Do you actually believe that?
I’m not buying it. Not even for a second.
Customers will do anything to get a discount, a freebie or something extra. At the end of the season they’ll return clothes that clearly have been worn, and ask for their money back. They’ll order a steak medium rare and want a comp because they say it was undercooked.
They don’t follow instructions, break the appliance and blame it on the manufacturer. What’s more, they’ll tell everybody on Facebook and Twitter about it.
Are those customers right?
I don’t think so.
Customers are calculating, conniving and…
Well said Paul. Managing client expectations is a skill we all tend to learn by trial and error. Hopefully this blog will save someone just starting out from a mistake or two.
Absolutely right! Great article Paul. I’m all with “Don’t take a job, you aren’t qualified or trained to do”… That is golden advice as always!
I ALWAYS make my clients pay up front. If they don’t like it, tough. I’m happy to lose the job because they are the ones who will probably find fault and try and nit pick in order to gain a reduction. I simply explain that because the end result isn’t tangible, payment has to be made in advance. If you buy anything off the internet you have to pay up front – how is this different.
So far, only 1 person has complained and he wanted me to voice his phone prompts for $10 and then scolded me for wanting money up front. I wrote back and told him it wasn’t worth switching the electricity on in my studio for that amount of money!
As a freelance VO, I have the luxury of choosing whom I work with. I’m only interested in working with professionals 😀
Many years ago I actually lost a Help Desk manager’s job because I had the temerity to say, no, the customer is not always right. I also said it was my job to educate the customers and manage their expectations. But they were so shocked at my first statement I don’t think they heard that. So, yes, I couldn’t agree with you more.
Excellent points Paul. I’ve learned to pass on jobs/projects that have the traditional red flags. It’s a learning process and often your gut tells you that you better get paid up front before voicing. Also, knowing when it’s OK to “fire” a client. The folks who come with a very low budget and want a whole lot of something. I have a bunch of great clients who understand that voice over is a skill and compensate fairly.
Yah! Great article! Right on point.
It’s a balance, to be sure. One that I think we all try to walk and navigate on a daily basis.
Now that I’m a little more established I’m able to pass on opportunities that send up red flags for customer nightmares. But there was a time when, financially, I needed every gig I could get.
On the other hand, I’ve bent over backwards for new clients before and a couple of them have since ended up being some of my best repeat business (with reasonable expectations for work and delivery).
One of the most important things we can remember as voice actors is that we carry value. We offer a service. And it’s a service not just anyone can provide (or at least not well). Never allow a customer to diminish your value.
Excellent article, Paul. Painful experience is a powerful teacher. I’ve been in many of the scenarios you wrote about here.
I am reminded of a quote from the CEO of the most loved airline in America, Southwest Airlines – renowned not only for their low fares but also for their wonderful employees. The CEO said “The customer is not always right, in fact they are often wrong.” He went on to say that they sometimes had to “fire” customers who did not follow safety rules, who treated their workers badly, etc. It is no ownder to me that they have such happy employees!
Contrast that experience to my own experience (when I was still “paying my dues” as a waiter) at a popular restaurant in Chicago. The customer was always right, even when they were flat-out abusive. I once cut off a customer who pinched a hostesses butt, who then became irate. instead of throwing him out, my manager brought them another glass of wine. Guess what the state of morale was at that restaurant?
One of the many, many things I appreciate about my career as a voice talent with my own studio is that I can simply refuse to work with someone who I know will make my life hell or treat me shabbily. You’ve given some good pointers on how to avoid problems by setting boundaries up front – but sometimes there can be so many red flags that I’ll just politely decline.
Great post Paul, and right on point. I was on the radio for years, and have done retail sales as well — customers can be abusive and often flat out wrong. It’s in nobody’s best interest to allow an employee to be abused — especially if YOU are the employee! Firing the customer is sometimes the best thing for everyone.
Loved the article! Thank you for your honesty and sharing some specific experiences with everyone. I’ve learned to ask very specific questions and get every detail possible from the client before recording, so there aren’t any misunderstandings or too many pickups, or if the script is long, to send them a sample first to get their final “okay”. And to provide the client with details about my terms and rates they might not have thought to ask.
Great post! Thanks.
Paul is the eternal spring of astute observation and reason. And this is annoying, because I wind up repeating myself every time I comment: marvelous, Paul!
I’m one who tends to speak his mind; many times to a fault, but I’m often right, too. There was a client several years ago, an agency, who asked me to narrate a video for his client. The video had just been narrated by someone else, but the end-user client didn’t like it because of the way the narrator pronounced the word ‘associates.’ He pronounced it ‘ah-so-shee-ets,’ rather than ‘ah-so-see-ets.’ A red flag went up in my mind.
I wondered to myself why the end-user client didn’t simply ask the original narrator to make the necessary changes, which I’m sure he would have gladly done, but I accepted the job.
Then my client (the agency) said, “OK. Now, when you record this, we want you to sound like the original narrator.” I said, “Oh, with regard to tone and pacing, right?” “No” came the reply. “We need you to sound like him.”
Frankly, I was a little stunned for a moment or two. Then I said, “With all due respect, I don’t do impressions of other narrators. And I really don’t think you’re going to find any professional narrator who does.”
Had I taken on that job, I would’ve spent all my wits trying to imitate the original narrator rather than focusing on being a good storyteller.
Tell you what: go into a Volkswagen dealership and tell them you’ll pay for a VW, but you want it to look like a Cadillac.
I’ve been in many similar circumstances, Paul – you’re absolutely right!
You ARE right Paul! 😉
My fav part of this blog post, “I also let them know that it’s up to them to give me clear instructions, because there’s no director to guide me. I encourage them to listen in on a phone patch and make sure they get the read they need, but nine out of ten times they leave it up to me.”
I find this is important to note to new clients, especially the ones new to voice over. Voice over is now becoming a popular thing for book authors & app developers as we know. Oftentimes, these business have no clue as to what the business of VO is about (which is why they think it’s OK to pay us half after you’ve done the job & then decide they want something else).
It’s up to us to make sure we inform people about the world of VO & what our standards are. Being a great voice artist also includes being a great business person. Also — knowing you may not be the right fit for a client is always something we should keep in the back of our minds when we “win” a job. Sometimes, our ego must lose in order to experience less pain LOL
Great job writing as always Paul.
Cheers!
I once had a client give me a 4:58 script for a quote. Days later when I entered the booth, it had ballooned to 10:00. He wanted the same price AND berated me for 2 minutes over a studio speakerphone for making ONE pickup. I charged him 50% more. He asked for me 3 weeks later for revisions. I charged him, and his lobbying group, an exorbitant amount, even by my standards, AND hundreds more if he spoke to me at all on the phone (and he did).
He paid every cent. Huge check for nothing really. Never used me again and I don’t care.
I LOVE the way you have the link automatically attached when I cut and paste a quote from your website! I’m doing a research paper about customer service and citing everything has been tedious. But YOU have the weblink already there as I paste it in my notes. Talk about customer service! I didn’t realize what a treat that was!
Thank you so much for your kind words, Brandy. I aim to make things easy for my readers!