When A Client’s Expectations Are Not Met - What Not To Do.
“In business, there will always be unexpected things that happen. Despite best intentions, things can go wrong from time to time. Often these things catch you off guard, making the situation uncomfortable and unsettling.
If you have your legals set up properly and in place, then working through a tricky situation is a whole lot easier, and less damaging (to both your business and your client).
When you have your legal in place, often you can simply refer to your documents (cancellation and return policies, terms and conditions, scope of services, costs, etc.), and you can identify the applicable provision, and work through what this means for both your client and you.
Having the clarity and certainty of the documents can give you peace of mind that you can handle whatever arises (unless of course, your documents have not been adequately tailored to your business… you can read more about template documents in my blog ‘Are template documents adequate for my business’).
Sometimes, for whatever reason, business don’t have their legals in place (having not had time, not thought they were necessary or a range of other reasons). Unfortunately, in such situations you can find yourself exposed (including financially) when an issue arises.
Uncertainty can arise through something as simple as a non-aligned expectation between you and your client—it happens. But when you can’t refer to clarifying documents, then the process of moving forward can be likened to navigating through uncharted territory.
I have seen many situations unfold with my clients, business owners, who were caught by surprise when something went wrong in a client relationship. Too often, they have found themselves without the necessary documents (legals) in place to help them.
Time and time again I see my clients react with negative emotion. And when you adopt a defensive position, it can almost always make matters worse.
This is often amplified further when it was the business owner who let themselves down in the first place by not having all their ducks in a row (no legals in place!).
My best advice is that prevention is better than the cure. For business, this means getting your legals in place as a matter of priority.
That said, it’s not a perfect world and this won’t always be the case. Here are my Top 5 Tips on what not to do when things go wrong with a client relationship, when you don’t have your legals to support you (and when you value the client relationship and hope to preserve it):
1. Don’t make it about you. Hear your client out, understand what their issue or concern is, and work hard to try to resolve it. It could be a simple fix like offering support or guidance, it could be an easy case of re-doing some work, clarifying what has been provided, or even replacing something.
2. Don’t make it all about the money. It’s not all about the money! (it’s never just about the money, there is always another piece to the puzzle). If you make it all about the money you are likely to antagonise the client who could end up feeling dis-empowered and completely undervalued. Unless you need to discuss money straight away, my advice is don’t.
3. Don’t be condescending or aggressive. This will likely end any chance of an amicable resolution very quickly, and will possibly escalate the matter to lawyers becoming involved (and trust me, that is the last thing you want to happen).
4. Don’t ignore them. Sure, you might be busy and you might have a lot going on. One thing you can be sure about though, is if you fail to prioritise dealing with the issue, it won’t go away. It will likely become larger because the client could end up feeling ignored or not valued—or worse, hurt—and this can lead to the situation morphing into something bigger than it ever had to be. Do what you can to allow the person to feel prioritised, even if this is simply acknowledging the issue and letting them know when you will be coming back to them.
5. Don’t set your lawyer onto them (unless it gets out of hand and you absolutely need to). By all means obtain advice from your lawyer if you need to, but remember that once you instruct your lawyer to deal with them, people’s defences can go up, they can feel attacked or threatened, and they can then refuse to deal with you in a calm and rational way. Only ‘lawyer up’ if you need to in order to protect your business, or if you really are in a sticky situation that you absolutely cannot get out of yourself.
As you can see, communication really is a key component to any approach when dealing with things going wrong.
Be sure to check in to see if your communication is right for the situation. It might feel good to be defensive at first, but your long-term reputation can suffer. Remember we are all human.”
**this blog is written with my small business clients in mind. I am drawing on typical issues that I see arise time and time again, and I do not intend for this piece to be applied to every client in every situation. Rather, this is a general guide to small businesses of things to keep in mind when things go wrong.
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