Due to some recent issues with less than honorable clients, we’re making some changes to the way we operate as a business. Every small business encounters deadbeat clients at some point or another, and unfortunately the business owner is then left to have to incur the services and expense of an attorney to handle the recovery of payment for services.
Typically, a web consulting company such as ours charges for the time that we spend working for the client. This time includes all time associated with the client, such as research, investigation, planning, development, and implementation. Unfortunately, sometimes clients find a little sticker shock from the total invoice, most commonly when the individuals aren’t familiar with technology. There are a lot of behind the scenes activity that takes place on a project that isn’t necessarily the most visible or most glamorous, yet they must happen to make the website work. We’ve recently had a client brazenly state that they aren’t going to pay a $12,000 invoice because “what you have done is not what we asked you to do”. Of course, what we did was exactly what we stated we would do in our agreement letter. And never did they mention any issues until after the work was done and the invoice was due to be paid. Frustrating, but we will pursue the matter through the legal system and we will get our money. It will take a little longer and cost us (well, them I guess once they pay attorney fees) a little more. It’s just that you wish people would do the honorable thing and pay for the services that they agree to.
That being said, we are going to be making some changes to our policies going forward. More details to come, but we’d like any suggestions and feedback that you may have on this type of topic.