Previous Dilemma: Make Up Your Mind Already!

We give clients proposals for the services they hire us to do. However, we have several clients who take too long to provide the needed feedback or approval. And we cannot move forward without their input. Even though we deliver a service, delays affect our business.

How do you handle indecisive clients to get them to give you the needed feedback or approval in a timely manner? Give them an ultimatum? Charge them for delays?

— Joe

Summary of Advice Received

Stop Losing Profits While Waiting for Action
Getting the client line moving again
by Meryl K. Evans, Editor, Professional Services Journal

A waiter became frustrated with a customer who had a laptop and parked herself in his section for hours, during the restaurant’s busiest times. For as long as the customer stayed put, the waiter lost 25 percent of his tips, considering the customer held up one out of his assigned four tables.

This can happen to a professional services organization (PSO) as it waits for clients to make decisions about what they want to do. The PSO loses opportunities because it cannot devote resources to another project. If the PSO should assign employees to another project, and this client makes a decision — the PSO won’t have any employees to staff it.

While a waiter can’t do anything about a time-wasting customer (unless the restaurant has a policy), a PSO can avoid the situation by taking the following actions:

• Manage potential delays effectively.
• Move forward with the proposal.

Share your experiences and tips for working with idle clients, by joining the conversation and leaving a comment. Or ask your own question.

Manage potential delays effectively

A reader lets her clients know that their spot in the queue may be in jeopardy because of their inactivity. For current projects, her firm documents every step and who is responsible in work plans.

If the deadline slips because a client does not respond, her company brings it up at the next status report meeting. “While I wouldn’t recommend charging for late decisions, I have warned clients that an ‘expedite fee’ may apply if they want us to meet an original deadline that they allowed to slip,” she says.

You can be proactive by adding a clause in the contract that states that when a project doesn’t move forward after so many days, the client will lose its place in line. You may also consider including a penalty for delays. If you don’t have a contract stipulating this, then warn the client that if you don’t get feedback within X days, you will have to work on another project and the client will have to wait until it’s done, thereby jeopardizing deadlines.

Move forward with the proposal

Use information obtained from your previous relationship with the client and notes from conversations to continue to work on the project. Michael Adcock, dimensional engineering mentor with Effective Training, Inc., creates the proposal even if that means most of it will come from assumptions and prior experience with the client on similar projects.

Adcock suggests delivering the proposal in person and having the client agree or disagree with each assumption, making corrections as you work through it. It may also be time for a candid conversation. “Let them know how much you want to continue working with them. Highlight accomplishments and compare what has been done against the total scope of the project.

“Then let clients know that you cannot wait beyond X date for them to decide on a course of action, because other clients need your services. Identify the consequences of the delays. In all of this, it is important to make customers feel valued. They want and need your services at one time and will likely want and need them in the future, so you don’t want to lose them as customers,” Adcock says.

Try including choices in the proposal. Sometimes a client can’t decide because of being overwhelmed. Offering choices and working through those items can make it easier for the client to give you direction.

What other ways can you handle clients who hold up a project? Have you been in this situation? How did you manage it? Facing other work challenges? Or, ask a question.

About the editor

Meryl K. Evans is senior editor at InternetVIZ and the content maven behind the Connected Digest, IT Solutions Journal and Professional Services Journal. Follow her on Twitter @merylkevans.