Losing a Client

In the world of running a business, running a project, and even running a team there is always going to be some sort of client or customer. The only reason we do what we do is that someone on the outside wants to utilize our product or skill set. It is very important for us to stay up and running is to make sure our clients are enjoying our services, and we are able to fulfill their requests properly. At times you may find yourself in a position where the client is requiring something of you that may not be unethical or unreasonable, in which you will have to appropriately communicate with the client that their request is impossible to complete without consequences. There are also situations where business or project groups manage to bypass the scenario, but it ends up costing the team and the client a great deal. I will be sharing a couple of scenarios that I have come across in my experiences that show what can happen with different types of clients.

First and foremost as a project team your goal is to please the client and fulfill their requirements. Ideally, we want to build a reputation for ourselves, and by making sure we communicate with our client to know what kind of product needs to be delivered. I’ve had situations where a client is can be vague on what they really want from me, my team and I have given follow up questions to either clarify what they expect from us and even give specific examples to what we can accomplish with the time allotted. An attribute that I have noticed often enough are “yes” people who take the information given, try to churn out exactly what they’ve heard, and never ask the client if that is what they meant when they said it. One of the things that I picked up when learning about the design process and building projects are to, ask all of the ridiculous questions and squeeze all the info you can, and to work in iterations going back and forth with your client or customer to get feedback. Feedback is like gold in the design process, and it’s the difference between creating a meaningful product and creating a formulaic assembly line piece.

There is also another side to this coin where the client completely rejects the team you are working with. There is always the scenario of the client just straight up not liking the work you are doing, you may have done something to make them lose interest, there may have been a lack of communication, or maybe the client is just asking too much from us. One very impacting scenario that I was involved with was for a Digital Cinema website connected to a university. Our client, a professor at the university who was wanting to revamp the default web page for the Digital Cinema program at the school. Our goal was to take the information provided to us which consisted of photos, web content, and video footage; and create something that would attract current and new students to the cinema program. Upon initially interviewing the client, and getting a scope of what the purpose of the site entailed, we managed to see that this site was not going to be connected to the actual university website, but would act as a rogue website while still promoting the same school program. This made some of the team uncomfortable as it would almost certainly be taken down eventually due to copyright or misuse of the school’s content. Well we still had a project to finish, we were able to make the client aware of the consequences of this website, he knew what possible consequence was in store, so we tried to make the best of this situation by trying to change some of the subject matter to go away from being affiliated with the school. While this is happening, one of the team members actually contacted the school itself to make them aware of what is happening, and the situation began to get out of hand. The following week, the school got in contact with our team shutting down any sort of possibility of this website being created. As you could imagine our client was furious about the situation and pretty much abandoned us. They came in to speak with the team, speak privately with the person who contacted the school, spoke about the lack of communication, and walked out. To analyze what was discussed, the blame goes to our team as we didn’t manage to put extra effort in communicating with our client about this project not being viable and having the school eventually finding out. It was also a bad act on our teammate going behind everyone’s back and notifying authorities before discussing it with the team, but we should have also made it clear to bring any complaints or discussions to the team first. This was possibly the worst scenario that I’ve been a part of, and I knew we had to make the situation right somehow.

After losing our client and having a rude awakening with our project, we had to use this as a learning opportunity to try and save some face with the client. We gathered for a meeting and had a brainstorming session to come up with possible alternatives that could deliver the same effect our product had. We ended up using our same content but making a website that showcased our school as well as other prominent universities that had cinema programs. We could still attract future student, and deliver a viable product to our client. We got to work, started designing, and iterating possible formats for our site. We still tried to stay in contact with our client and using a pivot to make something slightly different. While still upset about our actings, he was willing to come take a look at what we were working on. We had put together a few presentations showcasing different options for different sites that could be creating, and he was pleased with what we managed to salvage from the situation.

After going through a worst case scenario, it got me thinking about why we need to communicate, and the power of your client. In projects, your client the one bring in the money, and we need to optimize the amount of money we can make while pleasing them. You always hear the expression that the customer is always right, that is usually true, we want to fulfill their vision, and that may require some discussion about what types of products we are able to deliver.

Manuel Espinoza is a student in the Digital Media program at Utah Valley University, Orem Utah, studying Web & App Development. The following article relates to (Digital Cinema Website) in the (DGM 2240 Course) and representative of the skills learned.

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