Avoid difficult client situations before you have to face problems with clients by having a plan (boundary) in place, in writing, and provided to your client when bringing them on as clients.
Operating a business in today’s climate is challenging. Dealing with difficult client situations can make it more problematic. Without carefully set boundaries, problem clients can take your time and attention away from other clients. In this post, I discuss things you can do to manage these difficult client situations more efficiently.
Avoid difficult client situations in your business IF you have put systems in place and adhere to them.
Understanding how to address them for maximum impact without alienating your client can make a huge difference in your success with your clients and with your business as a whole.
One of the most important things for you to remember is that while YOUR business is all about serving your clients, it is, first and foremost, YOUR business. You have to operate it in a way that works for YOU and serves your clients. They are coming to you for help.
Difficult client situations can be a challenge for LNCs. However, addressing them with grace and ease establishes you as a pro to achieve greater success as a result.
Difficult Client Situations Problem #1
Your Client has Trouble with Boundaries
Boundaries are important. Not only for your clients who need to understand that boundaries exist but also for you and your family. Do you have clients who call and text you at all hours of the day and night? This intrusion on personal and family time creates resentment from your family toward your business.
In other words, it’s a problem that needs to be addressed, pronto!
Step 1: Create “Collaboration Guidelines”
If you’re having a problem with clients failing to understand and recognize boundaries, it is time to sit down and create a set of “collaboration guidelines” for all your clients. While these won’t eliminate existing problems, which need to be addressed, they will help prevent some future problems with boundaries.
What should your collaboration guidelines include?
Keep this document and set of guidelines straightforward and simple. Include the following:
- Identify your office hours. These are the hours when you are available to answer phone calls (when not working with other clients), return phone calls, respond to emails, respond to text messages, etc.
- Establish realistic expectations for client communications. This is where you remind your clients that each of your clients is important to you. When you are working with one client, it may take a while to respond to another, but you will do so as soon as possible.
- Reiterate the importance of boundaries and personal time. Chances are that you’re working with them to encourage them to set boundaries in their own businesses. Clients need to understand that there are boundaries and limits to your availability, too. This is your opportunity to show them the importance of boundaries, office hours, realistic expectations, etc. in action.
It needs to be simple to read and contain a few additional parameters, so the key details do not get lost in translation.
In the future, send out the “collaboration guidelines” whenever you give clients your personal contact information.
For existing clients, make it a teachable moment. Remind them that it is important for all professionals to establish boundaries and create “office hours.” Inform them that these are your office hours and you would appreciate their understanding in limiting communications to these times.
Step 2: Create Auto-Reply Messages Outside of Office Hours
These auto-reply messages are important because they do several things at once without requiring you to interrupt your personal or family time to interact with your clients:
- They give you the opportunity to remind clients of your office hours.
- They let your clients know you will respond to their messages or requests during your next regular “office hours.”
- They allow you to remind your clients they are IMPORTANT to you. This way you do not risk alienating your clients through perceived unresponsiveness while honoring your own need for personal time and boundaries between work and life.
Step 3: Stick to Your Guns
This is sometimes the most difficult part of the process for people. It is also essential that you hold yourself accountable to the standards you set for your business communications.
What does that mean for you?
Don’t answer your clients when they call, text, email, or send Facebook or Twitter messages after hours.
In fact, you should ONLY respond to them during normal business hours. UNLESS the client continues to push and reach out. Then, you should send a BRIEF reply telling them you are unavailable and EXACTLY when you can be reached (during your office hours and restate the hours and days).
Boundaries are as important for your clients as they are for you. For you, they allow you the opportunity to relax and recharge, uninterrupted by work, with friends and family.
For your clients, it lets them know that they must create boundaries in their own lives with family, work, friends, and coworkers. It’s an important lesson that drives home the importance of valuing your time.
Let me make one important point. When your client is getting ready for a mediation that could be worth millions of dollars, you will of course bend the rules. I was up until midnight with a client the night before a critical mediation. Your clients will appreciate your willingness to pitch in for them during critical times.
Difficult Client Situations Problem #2
Informing Long-Time Clients of Rate Increases
This can be especially difficult if your long-time client is already getting your services for bargain basement pricing. However, as your skills and client list grow, so does the level of service and experience you bring to the table. In other words, your time is worth more.
That doesn’t make it any easier to address the matter with clients who have been with you from the beginning. Not only are they loyal to you but you tend to be loyal to them as well. The odds are good that you have increased rates a time or two already without adjusting their rates accordingly.
In every career, the time will come when you must be willing to either bring these new relationships into the fold fully and charge for your time and services accordingly or allow them to go a different route.
Keep these things in mind when raising your rates:
- Start by thanking them for their business and support over the years. Be specific about the things your relationship has helped them accomplish and how you’ve loved watching them achieve so much. Then, let them know you hope to enjoy many more years working together.
- Be honest and upfront with your clients. Explain that businesses naturally raise rates as they grow and as their services expand and that now is the time for your business to do the same. You may even explain that you have left rates the same for this client while raising rates for others in the past but can no longer justify doing so at this point in your business.
- Give your clients ample notice of the rate change. Telling them that their rate will jump significantly on their next billing cycle is shocking, to say the least. Consider giving them two to three months’ notice so they can make the choice to continue working with you without undue pressure. And if they choose NOT to work with you, that time allows them to find someone new.
- Don’t apologize or make excuses. You don’t need to justify your rate changes. It isn’t necessary to inform them about rising costs, the bills you have to pay to continue providing them with new materials and insights, or anything else.
- Stand strong and ask your clients for the rates you KNOW you deserve. Don’t let your clients talk you out of what you know is the right move for your business and yourself.
Finally, if clients continue to push back against the rate increase, consider severing the relationship. It can be difficult, especially if these clients were with you in the beginning or have been with you for many years.
But ask yourself this. “If they don’t value your services, your time, and your commitment to them, do you really want to continue the relationship?”
Difficult Client Situations Problem #3
Client Constantly Requests Out-of-Scope Work or Support
We discussed boundaries earlier but this is a different kind of boundary issue. When clients are constantly requesting services and support that are outside of the scope of your original contract, it quickly becomes a problem.
First, you are NOT required to do everything every client asks of you. This is YOUR business. It is up to you to choose how to operate it.
Most importantly, and something many LNCs struggle with is that is perfectly acceptable to tell clients “No.” Especially when they are asking for things you never agreed to do.
How you say “No” can make all the difference in the world, however. It may even help your client realize the error of his or her ways and try a different approach in the future.
How can you respond when clients ask for more?
Solution 1: Attach a Price to the Request
You have a few options to consider. Including one of my personal favorites, “I’d be happy to do this for a fee of $X.”
Make sure to make it a memorable fee if it is something you are willing, but not eager, to do. You also have the option of setting a ridiculous fee if it is something you have absolutely no interest in doing.
Your time, talent, and knowledge have value. Don’t sell yourself short by giving away any of those precious resources for FREE! Not only does that do nothing to build your business, it sets a bad example for people who are looking to you for advice on how to build their businesses. Plus, it shows clients who are trying to get something for nothing, that you are one savvy operator and not willing to sell yourself short.
Solution 2: Refer the Client to the Original Contract Terms
The sooner you do this, the better it is for your business. I suggest referring clients to the original contract the FIRST time they ask for something outside of your contract terms. This helps to avoid setting an unintended precedence of giving in to “freebie extras” with your client.
If the client is consistently asking you for certain things every month, consider renegotiating the entire contract at this point. This includes a new price point and can be instrumental in lengthening the contract you have with clients, which is good for your business – as long as you are willing to do the additional work requested of you.
Solution 3: Refer the Client to Someone Else for Out-of-Scope Tasks
This solution carries the greatest risk to you and you might only wish to consider if you are completely disinterested in providing the level of service the client is requesting or do not have the time available to manage the request.
On the other hand, it can be a stark reminder to the client that they are making inappropriate demands for your time and attention. Plus, it allows you to promote colleagues whom you admire. I like this option if you have a strong network of associates, despite the potential risks it may represent.
Often, the colleagues you recommend will return the favor when facing similar situations with mismatched clients who might flourish more with your coaching style and approach. With the greater risk, comes the potential for even greater reward.
The point you need to remember in all of this is that you should never consent to do work you aren’t comfortable with, aren’t being properly compensated for, or have not agreed to do for your clients. These subtle and not-so-subtle reminders will help keep your clients in line while ensuring you aren’t allowing yourself to be taken advantage of.
Dealing with difficult customers is never easy or attractive.
You must remember, though, that you are worth it. Your time has value. Few clients are going to respect that value if you don’t set an example. More to the point, they are going to struggle to respect the value of their own time, too.
Finally, take a long-term view.
Are you ready to tackle those difficult client situations and grow your business on solid ground?
Predicting potential problems you’ve faced before and having the solution in place in writing will make is so much easier to handle should they come up.
Check out my book, ‘Be the Boss of Your LNC Business’, and put yourself on the right track. Avoid pitfalls new business owners make by not taking care of themselves.
You don’t have to do it on your own, aka the hard way.
Pat Iyer is president of The Pat Iyer Group, which develops resources to assist LNCs in obtaining more clients, making more money, and achieving their business goals and dreams.
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