When Bad Communication Becomes Bad Business

Just recently I had one of my website clients post on their Twitter page they were looking for a Wordpress Web Designer. One of my associates who follows this person referred me, and was kind of surprised because the associate knew the client was currently under my care (we were maintaining their website).

Interestingly enough the client calls and begins to explain the situation that happened on Twitter and providing sort of a “this is why” scenario for their post.

Now I’m going to pause right here and say that I’m not adverse to clients choosing new designers or new producers. In our business, you never know what someone’s situation is, and how moving on to another supplier sometimes is the best move for both parties. It doesn’t happen to me often, but when it does, I never take it personal. My only gripe is the clients that I’ve grown to trust and like who do this, and some how try to figure out the sneakiest way to do it as if they don’t respect me enough to tell me face-to-face.

Going back to the earlier discussion, after a quick explanation of the “why” (they assumed I didn’t do Wordpress websites), they quickly said to me “didn’t you say you didn’t do Wordpress websites?”, to which my reaction was simply, “I’ve been working on Wordpress for the past year and a half”.

It was almost as if they called to just verify I was still on the same competency level from years ago. No offense taken.

I had to recall my first meeting with this client. It was several years ago and I indeed was not familiar with the Wordpress platform. As in any business, keeping up with the times is a sure guarantee you’ll be able to keep up with your industry. So over time I’ve become real familiar with the Wordpress platform and currently have several custom Wordpress web templates to my name.

It was almost as if I was being asked about something I didn’t know how to do because they wanted to prove a point and validate the reason they put the post up. When you’re in business to do business and make money, personal points and feelings will sometimes hinder you from doing just that. They then began to say they had already set up a meeting with another designer under their assumption and would keep me posted on what happens. Then asked, almost as if they really didn’t want to know, a quick quote on what it was cost, and I gave them a good rate on a transfer. Especially since I was already familiar with their website and they were a current client. They paused for a minute almost stunned because they knew the other designer was not going to be able to beat that price, but didn’t want to have to deal with the embarrassment of continuing to do business with me.

What upset me about the entire situation is that they never bothered to ask if it could be done. It’s been years since we first put their website up, and they didn’t even bother to ask the current designers (us), if we were now up on something we weren’t years ago. I felt robbed at the opportunity to be able to serve. Mind you this client has been able to troubleshoot with us via email issues they would be having, and we would respond post haste and give the VIP treatment we give all of our clients. So I was hurt I didn’t receive the same respect in return.

I thought it was funny also how once they found out that we were able to do what they needed done for their website, they flipped the script on us and begin to complain that people weren’t able to send emails through their contact form as if we purposely were sabotaging it for them or incompetent of making something work right. I rapidly went to their site and sent them an email to which they got it immediately. If I could have seen the look on their face with their response of “oh…yeah…I got it”, I’m sure it would have been hilarious.

I wish them well on their endeavors and hope that they receive as good of service with the new guys as they did with us. I don’t take it personal when cleints leave. I take it personal when they try and act like they’ve gotten less than excellent service which I know is not true.

Good luck! You seem as if you’re going to need it.