When Clients Jump Ship!

We all know the importance of striving for happy clients, it’s the difference between beautiful, bountiful relationships and big client shaped holes in your portfolio.. and heart.

Now, I’m not saying that clients only ever leave an agency because they haven’t been kept happy… You can bend over backwards, cut costs to the grain, and even work over budget on projects to keep your clients; but why do a small selection occasionally feel the need to jump ship?

Reasons for Jumping:

1. They think they’ve found a better price

2. They think they can have more resources at the drop of a hat

3. They want the work done faster than your little worker bees can manage

4. The relationship has been broken down beyond salvageable repair

Reasons 1, 2 and 3 are things that you shouldn’t budge on.

If your prices are fair and based on the type of work you’ve been asked to do, why should you budge? Never undersell your business. If the client is looking for a cheaper deal, they’ll end up with a less attractive and weaker functioning site too. Why clients are willing to penny pinch and compromise on the two things that will ultimately get them sales is something I’ll never quite get my head around!

Resources, resources, resources.

If you haven’t got um, you can’t really magic them out of the sky. Some agencies offer it all; branding, marketing, copy writing  web design,  build and even SEO; others are specialist and only offer one or t’other. At the end of the day, if the client wants something that you can’t do or don’t have a dedicated team on hand to provide- they will look else where.

Busy Bees

If you’re a small agency- which there are an abundance of in Cardiff, chances are you’ll be pretty busy with your clients. Scheduling in work during busy periods can be a mare but some clients will want/need work started asap. Again this is something that is out of your control, you can be honest with the client and give them exact start dates or you can work yourself and team into the ground pulling all the late nights you can muster to fit it in. Is it really worth the grey hair?

Don’t be an A*# Hole!

Number 4 should never ever be an option; being an A*# Hole is not how businesses are built. Nuff said.