If you have started your freelance career, you should brace yourself for brickbats or scathing feedback from your clients. You can’t expect that you’ll receive positive feedback from all your clients. In fact, everyone who has worked on freelance projects has received terrible feedback from clients. Poor feedback from clients is a universal problem, but you can take some steps to avoid acerbic responses from your clients.
Your client has backflipped
It’s no wonder that you’ve turned in an assignment to your clients and they come back to you with a complaint that you deviated from the project just because they have backflipped. It can be discouraging and hurtful as your all time and efforts have gone in vain. It will be frustrating too, but snapping at your clients about they never told this information before the submission of the project will result in losing your clients, and you’ll eventually end up with incurring losses.
You should inform your clients that you’re baffled by the feedback and want to clarify as there has been some confusion to understand their vision. Take a snapshot of the previous mail and send it over to your clients indicating what exactly they told you to do. Have a discussion with them about what they’re exactly looking for in the project and get their confirmation. This will prevent them from backflipping.
The feedback is vague
“It doesn’t feel right”, “I don’t like it, Can you play with background colours or something?” are some of the examples of ambiguous feedback. This is common, especially in the graphic designing industry. Hazy feedback doesn’t give you a clear idea about modifications. Instead, it leaves you making anticipations for tracking the vision of your clients. This unfortunately leads to frustration and time-wasting.
Ask some questions for clarification, for instance, what you like the most about the design? What particularly you don’t like in the project? Could you suggest what colours you are envisioning in your logo? Would you like to give directions so as to cinch the project? Don’t hesitate to inform them that the feedback is not helpful, and you need more information to provide the next version.
Your client is asking for big changes
It’s not surprising when your clients ask for big changes. This makes you teed off as you have already devoted lots of time to complete a project and now your clients have out of nowhere prescribed several changes that lead to the complete amendment of the project that means redesigning and rewriting.
You should ask your clients for the changes. They might not be a designer or writer, but chances are they have a specific vision for their project or business. Getting details from your clients will help you decipher what exactly they are looking for. However, if they don’t have a specific reason for the suggested changes, you should discuss why you chose the way you did. Share your thoughts and vision with your clients and try to convince them. This will help your clients fathom your perception rather than focusing on their preferences.
You need patience while handling your clients. Be courteous toward your clients even if you want to scream at their feedback. Your relationship will go a long way.