Maintaining excellent relationships with clients should be a top priority for anyone who provides services; sadly, some ignore the basics. Here is my top five list of “what not to do”:

1. Learn on the client’s dime.
   Don’t be shy to take on a project even if you are not sure that you have the skills and experience to do it; particularly if you are on a per diem or hourly arrangement. After all, whatever you learn while you are on the clock for this client, you’ll know for your next project.
2. Blame the client.
   This is particularly effective when you have failed to estimate project costs appropriately. Tell the client that you can’t be responsible for “scope creep”; not only will you get paid for you but you didn’t know (see #1), but you will introduce guilt into the dynamic.
3. Don’t deliver on time.
   Deadlines are made to be compromised. Your client won’t mind a little slippage here and there; he/she will understand that you are busy.
4. Share your problems with your client.
   Be open about the fact that you have personal problems, technological problems, competing projects etc. Your client, a nice person, will surely understand and make allowances given your troubles.
5. Let your client know you don’t trust him/her.
   Insist on being paid regardless of your failures. Don’t try to rectify the damage you’ve done, trusting that the client will abide by your agreement. Stop work if the client withholds payment; it’ll probably cost your client a lot of time and added expense to hire someone else to finish up what you failed to deliver.

Of course there are more obvious ways to damage a client relationship — for example, not responding in a timely manner to the client’s questions. Rest assured, however, adding these to the mix will ensure you will never get more business or referrals from this client. So keep up your marketing efforts!

TAGS: entrepeneurs, fixing mistakes, growing your business

We recently returned home from a two-week trip to find that, once again, our LA Times subscription had failed to restart from the vacation hold I set before we left. Because the message on the Times’ toll-free line urges you to handle your account online, I went to its Web site to report the missing papers.

But the site wouldn’t let me. Because I was trying reporting the missing papers after the Times’ “cut off” time for providing replacements, the online system wouldn’t even accept my complaint.

I didn’t necessarily need to get a paper that day–I could read it online. So by refusing to allow me to submit my problem, the Times managed to do three things: waste my time, tick me off, and remind me that I’m getting less and less attached to its product (at least in its paper version). In these days of shrinking circulation and upheaval, that’s probably not the message the Times wants to give its remaining loyal subscribers.

I’m guilty, too. It was only in the last few weeks that I added a search function to my own Web site. Folks who didn’t know how to make a site-specific Google search (using site:sitename.com, plus a space and the topic word, thus: site:asklizweston.com credit scores) often couldn’t find what they were looking for. Now (hopefully), it’s easier.

So, how are you irritating your customers (or your vendors, or your bosses)? What complaints have you heard more than once that have yet to be fixed…and more importantly, what can you do today to start to fix them?

TAGS: Customer service, fixing mistakes, loyalty