Winning the Fight but Losing the Customer
October 2, 2009 by Bob Younce
Filed under Customer Service Tips
People in the marketing world either love Seth Godin or they hate him. I personally enjoy him; he has a new-millennium sort of wisdom, but he delivers it in something of a folksy way.
At any rate, I ran across this post of his last week. Go ahead and go read it, but the gist of it is that sometimes, in business, it doesn’t matter if you’re right. If your customer is unhappy, she’s unhappy. No amount of arguing can change that. If you want her to remain your customer, you need to acknowledge that she’s unhappy.
This got me to thinking about revisions.
I rarely get asked for revisions. I always offer at least one revision for any given project. Customers want to know they have recourse if they don’t like the product. On top of that, it doesn’t happen very often. If I get asked to revise one project in a hundred, that’s probably a lot.
In many cases, the revision represents a change in project requirements. It’s more of an “oops, I needed to have these three keywords” or “hey, can you write this in Top 10 format?”
My instinct, when I am asked for a revision, is to recoil. I could argue with the customer. I could tell him that he’s changing the scope of the project, that my time is valuable and that I don’t appreciate being asked to do the work twice. Technically, all of those things are true.
But you know what? I don’t usually do that. Once I get over my goofy artistic pride (”WHAT?!? Did the Pope ask Michelangelo to revise the Sistine Chapel?!? This is OUTRAGEOUS!”) I usually just do the work.
And you know what? Those customers – the ones that ask for revisions – almost always come back. In fact, they come back over and over again. And usually, they don’t ask for revisions again.
So, what about you? What’s your revision policy? Will you only revise if you didn’t meet the project specs, or do you allow for customer error? I look forward to hearing how everyone approaches the issue!
(Oh, and if you’re interested in more Seth Godin, here are three of his best books to get you started):
Permission Marketing : Turning Strangers Into Friends And Friends Into Customers
All Marketers Are Liars: The Power of Telling Authentic Stories in a Low-Trust World
The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick)
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Agreed, especially if it’s an ongoing customer.
But customer needs to understand early the difference between a revision (tweaks) and a rewrite. I’ll do the rewrite at no charge if I feel I didn’t define closely enough what the client wanted. But I’ve literally had clients who want rewrites of rewrites — even when they provided the wording. So I will charge after one rewrite. One client who was particularly bad with this actually was charged (and paid) an extra $1,000 on a newsletter because they kept changing their approved changes ($200 per page — one page was changed twice after the initial revision). Charges were for copy only. No graphics/layout was changed or needed to be changed.
I don’t mind revisions. I rarely get asked, but I will do them within 24 hours if something comes up.
With that, I once had a customer who came back to me almost three months after I’d been paid for the articles. This seemed suspicious to me and I said so. Her response was that she hadn’t had time to look over the articles until then, but she’d paid me at that point to make sure I was paid on a timely basis. The articles were on the pros and cons of cloth diapers. Her instructions had been to make some articles for and some against. I still had that email. She responded saying that that email must be false because she’d told me to write articles supporting cloth diapers.
I simply told her I didn’t have time three months later to rewrite 10 articles and that I’d followed her instructions perfectly the first time. Plus, I was leaving the next day for a week’s vacation.
After she threatened to file a complaint with Paypal and take me to small claims court, I finally decided to quickly revamp the articles so that I could vacation in peace. I doubt she would have had any legal backing, but the last thing I wanted was to spend time during vacation worrying about the “what if’s.”
After that, I immediately added wording to my contract that any revisions had to be requested within seven days or I’d charge extra.
@Phil – I’ve been fortunate enough never to have a customer so demanding as to ask for a rewrite when all I’ve offered is a revision. You raise an excellent point, though. In many cases, educating clients is all it takes. Only a few – a very annoying minority – really try to take advantage of you. Those that do almost always do it from ignorance rather than malice.
@Anne – What a wonderful story (but frustrating to go through for you, I’m sure). I’ve also not been in your position – having a client claim you faked an email is just plain insulting. At that point, I’d probably give up on them for good.
I think of revisions like food in a restaurant.
If a customer orders steak and then asks for it to be a little more/less done or a little more/less seasoned, you do it without complaining, even if you think they are being pernickety.
If a customer orders steak and then decides they wanted chicken instead, you explain politely that they don’t get the chicken for free.
@ John – That’s a good analogy, I’m going to keep that one on file!
Continuing that thought, it’s a little more of a conundrum when it’s a repeat client who says, “Bob, I’m so sorry, but I meant to order the chicken. I’m allergic to steak. Any chance you can bring me that instead?”
John, that’s an excellent policy and a great analogy!
I have never been asked to do a complete rewrite, but I do occasionally get asked to tweak an article. In fact, a favorite client just asked me to add a couple of paragraphs to an article that I submitted last week; she wanted me to clarify a point that I made. I did it, resubmitted it, she liked it, everyone was happy. And a happy client is one who will come back and ask you (or hopefully, in this case, me) to do future assignments.
Doing a newsletter, I often had the company’s management want to make revisions to articles they had submitted over and over again. Many times it was because they would give me the articles before looking them over and then reading them for the first time when the newsletter was completed. Paid by the hour for this job, I just added my extra time in for revisions until they were happy with the final project.
I can see though from Anne G.’s example that in the future, depending on the situation, the revision policy should be stated in the contract.
@Jennifer – And that’s just it. A happy client is one who comes back around. I’m not suggesting anyone give away her work, but sometimes a couple of paragraphs can make the difference between ongoing business and lost revenue.
@ Cheril – I think if you’re on an hourly rate with a client then revisions are easier to swallow. As long as the client understands what they’re paying for, i think it’s all good. And, yes, if you have a contract, revisions should be included.
Cheril,
I had a similar situation with a newsletter client, and instituted a change rate (I use project rates, not hourly rates). I didn’t do that initially, but as you saw, it can bring in extra revenue and can keep client from making excessive revisions.
Like you, Bob, I don’t get asked for many revisions. (Knock on wood, right?) The cases where I have were more like the “client changes his mind” situations. In one instance, I was asked to write a health report in a third-person formal tone. When I turned it in, the client (a long-standing client whom I enjoy working with) said, “You know, I think a personal, writer-talking-to-reader format would be better. Can you rewrite this?” If I recall correctly, I asked for an additional payment since it was additional time that wouldn’t have been spent if he had known what he wanted up front.
In theory, I include one (maybe two) revisions – not rewrites – with a quote, but honestly it’s something that I have never hashed out completely with any client. Maybe that’s a change I should make in how I quote/explain projects.
I’ve been thinking about this topic some more, as more of you have made comments. I also think that if I had a really good relationship with a client, I’d be a lot less likely to get upset about making any revisions or even doing a rewrite. If I had a difficult client that was always asking for them, though, I think I’d seriously reconsider whether that client was paying me enough to make it worth my time, you know?
My clients rarely ask for revisions. Maybe it’s because I’m very up front about this. My contracts always draw clear lines regarding revisions. Clients know what they’re entitled to and what they aren’t. As a result, so far I didn’t have to get worried about losing clients over problems generated by revision related issues.