Client Expectations and Sign-Off
Negotiation of the designer-client relationship can often be one sided, either the designer dictates an outcome or the client keeps iterating back and forth taking up far more than the allocated project budget in time consuming crud. So how do you please both the designer – who needs control over the outcomes – and the client?
This is where two phases of your relationship with the client come to the fore – the expectation stage and the sign-off stage.
Setting Expectations
In the expectation phase of your relationship you have to be careful not to oversell what you can offer. If they’re a budget end client then you can only offer a maximum amount of time and attention to their work. I know that sounds bad but somehow its your job to set up realistic goals and expectations given the constraints of the project – it may mean you have to explain that they don’t phone three times a week asking for minor (or major) design changes. Let them be aware that communication time is billable time. Bring everything back to the business relationship of what you can do for them and their business most effectively given the situation. If you set unrealistic expectations, such as a sophisticated database driven corporate website with e-commerce shopping for AUD$1,000, then they’ll walk away unhappy. Unhappy clients don’t recommend you – quite the opposite.
Explaining Sign-Off
Towards the other end of your designer-client working relationship you need the client to understand that when you send an artifact for sign-off that they actually need to attend to it. Sign-off is their opportunity to spot errors, negotiate changes. Too many times they’ll call a week later having just looked at what you sent over. What you need to do is attach a business cost to that process so that sign-off releases you from one stage and if they want further changes then they’re renegotiated piece by piece as you go. Don’t let some over-busy client have you work a full week in the wrong direction only to claim they aren’t responsible for the billable hours.
A Happy Client
In short, be straight up with the client and tell the truth. Clearly define what they can expect both in process and outcomes. After all, a happy client is simply someone who gets what they expected.
