Web Design, the Malaysia Way

I was chatting to a designer, Lina, yesterday.
I asked her how she usually deal with difficult clients?
Time is money.
because it costs more if the project keeps on dragging and eventually there goes all the profit.

She said she’d just talk nicely to the good clients. Email them nicely, friendly reminder and hopefully they’ll give feedback or pay promptly. While for the bad ones, just go strict on them. She added that there’s nothing much that she can do, because they’re the king.

Well, clients are always right. That’s what we were taught in the school, learned in the books..
But is it?
We’ll meet all kinds of clients, different situation, different personalities.. how does a single generic theory fits to all?
I wonder.

I told Lina my thoughts.
I’d just drop the client if it’s too difficult to go on dealing with. To cut losses.
Or at least, to save my own butt from troubles.
Apparently, it’s a very delicate process how to handle clients and customers.
I don’t think that clients are always right unless they are aware of what they’re saying.
People who judge might be the one who pays but might not be as knowledgeable as the professionals do.
Being a professional, we may advice.
Because in the end of the day, not being technically arrogant, we’re the professionals.

We had a humble begining when we just started our web design business 6 years ago. Some customers asked for mockup before project confirmation.

Yes, you have a test drive before you buy a car, some sample to test before you order something. But this should never happen to a web design project.

What is a mockup? Mockup is the draft design of the website that you are going to produce later. Customer feel that by looking at the mockup, they can judge how good is a web design company, and then only to confirm.

There is a cost to develop a mockup. Mockup is a result of detail study of customer’s service and products, understand how to present the website and to make it interesting. It is part of the development, and there is cost associated with it.

My personal experience of dealing with customers who wish to have a mock up…

99.99% you don’t get the deal, see :)