[thelist] Your opinion: managing clients who miss deadlines

[Francis Marion]

I agree. Here's one instance that prompted my question. We have a client that is CONSTANTLY changing their mind. This is beyond mere feature creep, but a whole re-do. They pay for it. We'll say great! You want all of this in a database, no problem. We have time between x and y date. Have your content ready for us before x date so that we can review and discuss it. Sure thing! x date arrives, we call three days, a week before, hound them between x and y dates. We show them that all that was within our power to do was completed prior to schedule. We ask them to revise the completed work BEFORE X date. They barely return calls. Then a month or two after y date (and we've received like 5-10% of the materials) they call the director all upset that we haven't completed the project, and they don't feel like they're moving forward.

Yes, the easy answer is "fire them". They're a big client, it's not going to happen. My intention is to find some way of managing clients like these, and approach my director with solutions, rather than a problem.

Oh, and to manage the client in such a way that it doesn't happen anymore :)

On 2011-09-07, at 4:41 PM, erik mattheis wrote:

> All our delivery dates are contingent upon the client's delivery/approval
> dates. I would think any other kind of arrangement would be inequitable.
> 
> On Wed, Sep 7, 2011 at 3:31 PM, Matt Warden <mwarden at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> On Wed, Sep 7, 2011 at 4:21 PM, Francis Marion <francis.marion at sfroy.com>
>> wrote:
>>> Currently I and several managers in my company are experiencing issues
>> where some clients don't deliver materials on time. When the project starts,
>> we make agreements about delivery dates and so on, with the understanding
>> that they'll deliver the goods (copy, images, logos, information, etc) when
>> they say they will. Many, however deliver them past the agreed upon times,
>> or, we have to hound them for materials, which irritates both parties.
>> ...
>>> I'm soliciting ideas and opinions on how to deal with this kind of issue
>> in a way that is respectful, flexible, but not a nuisance to us or our other
>> clients, and that is similarly respectful to the client who is usually bang
>> on, but has the rare stuff-happens lapse. In the future, we have the
>> potential of adding some sort of clause to the contract, or at the very
>> least some form of notice, but I'm not sure how to handle our long-time
>> clients, or clients whose projects are already active.
>>> 
>> 
>> If you don't have something laid out already, you are mostly SOL. You
>> could try communicating to them that you have other obligations
>> starting on [some reasonably far time in the future] and you just
>> wanted to let them know that, given current delays. But that could set
>> you up for having to stick to it or essentially admit you don't have
>> to stick to it, should they not heed your warning. If the issue is
>> that you are holding time on your calendar for this project, you could
>> simply act as if starting on [original end date] you will be free to
>> take other projects on, and deal with conflicts as they happen. There
>> aren't great options.
>> 
>> In the future, you might consider setting a payment schedule based on
>> the planned project timeline. That way, if they want to delay, it
>> doesn't really matter. This is my preferred option, but you have to be
>> careful about how you set up collection of those payments.
>> 
>> Protecting yourself with a clause like "We expect stuff from you in a
>> timely manner" is next to useless.
>> 
>> --
>> Matt Warden
>> http://mattwarden.com
>> 
>> 
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> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Erik Mattheis
> 
> http://www.flickr.com/gelk
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