Worst client I ever had
In the summer of 2007, I was asked to design a poster for a musician. He loved my work, and asked me to design a website for him. We worked with his assistant, who clearly had no idea about how to build a website. Over the next 4 months, we went back and forth with her, to create the website. After a number of meetings with her, we finally finished the site.
After the site had been up for a couple of months, the client finally paid their final installment. Then, a few months after the site had been online, I get a phone call from the musician. He said he had let his assistant go, and needed help updating the website. I sit down with him, to go over the site, and he begins to give me edits to the site. I tell him, I’ll be happy to make the revisions, but will need to bill the edits out at our hourly rate.
It was like I was threatening to take him to court when I told him I was going to bill him. He made claims of “the site doesn’t work at all like I had planned” and “why can’t I upload video to it like I can on youtube”. Well, I explained to him that the site we built was built on the direction that his assistant gave us, and we worked with her. I have emails from her explaining how what we built was exactly what was asked for.
After about 5 phone calls and a number of emails back and forth, the client finally calls me up screaming mad that I won’t make the changes for free. And that he won’t be paying me for anything, and will take me to court if I don’t make these changes.
Long story short, I drop his website, send him all the work we did on a CD and told him, “since you aren’t paying for server space on our server, I see no reason to keep hosting your site, here are all the files you paid for us to create, feel free to pass it along to anyone you like, and they can host the site.” What he didn’t realize is that the site was built on a database that required special programming knowledge that made it nearly impossible to build without knowing what was going on.
He sent the files to his nephew who knew HTML and the site was never found online again!
Lesson Learned:
The main lesson I learned from this project is two fold. First, always work with the person that will pay you. Just because they have an assistant, doesn’t mean that they assistant is communicating with the person paying you.
Secondly, have a very clear and concise design briefing that outlines everything that they expect for you to do. Make sure that they sign off on this briefing, and that they understand each piece of the project before you begin building the site.
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about 8 months ago
Man, that describes so many projects I’ve dealt with. It’s good to know that I’m not the only one who deals with people like this.
about 7 months ago
So far, the clients I’ve had (not many mind you) have given me carte blanche in creativity. I know this run will not last forever and I’m enjoying it while I have the opportunity.
In my contract, I spell out the process and the biggest portion of time is spent on the initial design. I’m not creating 20 pages of a website, adding graphics and additional photos and galleries to it without an approval of the initial design.
about 7 months ago
I don’t have a story about the worst client but about the worst prospective client.
I called a salon down the street from my house. I’d seen the sign a blue million times and finally whipped out my Blackberry, punched in the number on the sign and called. After getting the owner on the phone, I sweetly asked what the name of the salon was, in case the sign was intentionally misspelled. It was not. We had a discussion about the sign and then about a possible website for the salon. She was loud and sayin’ amen this and amen that. “Yes, Lordy, I need a website.”
I turned the car around and met her that afternoon and I dumbed down everything i said in order for this woman to understand me.
She didn’t need a website for her salon. She wanted one for her MLM business. My turn to “Lordy” (although I didn’t) because I hate scams like that. But hey-business is business. Uh, yeah.
We discussed it, in detail and I left, telling her I would have a quote to her later that day or the next. Knowing her budget, I kept it close and delivered the quote to her the following afternoon. She then wanted to know if I could do brochures and that she wanted to wait on the website because her friend had been working on it and this friend had had it for a year (her words) and that she just wanted to give her a chance.
I then gave her a quote for the brochures-for the design and layout only.
A week later, I picked up the photos she wanted to use for the brochures (this took about an hour or so of going through various folders on her computer-SHE HAD ME GO THROUGH THEM!)
I called her a few days later about the website, asked her if she’d talked to her friend and was it all straightened out… She said her friend was going to do the project herself and her OTHER friend said my price was just way too high for the brochures and she wasn’t going to do them.
My price for the brochure design was less than $200.
I still have her photos.
The sign is still spelled incorrectly, although I sent over a sign guy to give her a quote to fix it.
I bet if i checked, the website is probably still not functioning either!
about 7 months ago
The site is “closed for maintenance” but the message is different from when I saw it originally. Kudos for that, but it’s still not up and running 6 months later.
I probably spent a total of 3 hours with that woman and I believe the only words she knew were “praise be,” “thank ya Jesus,” and “amen.”