
5. About a week in, or sometimes, the day of the second charge, I get a somewhat frustrated client asking to see the work done so far on their project.
Here's the problem, in my business it often takes about 1.5 to 2 weeks just to do most of the research and discovery required to even start the design for their website. I'm not one for doing rushed work as that tends to result in shoddy results–and poor ROI for clients. I also split time across multiple projects each week, so each client isn't getting a full workweek of time allocated to their project.
Today, I had a client get very frustrated with me about his second payment coming out in two days. He, understandably, is frustrated because I've not shown him anything. He's also been burned in the past, and is just recently cutting ties with another agency over lack of communication. While I've been very communicative with him about the project status, he expressed frustration over not seeing any part of the process up until this point–it's been 1.5 weeks...
I explained to him that I am sending a logo design presentation later today. And tried to reassure him that things are going as planned, with the setup generally taking 60 days from kickoff meeting to leads coming in.
There's a lot I'm leaving out for brevity in terms of my full onboarding process, expectation setting, etc. But this is something that I don't want to be a hinderance or even a sticking point in the future. I've considered creating artificial "waypoints" where I ask for the client's input on things like logo design, color choices, fonts, etc. But it's hard for me to justify doing it when my clients hire my business expressly because they're not technically or design savvy. My promise to them is that they can fire themselves from having to do their marketing stuff. They focus on their profession and we focus ours. The relationship is more doctor-patient than consultant-client. We prescribe a predefined solution to our customer's problems based on our expertise.
Have you faced similar challenges in your business around managing relationships with customers? How did you overcome it? Do you have any suggestions for me?
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