The Source of Unreason: 7 Questions To Ask Yourself When Clients Are Being Difficult And What To Do
Everyone knows this moment. That moment where things were going well with your client for weeks and all of a sudden the tone of a meeting has gotten weird; the tension could be cut with a knife and you’re just one brief internet connection mishap away from a total client meltdown.
The root cause? Most of the time it comes down to a miscommunication about expectations. Regardless of industry, relationships with clients can’t be successful if they do not clearly understand and support the way we operate. Believe it or not, when given the chance - most people want to be reasonable and accommodating. When people, especially clients, are appearing to be unreasonable - it's really important to take a step back and evaluate the situation. Have they always been "unreasonable" or is this a new occurrence? The guide below can help you ground yourself.
Note: Keep a special radar on clients that behave this way. There is likely a lesson to be learned for the company and a conversation to be had about how to properly vet and qualify clients. It is important to try to get clients to work with our process - but it is equally important to understand when clients just are not a good fit for us.
HOW TO ASSESS THE DISCONNECT
is this is a generally reasonable client?
When a client has generally been reasonable and accommodating but starts to behave differently, there are usually two key reasons:
There was a breakdown in communication: Expectations about deliverables, timeline, budget, etc. got misaligned.
They have lost confidence in ability or competence of the team to follow through.
ONCE YOU DETERMINE THE ANSWER, RETRACE YOUR STEPS FOR HOW IT HAPPENED AND WHAT TO DO NEXT.
What was your first interaction with the client like?
What was their demeanor during the sales process?
Are they generally likable and agreeable?
Does it seem to be targeted at your directly or at the team/ project as a whole?
Have there been any project issues?
Missed deadlines?
Over budget?
Unsatisfied with deliverables?
Do you know of anything that might be causing the client stress?
Personal Event?
Internal deadline they are facing?
When did their demeanor change?
Was it gradual?
Was it a direct response to something specific like a miscommunication or mistake?
Next Step: Reset the Relationship
Depending on the source of the issue, there may be a number of ways to reset the relationship with the client. Generally, if the client's behavior has changed suddenly, it is likely easy to trace to a specific event or series of events. There may be situations, however, where the source of the behavior change is less clear. Regardless - the first thing to do is call it out. People want to be heard - they want their feelings to be validated. If you know what the issue is - call it out and propose a solution to get the project back on track. If you don't know what the issue is - ask!
Note: You can let a one-time scuff slide - people have bad days and sometimes people are just curt. If it happens more than once, though, it's time to talk about it. I talk more about how to have constructive conversations about clients in an article I wrote for Caxy. You can read more about the toxicity of venting about clients here.