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Dealing with Hard To Please Clients
Search marketing, just like any other business, has its peaks and valleys that make it both rewarding and frustrating to be to be an SEO at time. I find it rewarding and motivating to help my clients who have little or no business being generated online gain new business they never imagined they could capture. Conversely, it is equally frustrating when I have to face clients that are hardly appreciative, expect me to be the jack of all trades for their marketing, and aren’t ready to pay for any work that is out of the scope of the contract.
The 3 Types of Clients
The ZOMG Thank You Client - This type of client is my obvious favourite because they truly appreciate how online marketing helps grow their business in a way they never could imagine before their SEO comes along. About 60% of my clients fall into this area
The I’m Not Getting What I Paid For Client - No matter what you do, this type of client will never admit that they are getting their value for money regardless of whether you deliver superior results. Generally speaking, they also want you to manage everything related to their online campaign (website, seo, sem, social media, yada yada) because they don’t have time for this ‘online stuff’, but aren’t willing to pay a penny more for the additional services. There are several ways of dealing with this type of client that I’ll discuss later in this post.
The ‘I’m Secretely Happy But Can’t Tell You I Am’ Client - This type of client loves having internal meetings where they secretely adore what you’re doing for them, but generally are devoid of any facial expressions in your monthly phone calls, lest you understand you’ve ‘hooked them in’ and charge them more. It’s in the same line a showing a salesman disinterest in a product or service, in order to squeeze more of a bargain. I don’t mind this type of client at all, but honestly it’s rather silly to try and hide enthusiasm, because it’s easy to figure this out if you have a knack for reading people.
When The Client Screams …Just Woosaa
When you’re in business, it’s important not to take things personally. Myself and countless others have suffered professionally by taking business misgivings personally. Here’s a couple of things to consider before throwing in the towel on that impossible client situation.
- Customer Life Time Value - Do you envision retaining the client over a period of 2 years or more? If so, there may be ways to tweak the account management such that reports are automated, there are interim status updates, or you have another member of your team handle the account if you absolutely cannot. That said, if you can bare to live with the client, suck it up.
- Intangible Value - The client may well be difficult to deal with, but can you obtain valuable referral business if you do a good job of pleasing them? An ideal example of this would be working with a hard to please franchise owner, if they have the influence of getting other similar franchises signed on.
- Business Sense and Reputation Management - SEO’s may think of reputation management in its online extension, but word of mouth is far more powerful in smaller SMB circles. An unhappy client can spread a world of negativity about their experience with you or your team, so being cognizant about the ramifications of ‘dropping’ or ‘firing’ a client is imperative.
- Don’t Take on Clients You Don’t Want - Agency-Client fit is very important to have a long term profitable relationship. By following your own business intuition and principles, you won’t be afraid to say ‘no’ to a client if the fit is just not there.
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Tom Stanley 09.29.08 at 7:28 pm
I was on Yahoo and found your blog. Read a few of your other posts. Good work. I am looking forward to reading more from you in the future.
Tom Stanley
Kenneth Dreyer 09.29.08 at 11:06 pm
I agree with you! The relationship goes both ways, so if you take in clients you don’t actually want to work with, you will stress yourself out and the quality you provide to other clients might also get “infected”.
Dev Basu 10.01.08 at 9:04 am
@ Tom - Thanks and I hope you visit again!
@ Kenneth - You’re right about getting so stressed out with a one not so pleasant client that it affects the quality of work for other clients. Decision making is a key skill in running any business, and it takes a lot of guts to turn down a potential client that can pay very well, but has zero fit with your organization.
Damian 10.01.08 at 11:24 am
What I was saying is that I agree that one should choose clients they want to work with. My experience on that lately is that I worked with a client on their website. I provided a stylish and modern design which in the end they had parts of it changed. They totally messed up a really great design (I’m not blowing my own horn here). Anyway, it showed me that I’ve got to be just as selective as clients and work with those who atleasts likes good design.
Finding the right client is really important in being a successful designer.
Riverside 10.01.08 at 9:42 pm
I recently had a “I’m not getting what I paid for” who I went way out of my usual terms, and despite the fact that he never provided the content he swore he would make, I got him a huge increase in his rankings, traffic and leads in 3 months time. Then he tries to call me up, and get a full refund of everything he had already paid and pretended like he never saw the contract I sent him! The Gall!
I think there may be other Client types as well:
The Overly Needy Client: This client is typically very genuinely interested in your work, and very very enthusiastic about the process…so much so that they wnat to keep talking and communicating about every little aspect of the work you are completing and you end up spending 5 to 6 times as much time talking to them as you do actually getting anything done.
Dev Basu 10.01.08 at 9:51 pm
@Riverside - Man that peeves me. You’re right on about the overly needy client too. It’s akin to the ‘give a man a fish vs teach a man to fish’ analogy, which focuses on less hand-holding for the client, and more autonomy on their part.
Will Hanke 10.03.08 at 2:01 pm
I have a client that is a mixture of two from above. It’s a Dad-son retail store. The Dad (old school) is definitely a ‘I’m Secretely Happy But Can’t Tell You I Am’ Client’ and his son is a ZOMG Thank You Client. It’s kinda funny to watch the dad when I’m around, because he seems very indifferent about the things I mention. But then later on when I speak to the son, he tells me how excited “they” are.
Oh, and his dad keeps writing me checks every month. That’s probably the hardest part of his masquerade…
Ian Cowley 10.05.08 at 7:41 am
What the “Armchair Expert” Client? I have heard the following more than once from clients:
“We have dropped for this term” - Even though it’s a vanity phrase that’s had zero conversions in the last 5 months.
“I want you to spend more time on my metatags, my friends nephew told me they were important” - OMG!
Dev Basu 10.05.08 at 10:49 am
@Ian Cowley - Not the biggest fan of the ‘armchair expert’ client. Here’s some that I’ve heard:
“Why don’t we spend time out ranking our [well known] competitor for their brand name? I bet that would drive ton’s of traffic to our site”.
“We know all about optimizing our meta tags, we’ve added 500 of them to our site, and think we rank well for our terms”.
“Listen, I’ve been around in the Vancouver area for a very long time, and I have top placement in all my advertising here - in fact they give me a discount. Now how come Google won’t let me list my locations at a discount?” …
Me: I’ll make sure you get a 100% discount, and we only charge a management fee to get all your listings approved…