I work freelance in a specialised field and have done so for the past 9 years (was in-house before that).
I have had this difficult client for over a year - it is very usual for them to book some time and then not give me work, or give me badly thought out briefs. I have managed to overcome this somewhat by speaking on the phone with them, sending them a small example/first draft before continuing etc but they are not my favourite clients by a long shot.
Three weeks ago I was given a very small project, 2-3 hours work max. Did this, had some specific feedback, tweaked it and all was fine. It was Jane’s project, I’ve worked with her in the past and all fine.
This week I was given the same project but as part of a bigger version by Sarah, because Jane was on holiday and the work needed doing. I read the brief and completed the work, it was complex and far bigger than they had lead me to believe (20hours instead of 6 hours).
Then Jane came back and was not happy. I had redrawn some complex figures, I had asked for a colour pallete to use which Sarah had supplied, but it was wrong. So all needed to be redone with Jane’s pallete. Then it turns out Janes pallete is ever so slightly wrong, so I recolour a third time. Going over my hours allocated to them that week.
Yesterday Jane called and said I’d done a bad job, errors in my work and not finished to a high standard. I explained the situation. She said all fine, let’s draw a line under it.
I emailed her my end of week hours and as a gesture of goodwill to maintain good relationship I knocked off 8h (full working day) costs and said I value the relationship etc etc. No response.
Last night at 9pm I was out and got an email from Jane listing an error and copying in big bosses. It’s a fairly minor error in the scale Of things given how much work they threw at me in a haphazard manner, but an error nonetheless. Jane could be stressed as she is back from holiday and this project is going belly up and she was having to fix it at 9pm on a Friday night.
But equally I feel aggrieved that I had a shit brief and could not reasonably work to it. But I accept I am the freelancer and the scapegoat for this, and I did make a few minor errors.
But I have apologised, knocked off some of my costs and now how else can I appease her? As it stands I’m sure I will have lost this client but copying in the bosses gives me a bad rep in a small industry.
My other work with them as always been up to scratch, and in fact also on yesterday I had another, more stable client telling me “you’ve done a great job as you always do”
How can I best put a stop to it? If Sarah had told me the bigger picture I definitely would have worked differently, and if Jane had been in we would have spoken on the phone lots and worked it out.
I don’t want to offer the full 23h free but equally I don’t want to list the faults of the project as that would make me look defensive and terrible.
Any ideas? Just apologise gracefully, but not do anything else?
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How do I deal with this bad feedback from a longstanding client?
19 replies
Namechanger2015 · 18/08/2018 10:53
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