idfive | informed design

In professional services, we hear plenty about the mistakes we make. But someone ought to explain to clients that they make mistakes too. In fact, it is client mistakes that most often, in my experience, endanger projects, cause budgets and deadlines to explode, and produce less-than-effective end products.

So, without further ado, and in no particular order, here are the top 6 mistakes that clients make.

1. Nickel and dime their vendors. It’s one thing to be budget conscious, and quite another to treat your vendor like a used-car salesman. Arguing over every penny spent makes the relationship adversarial, rather than collaborative; diminishes our ability to provide the right solutions at a fair price; and actually causes vendors to be less forgiving when it comes to scope creep. “Come ON, is that really going to take five hours?” is an account person’s red flag. Clients, if you find yourself saying something like that, just know that the person on the other end of the phone is rolling his eyes.

2. Give the client project manager little or no authority to make decisions. I have seen time and again the web projects delegated to a junior staffer, while the supposedly more “glamorous” advertising and marketing work is handled by a VP. Inevitably, the junior staffer makes decisions which are called into question too late in the process, and the project often runs off the rails.

3. Fail to realize what they want or set clear goals. Clients often have vague internal directives and incentives completely unrelated to project success. Instead of clarifying their goals internally before hiring a vendor, they often meander into projects which quickly become quagmires. It’s essential that clients agree internally on what they are supposed to be producing.

4. Overreach. The rise of content management systems in particular seems to have fueled this trend, but it’s been there for years. Just because you can have 150 managed pages, special features, an email list, and 17 levels of editing permissions in your workflow does NOT mean you should. Here’s a rule of thumb: the level of complexity in the spec is directly proportional to the number of hours it will take the client to produce and manage the thing.
Corollary: Every reasonably sophisticated organization–that is, any organization with a total marketing budget of a hundred thousand dollars or more–needs at least one person to own the web site. This is not a “webmaster”. This is a strategic, informed individual, not a coder or an admin. Otherwise, the ongoing maintenance of your web presence will become unmanageable, fast, and the solutions you deploy will not be well thought-through.

5. Think too much of themselves. This is sometimes called “inside-out thinking” but that’s too charitable. Most of the time, no one cares–unless you give them a reason to care. No one cares about your web site unless it annoys them; no one cares about your mission; no one wants your email. The Internet is a big place and users have no patience any more. Instead, clients need to care what users want–not about what you want them to want or what you think they want. Be interesting and offer a value proposition.

6. Not admit what they don’t know. Clients hire experts for a reason, so why is it that when we make a recommendation, clients sometimes think they know better? We admit that you know more about widgets or whatever you do–we respect your knowledge of widgets, and listen to you about widgets, and learn. So please don’t misquote usability experts or mangle research data. This is what we do day in and day out–if we’re not better informed than you, then you hired the wrong people.

I’ve been lucky because 90% of my clients have avoided these pitfalls. But when good projects go bad, it’s often for one of these six reasons.

This is not to say that we don’t make mistakes, or that all vendors are well-informed and well-intentioned. But clients sometimes think that hiring a vendor absolves them of all responsibility for the project’s success. But on the best projects, it is a true collaboration–a relationship. And as we all know, good relationships require effort–from everyone involved.

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