Why does it keep happening?

Have you ever been on the verge of throwing in the towel after dealing with the maddening request of your clients?

“Make the logo bigger.” A classic.

Sending over copy that’s either a pathetic few lines or an epic novel.

And let’s not even talk about the accessibility issues that make you wonder if they’re gunning for a WCAG violations high-score.

Sound familiar? I’d laugh if I wasn’t crying.

But have you stopped to ask yourself why it keeps happening to us?

Are our clients out to make our lives miserable? Do they have a secret agenda to sabotage our projects? Or could the real problem be staring back at you in the mirror?

A good example is Laura’s post last week talking about clients dragging their feet when asked for feedback.

It’s something we all do — even encouraging them to send revisions! We want them to be happy, so it makes sense, right?

I’m not so sure.

When we ask for “feedback”, clients feel obligated to contribute — even when they have no experience, expertise or vocabulary to contribute something meaningful. So we get back bizarre suggestions like auto-playing music and flashing text, or worse, like Laura, we get nothing.

Why? Maybe it’s because we’re asking them to do our jobs for us. It’s like walking into a doctor’s office and being asked to diagnose yourself.

If they knew what they wanted and how to do it, they would have done it themselves.

So, what if we asked for approval instead? This simple tweak takes the pressure off them to provide input, and gives them the opportunity to give us a thumbs up instead.

Trust me, if they want changes, they’ll let you know!

Swapping “feedback” for “approval” is just one example, but I think it illustrates the point…

The best way for us to serve our clients isn’t by asking them what they think is right, then reducing the quality and standards of our work to appease their ignorance. It’s by giving them our best; backed by our years of experimentation, expertise, and experience.

That’s why they hired us. Anything else is not only unkind, it’s kind of wrong.