In business we all have positive and negative experiences. I had my first negative experience this month and it left me feeling deflated and unhappy that I hadn’t managed to fulfil a client brief.
Here’s what happened…..Against my better judgement I took on an ad hoc client (let’s call her Becky) who did not want to sign a contract. It was only for a small job and as her reasons for this were acceptable enough that I was happy to proceed as she agreed to pay in advance for the support she was looking for.
The job was simple enough (or so I thought), and after having a call to discuss requirements of the research task I swiftly commenced the 1-hour pre-paid work that Becky had paid for.
Becky had asked me to find her a selection of private dentists in Manchester for some treatment and on completion of the task she came back to me questioning the results of my research as not providing a ‘diverse’ enough choice of options. ‘Diversity’ was not something that was raised as part of the brief she had provided to me. She very quickly started to say I had provided a poor service and asked where she could leave a negative review.
At this point I had three options.
1. Go back to the drawing board and revisit my options although having to consider the nationality of the dentists I was looking at for her did not sit right with me AT ALL.
2. Walk away and risk a bad review.
3. Refund her the money, standing firm by my beliefs and accepting you can’t please all customers.
Which option would you choose?
I decided that rather than get into an awkward situation with a client whose values I did not agree with I chose to refund the client apologising I had not fulfilled her brief and wishing her good luck at finding an alternative VA who could help her.
Having an unhappy customer was a huge disappointment. I had not delivered on Becky’s expectations which is something I pride myself on as a VA. BUT what she was asking of me did not sit well and I am glad I walked away valuing my beliefs and values rather than continuing with a task which felt morally wrong.
As a new start up there are many lessons that I have learnt as an outcome of this.
1. Processes and procedures are in place for a reason (even my last blog talks about this) and I didn’t follow my own advice. Contracts are there to protect you in situations such as these and not wanting to sign a contract should raise a big red flag (which it did on this occasion, but that I chose to ignore).
2. Go with your gut – I had a feeling this task would not be as simple as it seemed. I should have gone with my instinct and turned down the job.
3. Key to a successful partnership is for your values, and that of your clients, to align. I rushed into this task because it seemed straight forward and I should have taken more time to learn about the prospective client and whether we were the right fit. If I had done that to start with maybe I wouldn’t have found myself in this awkward situation.
I’m interested to hear about any negative experiences you have had in your business and how you managed them. Did you learn a lesson to move your business forward and turn it into a positive or does it still haunt you to this day?
