Here’s a scenario I’ve seen all too often, at agencies of all types — even those that should know better:
The client engages with your company for an assignment they can’t do themselves due to any combination of knowledge, resource and capabilities gaps.
You do the discovery and come to a scope of work that includes a timeline, milestones and deliverables for all team members (including the client). But the client wasn’t prepared for the demands of the work and, subsequently, misses some big milestones and deliverables.
That’s when the fire drills begin. Because, rather than holding the client accountable, everyone bends over backwards to “serve the client” in order to meet, more often than not, arbitrary deadlines. After all, they’re paying the bill, they don’t know any better and the client’s always right…right?
Some questions:
- Is the client best served by resources working under extreme pressure where ideas get short-changed and communication becomes challenging?
- Is the client best served by compressing production and QA cycles, and delivering products that aren’t thoroughly vetted or tested?
- Is the client best served by pushing back the work of other clients, forcing a cycle of crisis after crisis that disrupts work, fries resources and, just maybe, pushes your company to the point where you’re no longer a good partner to anyone?
- Are there people at your company who don’t get the impact of that picture? Are you one of them? Let’s hope not.
Comments 3
Uncomfortably close to home, comrade. Guess that’s why you chose the samiszdat of your own blog. What you write is pravda, though…
Posted 21 Oct 2009 at 3:14 pm ¶What you’ve written here cuts to the core of what it is to be a consultant. All successful consultants “over-give.” It’s in our DNA. But at what point does the client factor that into his/her requests? At what point does your over-giving become the client’s baseline expectation? You learn a lot not only about the client–but yourself–during the next conversation about the fee. To what extent does the principle of giving service translate into endlessly deferred fairness?
Posted 22 Oct 2009 at 2:19 am ¶This observation begs the question…
“When does a client become too expensive to work with?”
When we get to the point of diminishing returns…very honest evaluation and assessment “should” be a part of any postmortem.
Is this client relationship really adding value to the bottom line. Because in the end…if not…it won’t matter how much a company bends over backwards.
Projects that net net zero profit mean…you can’t stay in business. Standing tall and firm means you stand to win another day.
Posted 22 Oct 2009 at 8:45 am ¶Trackbacks & Pingbacks 1
[...] agencies, we all try to do right by our clients, but, as I discussed in “Bending Over Backwards,” it often leads to doing wrong by us (and, eventually, our clients too). This goes for [...]
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