Published on | Prototyping: From UX to Front End — Medium Patima Tantiprasut

I’ve been in client-facing roles for the majority of my career, and every now and then, there have been a few curveballs thrown my way which I’ve had to delicately navigate through. Sometimes the situations can get pretty hairy, but with a bit of work and practice, it gets easier.

As a designer, I find that if you don’t have a direct dialogue with the decision makers — generally the people who are okaying and/or paying for your work — you’re already on the back foot with establishing a relationship and a mutual language. Things can easily get lost in translation.

Communication issues can often result in confusion, tension and conflict. Nope, we don’t want these things…

I’ve picked up a few things over the years on how to recognise and deal with the more challenging interactions.

Note: I come from an agency background, but prior to that I was a freelancer and had also worked as the smallest fish in a big corporate environment. I’ve intended for these tips to extend to dealing with management and stakeholders as well — both internal and external — because clients, by definition, are pretty much anyone who’s paying you to provide a professional service for them.

Let’s firstly start with these three simple things to remember about clients:

1. Clients are important

Well, duh, I hear you mumble. We’ve heard it many-a-time before; without clients, there’s no work, so of course they’re important. We can sometimes forget it, but clients are people too — they each have their unique lenses; experiences, backgrounds, biases and motivations that provide context to the way they communicate. We’ll never understand these properly unless we take the time to.

Every relationship needs more work in the beginning until we start getting more comfortable with each other and begin speaking the same language. If you treat the relationship as something that’s important to you from the beginning, you’ll naturally put in more effort to make it work. Your client will feel all the more special with your attention and often, the good vibes are reciprocated.

2. “The customer is always right”

They’re likely not, or maybe they are, but it doesn’t matter. It’s our job to understand why they think we’re in the wrong. If they have made assumptions or have been informed otherwise, that’s not their fault — it’s simply their experience.

Clients don’t know what they don’t know… or what they know. It’s up to us to ask the right questions, listen and understand where they’re coming from.

Context is everything. Background, experience & pressures affect their lens of what they see.

Again, we must extract & understand this.

3. Clients don’t owe you anything.

We’re all friends and, sure, we enjoy it while the martinis endlessly flow, until… things get too hot in the kitchen. When more is on the line, guess who’ll be thrown to the wolves first? The truth is, the trust and relationship that you’ve built together is, at it’s core, only as deep as a business exchange — simply put, you provide a service and they pay you for it.

I’ve had many, many times where a contact at the client’s end has thrown me under the bus for something that they endorsed or requested of me, leaving me to explain and defend as if I went rogue on the project. It’s brutal, but there’s no choice but to cop it on the chin as gracefully as you can and respond to the situation with poise.

Just because you may have strong values and integrity, those things unfortunately don’t buy you out of a tough spot. As relaxed as the client relationship may become, it’s crucial to stay alert and diligent in your processes and documentation. These are the things that will back you, not here-say.

It’s tempting to stick your heels in and seek justice, but always remember that it’s a business relationship & your professionalism is forever a non-negotiable.

As I mentioned, I’ve dealt with quite a few interesting scenarios over the years, some more often than others. Here are 10 of the most common ones I’ve had to deal with — do any sound familiar to you?

URGENT! Important! Very! Exclamation!
I’ll know what I want when I see it.
I know exactly what I want.
When do you need it? Yesterday.
We talked about it, why isn’t item X included?
It’s too expensive.
The abusive caller.
It should only take you 5 minutes to do.
Me, myself and my committee.
The swanning houdini.

1. URGENT! Important! Very! Exclamation!

Translated: The I’m your only client syndrome.

It is important & urgent for them.

9/10 it’s not actually “urgent”, but it’s often 10/10 important… to the client.
The sooner you can get on the same page with a shared language, the sooner you can address the method that will appease them.
Define what deadline they’re actually seeking, ask why, then probe further to clarify. See if you might be able to take out the urgency by breaking down the request into smaller, bite-sized tasks.
On that 1/10 occasion where it is actually urgent, empathise with their position, make a decision that is fair and communicate clearly.

2. I’ll know what I want when I see it.

Translated: The I’m not sure what’s good or bad syndrome.

It’s important to help guide this client really early on in the relationship.

Are they just simply visual people?
Are they too busy to get involved and invest their time with the start?
Or do they not know what to ask for?
We need to equip them with the tools and the language to get involved from the start.
Change their perception from visual outcomes only to valuing the process behind the outcomes.

3. I know exactly what I want.

Translated: The I’m paying you to read my mind syndrome.

The formula for disappointment.

Either they’ll tell us exactly what they want, pixel for pixel, or they won’t tell us anything and expect us to deliver.
Both scenarios set us up for failure and someone’s going to end up disappointed.
Use the FroMLE technique to re-centre.

FroMLE (“From my limited experience”)— It helps to add FroMLE to the end of their sentences (in your mind). Simply remember that the client is making requests with their own context driving it.

Ask more questions and find out their why.
Separate them from placing importance on what they want but rather, what their customer is seeking and journey towards solving the problem together.

4. When do you need it? Yesterday.

Translated: The I believe in time travel syndrome.

After the laughs, you find out that they were serious…

Firstly, as magical as we are, we can’t bend space and time just yet.
Similar to the urgent client, find out more about their circumstances, assess and handle with fairness.
If it’s impossible to meet their expectations, explain why clearly.
Disorganisation on their part does not constitute an emergency for us.

5. We talked about it, why isn’t item X included?

Translated: The our conversations surely change contracts syndrome.

When the importance of processes & communication come into play.

Demonstrating clear processes early on provides a platform where expectations are better managed.
Documentation and a sign off process trains the client into expecting a similar approach to formalise things.
Follow up all verbal discussions with something in writing.

6. It’s too expensive.

Translated: The I don’t see value in this work syndrome.

When a client doesn’t see the value in a piece of work or service, they’ll deem it too expensive.

This is simply the mismatch of their expectation of what’s involved in the work versus the reality of it. That’s okay.
Where possible, break down what’s involved with the tasks, the tools, the value, and help them visualise with analogies that are similar to their business product or service offerings.
Find a context that they relate to can help them to see it in a new perspective.

7. The abusive caller.

Translated: The this is how I usually get my way syndrome.

This is a scenario that can be very confronting & uncomfortable to deal with.

They are clearly under stress and pressures that are affecting them.
If the client is yelling, let them have their vent, then once they’ve said their piece, with a calm voice, break each issue down, one by one.
If they are abusive, ask them to stop and let them know that you won’t tolerate the language and if they persist, hang up. Repeat until they have calmed.

8. It should only take you 5 minutes to do.

Translated: The I’ve been burnt in the past & I could do it myself syndrome.

The client has gotten this assumption from somewhere; it doesn’t matter where, but it’s probably a sign that they don’t trust you (yet).

Remember: FroMLE
Be as upfront as possible. Understand their perspective and do your best to explain what is involved and the tools required.
Clarify what they’ve requested again.
They may have had negative experiences in the past which means that they need more work to give out trust again.

9. Me, myself and my committee.

Translated: The dreaded decision by committee which can be influenced by strong personalities syndrome.

The most effective projects engage all of the stakeholders & include them in the process from the beginning.

Ask for complete committee cooperation, dedication and time. Often, this isn’t practical, possible or affordable, but the benefit of it should be explained. It’s more expensive to not.
Alternatively, ask for one point of contact who’ll be the collective voice of the committee, your champion, and the person who has the authority to sign off.
The sooner you understand the dynamics and identify who the decision makers are, the better.

10. The swanning houdini.

Translated: The disappearing until they need something from you syndrome.

You’ve been chasing this client for months. All of a sudden, they emerge & want something, usually ASAP…

Once it gets to this point, it can become very reactive.
Take back control at this point and make them aware that they’ll need to wait, because that’s the process involved.
In that 2–3 weeks of waiting, bargain with them to see if they want to book in more time to finish the other parts of the project together, otherwise they’ll need to hop into the queue again after that.

These suggestions are obviously quite broad and no two situations are ever the same, but it’s always handy to take a step back to assess everything with a bigger picture perspective. There’s always a reason behind why clients react and respond in certain ways; we all do — we’re all only human, after all.

Defining boundaries, setting expectations and forming common languages as early as possible in the piece will reduce the likelihood of too many curveballs like the above occurring.

Old habits die hard. If you allow the client to control, dictate terms & accept unreasonable requests early on, you are saying to them that the behaviour is okay.

The first fortnight is everything. You won’t see the same enthusiasm, motivation & energy again after the first fortnight, so make the most of it. Ask for the commitment from them early on because that’s when the bonds will form.

There’s always more going on. There may be factors that are affecting the client that you might not know about, causing them to behave & react in certain ways.

Know what you’re in control of. You actually can’t control anything else except for how you choose to react and respond.

Lastly, some people are just pooheads. Let’s just all accept that, give it no energy, and move on.

Thanks for reading and I’d love to hear how you go if you put any of these things into practice or if there’s anything you’d suggest adding!

Peace out.

Note: no fruit was harmed in the making of the graphics for this post 😂

Ways to deal with tricky clients, stakeholders and scary folk in general. was originally published in Prototypr on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Ways to deal with tricky clients, stakeholders and scary folk in general.

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