It's totally normal to have a love-hate relationship with some clients. You can't win em all and will surely land a few dodgy apples from the bunch. One week your client is stoked with the creative work you've been doing, you're vibin! The next week they're underwhelmed and peeved that you totally missed the brief. Sigh!
Okay so how do you ensure that you always rejoin forces and land back on the same page? Strategies for how to curtail a project hiccup. Yep, we're talking about the account management equivalent of makeup sex. Saucy.
Y u hate?
Creative account and project management is tricky. Creative taste is individualised and subjective. You may love a design and feel you've nailed the brief. Yet the client isn't keen. Perhaps they don't see the value in your output. They don't like the colours you've used in the design. It could be a misalignment between their thoughts and the actual brief they provided.
Whatever the case, you're bound to stumble upon some hate during your time in AM and PM life. It's very rare for a project to go without a hitch. This is a stupidly crazy statistic, but here we go.
PWC actually found that only 2.5% of companies successfully nailed 100% of their projects.
Those of us who have been in the AM PM game a while probably aren't too surprised by this.
Projects go over budget, creep out of scope or encounter hiccups along the way. The hit rate of a completely smooth project is slim to none. Sorry to break it to you, but it's time to get comfortable with a bit of hate from clients when things don't go off without a hitch.
Okay so what do you do when the client isn't happy?
Stop & ponder
t's easy to have a little freak out, jump on the phone and start a dialogue straight away. Contacting the client immediately shows initiative and care, and in many cases is the way to go. It's usually necessary to iron things like this out face-to-face or via the phone (situations like this never require a long email).
But depending on the situation (and client), it can also lead to bad habits:
Heard of Pavlov's dogs? Calling immediately sets the expectation that any time the client cries; they get attention. Sure some situations require an urgent response. But you don't want to be doing it all the time.
A direct call could be needed, but it's likely there are other people required for the convo. Don't jump into a one-on-one chat and exclude others who may help frame the next steps.
So take your time and consider whether this occasion requires fast action? And when you do have a convo, who needs to be involved to resolve it?
Get prepared
Okay so what has led up to this point? Step back and retrace your steps with the client, their brief, your strategy, their comms to date - where did things go wrong? If you can pinpoint an error on your end, then be honest and own up to it.
If there's nothing glaringly obvious, then it's typically a simple case of miscommunication or personal preference (particularly when it comes to creative work).
The point of this is - you want to go into the conversation knowing which way the cookie is likely to crumble. Are you to blame or is it a misalignment in thinking between the agency and client side?
Play the devil's advocate
You may love the work. I mean you managed and delivered it, so you'd want to hope you've got pride in what you're providing.
Though try and pick things apart. Consider a different perspective to put yourself in your clients shoes.
We're not recommending you go back to the client and start tearing your deliverables a new one. It's merely a mental disposition to help you forward-plan your conversation and (maybe) empathise with the client.
Be candid
Silver living of shitty client feedback? Sometimes being upfront and blatantly honest cuts through the bull shit and saves everyone time. It's direct.
So when you finally catch up with the client, approach the chat in that vein. Thank them for being so honest with their feedback. Acknowledge it's how we triage problems, cut to the chase and can more efficiently collaborative to find a solution.
Can you act now?
In some cases, you may actually have a pretty clear idea on what went wrong and how you can fix it. If time and budget allows for it, why not take the initiative and put together an alternative approach? Doesn't have to be massive, but a few ideas or concepts may go a long way.
Your conversation with the client is then shifted from:
"Hey, let's talk about what we did wrong and why you're unhappy" to
"Hey, we see where we can improve. These are our key takeaways on what went wrong and here's some initial steps we've taken to achieve a resolution. What do you think?"
It shifts the client into a positive mindset (boo-yah)
Creates a more productive discussion around the future of the project
You don't get bogged down in the present (which, according to the clients feedback - isn't a happy place to be)
It shows initiative by you as the PM and the agency as a whole
It helps regain trust or iron out any uncertainty on your deliverables
Brief word of warning though. You'd want feel fairly confident in understanding what went wrong and how to fix it before presenting a new alternative. So keep it broad and open for discussion. You don't want to client to disagree and an even deeper misalignment of your thinking.
Getting down and dirty
Alright so makeup sex isn't that meticulous and logical. If it is then you may have broader problems...
But at the end of the day, you're all on the same team. You want the same great outcomes. So take a breath, analyse the situation and purposefully react.
Sure it's not nice to have these bad times but every relationship does. It's how you deal with it that gets you hitting that sweet spot of gold afterwards.