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5 Mistakes That Will Cost You Clients, And How to Avoid Them

Published on 26th November, 2008 by Stephen Lewis

Illustration of two businessmen talking

1. Providing too many options

You might think that by providing your client with multiple solutions to a problem you’re being extra helpful, and demonstrating just how good you are at your job.

Think again.

Most decisions don’t require your client’s involvement, because they make little or no difference to the end product.

If the final destination remains the same regardless of the option chosen, and it’s just the route that changes, make the decision without bothering your client.

When your fingers turn purple, you expect your doctor to diagnose the problem based on your symptoms, and provide you with a cure. You don’t expect him to make you choose between 3 types of antibiotic, that all appear indistinguishable to your layman eye.

You’re the expert; don’t fob decisions off onto your layman client.

2. Speaking geek

If you’re a geek (and if you’re reading this, you are), you probably have a habit of slipping quietly into what most clients would consider techno-babble.

Here’s the thing: your client is already out of his element. Chances are that he knows nothing about the process of putting together a website, which is why he hired you in the first place.

If you start waffling on about stuff he doesn’t (and shouldn’t be expected to) understand, you’re just going to confirm that sneaking suspicion that he has no control whatsoever over his own project.

And that will inevitably spell trouble for you.

Here’s how to avoid slipping into geek speak:

Keep it simple. Your client isn’t paying you to build his new website, he’s paying you so he doesn’t have to learn how to build his new website. Remember that the next time you’re tempted to wax lyrical about the subtleties of web standards development.
Plan and practise. When it comes to talking about their area of expertise, every web designer and developer I know wings it. After all, the thinking goes, this is what I do, I can talk about it all day.

Yes, you can, and that’s the problem.

Consider how you can describe the most important elements of your job in the clearest, most concise way possible, and write down your explanation. Then learn it, and use it the next time you’re speaking to a client.

3. Refusing to take responsibility

None of us likes feeling vulnerable, which is probably why most web agencies seem to do everything possible to foist the burden of risk onto their clients.

Of course, this ignores the fact that your clients feel exactly the same way about risk as you do.

If hiring your business looks like a risky proposition, your client will take his custom elsewhere. In fact, if hiring your business looks like anything other than a zero risk proposition, your client will want to know why (even if he doesn’t ask).

Your client wants a fixed-cost for his website, and a clear understanding of what he’s getting for his money. He also wants reassurance that he’s not going to be left twisting in the breeze if the entire project goes off the rails.

If your client is after a quarter-million pound system for central government, then OK, he might be asking a bit much. If he’s a local florist looking for a simple two grand website then a fixed-cost, clear deliverables, and a money-back guarantee are all perfectly reasonable demands.

You’re being hired because you’re a web professional; act accordingly.

4. Not managing expectations

Here’s a simple guide to ensuring that your project doesn’t run smoothly, and your client takes any further business elsewhere:

Don’t clearly explain your process for planning, designing, and building your client’s website.
Don’t clearly define the deliverables for each stage of the project.
Don’t let your client know what will happen, and when, during the course of his project.
Don’t keep your client informed regarding any problems that you encounter (and how you’re going to solve them), or changes to the project schedule.
Don’t help your client to understand his responsibilities, and how they will affect the success of his project.

5. Not keeping in touch

A big problem rarely starts off as a big problem. It starts off as a minor irritation, persistently bugging your client day in, day out, until it finally assumes a completely disproportionate level of importance.

That’s when you get the phone call. You sit there, baffled, as your client complains passionately about this utterly insignificant “problem” that will probably take you all of 5 minutes to fix.

After you’ve put the phone down, and regaled your co-workers with a brief but entertaining rant about your idiot client, you fix the minor irritation. As predicted, it takes about 5 minutes.

There’s a simple way to avoid this: phone your client, today.

Ask him if he’s happy with his website, or with the way the project is going. Ask him if he has any questions, or if there’s anything that’s not working as he’d like.

Otherwise, the first you’ll hear about the minor irritation is when it’s become the big problem. And by then, it’s too late, the damage has been done.