As a consultant, you may encounter clients who are demanding, unresponsive, unrealistic, or resistant to change. These clients can make your work more challenging and stressful, and affect your reputation and results. How do you manage difficult clients without losing your sanity and professionalism? Here are some tips to help you deal with them effectively.
The first step to managing difficult clients is to understand their needs, expectations, and goals. What are they trying to achieve with your service? What are their pain points and challenges? What are their preferences and communication styles? By asking open-ended questions, listening actively, and clarifying any assumptions, you can build rapport and trust with your clients, and avoid misunderstandings and conflicts.
Figuring out why people are being obstructive is really key. For example: this might not be the first attempt at the project, people might be cynical that this version will make a difference, and they are having to explain stuff yet again to a brand new set of consultants. Sometimes people may worry that the project may result in either job losses or a reduction in their influence. Occasionally one of your clients might turn out to be a genuinely awful person, I've experienced a client who was genuinely misogynistic and who made life awful for female members of the consulting team.
- Know that the 'clients' are humans first. They go through their professional emotions and conflicts that THEY have to face. Often, we enter into a tunnel vision and expect them figure out what we are presenting/discussing. - Always arm yourself with organization policies and company vision. 9/10 times, there is a tiny (or huge) misalignment between policies and business practices that makes a client "difficult". So, keeping ourselves knowledgeable with company's policies gives us an extra edge on discussing the business cases with clients and steering them towards those policies.
Understanding is the common ground between pain points and solution. It's important to have empathy towards our clients by understanding their needs, we can start by asking them friendly questions, listen actively on their pain points, clarify assumptions, and manage their expectation carefully.
Their needs are personal and emotional. Sure their organization needs to get something done, and they've hired you to help them do it. But they are an individual, a person. And they need to look good to their boss. That's their need. Always start there. And if that's not possible, don't take the job.
Use your expertise to foresee challenges that align with the client's goals. Communicate these potential roadblocks transparently and suggest preventive solutions to mitigate them. This approach demonstrates your dedication to delivering a smooth and successful client experience, fostering trust and confidence in your ability to navigate complexities effectively.
The second step to managing difficult clients is to set clear boundaries and scope for your project. What are the deliverables, timelines, and milestones? What are the roles and responsibilities of each party? What are the feedback and approval processes? By defining these elements clearly and documenting them in a contract or proposal, you can establish a mutual agreement and accountability with your clients, and prevent scope creep and unrealistic demands.
Train them in how to treat you. 1. Don't let their urgency become yours. 2. Your job is to keep their cool. 3. On a team, whoever answers first has the most work. 4. Their CEO is an exception. 5. Respond to their emotions with empathy, and their problems with strategy.
Implement a Change Management Plan: Change is inevitable, and clients may request alterations to the initially agreed-upon scope or objectives. Having a structured change management process in place allows you to assess these requests objectively, weighing the potential impact on the project's timeline, budget, and goals.
Having clear boundaries will give huge advantages to us, not literally working as a barrier. But how the way we prioritize what should be done at the first place, so that we won't taking something that out of the scope (off-side). 1) Setup internal priorities and urgencies 2) Always work with the official workflow 3) Manage their expectation 4) Don't take a risk alone by ourselves - If we're forced to go out of boundaries by other team and take a risk for new kind issue, then we need to share all the risk together with all the stakeholders
The third step to managing difficult clients is to communicate regularly and proactively. How often and through which channels will you update your clients on the progress and status of the project? How will you handle any issues or changes that arise? How will you solicit and incorporate their feedback and input? By communicating frequently and transparently, you can keep your clients informed and engaged, and address any concerns or questions they may have.
Based on my experience, it's important to engage with our challenging client regularly in order to show them that we're really committed to solve their problems continuously. And frankly I found that assertive communication is not quite effective to face our challenging client, it's better to confront them with diplomatic communication with win-win solution, rather than standing bold to defend ourselves with boundaries.
In my experience, frequent and objective communication can alleviate most client issues. Typically, challenges arise when there is not an alignment of expectations. This occurs when communication is lacking. Communicating details of the original agreement with proactive updates on progress toward the predefined goal is ideal. Additionally, one cannot rely solely on using verbal communication. Information should also be delivered in written format to provide further clarification of what was discussed verbally. The more intentional you are in helping clients achieve greater clarity and understanding, the fewer challenges will exist.
Additionally, demonstrate a willingness to learn from conflicts and incorporate feedback into future interactions, reinforcing your commitment to a successful and collaborative partnership.
The fourth step to managing difficult clients is to manage their expectations and educate them on the realities and limitations of your work. What are the benefits and value of your service? What are the risks and challenges involved? What are the best practices and standards in your industry? By explaining these aspects clearly and confidently, you can demonstrate your expertise and credibility, and help your clients understand what is feasible and realistic.
It is relevant to define clearly the boundaries of the project scope with the stakeholders, including: - Scenarios to cover and priorities based on the reality - Best Practices in the industry to fulfill - Resources available: Materials, HR team and budget - Governance management to have clarity on the goals and policies at short-, medium- and long-time. - Alternative solutions to consider with impacts, risks, limitations, advantages and disadvantages - Change Management Plan
- Find common ground. Often times, the clients are difficult because of the conflict that they see [1] between their colleagues and themselves and [b] between other departments and their own department. Finding a common cause and a common vision and presenting it to them is a good tool for us BAs. Surprisingly, I have seen the same clients moving away from "being difficult" to "being surprised".
At the beginning it always matters to really understand a clients need. Thereafter as an service provider the task is very clear: delivery! Often (most of the time) a product or the offering does not exactly match the clients expectation/ need. So transparency and communication is key to avoid disappointment . Therefor you need a excellent sales team.
Showcase past successful projects that align with the client's industry or goals. Present concrete examples of challenges faced, solutions implemented, and outcomes achieved. This provides clients with a tangible understanding of what can be realistically accomplished through your services.
The fifth step to managing difficult clients is to handle any conflicts or disagreements professionally and respectfully. How will you deal with clients who are unhappy, dissatisfied, or angry with your work? How will you respond to clients who are rude, abusive, or unreasonable? How will you negotiate or compromise with clients who have different opinions or perspectives? By using empathetic, assertive, and constructive communication skills, you can resolve conflicts effectively and maintain a positive relationship with your clients.
Include a termination for unprofessional actions clause that says If they are abusive to you or your staff they get a warning, then you fire them and bill them for half of the remaining SOW. If you allow rude/abusive clients to run you and your firm over, your best staff (ie, your main product offering) will leave.
In my experience I’ve always tried to look at the situation as a challenge to myself, to try and help this client walk away happy. make sure they know you listen to them and have a few options to offer them . And at the end of the day RESPECT gos a very long way!
The sixth step to managing difficult clients is to seek support from your colleagues, mentors, or peers. How can you vent your frustrations or share your challenges with others who understand your situation? How can you learn from others who have dealt with similar clients or scenarios? How can you get feedback or advice from others who have more experience or expertise in your field? By seeking support from others, you can cope with stress, improve your skills, and find solutions to your problems.
Attend workshops, conferences, or virtual meetups where you can connect with peers facing similar challenges. These environments offer a platform to openly discuss your experiences, gain insights, and seek advice from a broader community.
Having them create or sign “No jerk” policies can really help in landing new people, but be ready to walk away if they turn out to be jerks.
When starting a new client engagement I am sure I am clear on who all the players are and co-create our relationship 1:1 and as a team. This co-creation of our relationship up front including the hard topics of assumptions, expectations, concerns, fears, etc. is critical for us to fall back on when things become difficult. We have a foundation that wouldn't be there without it.
The best way to work with difficult clients is to choose clients who are not difficult. !
Contractual safeguards. There are times when difficult clients are the result of specific individuals. It is important that your contract with the client has a specific section dealing with complicated issues, technical, political, social, deliverables, financial and personal, and a method to facilitate resolution. In some cases, this is a professional facilitator or an individual that can act in third-party mitigation and formal escalation within the client organization. Such an individual can contaminate the entire project. If you are the team lead, is your responsibility to solve it. Sometimes, you have to know when to walk away.