Just a friendly chat about clients

Coffee Lounge
#1

Hi all you lovely people, so I was just wondering how everyone else handles their different client needs.

So today as an example, I had a client call and ask to add SSL to their 4 year old website, pretty easy to do, and took a few minutes on a free SSL certificate in cPanel.

I go check each page and notice that the Google Map and Google Directions no longer work, they were one so long ago, it was before Google started charging for it.

The site is very low traffic, probably 300 visitors a month, if that, and maybe 5 people are going to view the map each month.

Would you go through the hassle of getting the client to load up a google account, add a payment method to add the API service to it, considering this particular client is technically challenged and has to reboot her adding machine 4 times a day. Or do I just pay the probably tiny fee on their behalf each month.

Same thing applies for clients that upgrade from cPanel email accounts to Google for Business accounts. Do most of you charge to add the 5 DNS records, get the SPF working etc.
And what about migrating all their mailboxes and setting them all up on the Google Admin Dashboard. Most of which I do for free.

Just wondering how the rest of you work.

For me, if its a large monthly contract, I do not bother them, but when its a website you were paid for once 3 years ago etc.?

#2

So for me the majority of my clients wouldn’t easily be able to setup a Google Cloud account, generate an api key and then setup domain permissions without some very detailed instructions. What I do is set this up on their behalf and explain that Google charges for the use of their Maps, however you get the first $200 of usage waived each month. Most of the sites I produce don’t hit that limit. If they did I would bill the client and maybe look at another provider like Mapbox if usage got crazy.

For Gsuite (now Google Workspace) I set this up on their behalf but with their own credit card so they are billed directly. I then charge them separately for the one off setup.

Hope that helps, my time is money so it doesn’t matter what size the client is, they still get billed one way or another.

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#3

Thank you, that really does help. I think I will follow your $200 logic, as most of my clients will not hit that either, and the big ones that will far exceed that very fast already have Google accounts I can like to with their payment details already input.
Thanks again, this gives me some direction.

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#4

Gradually getting averse to one-off projects - unless they’re really big (my defn of big might be diff from yours). These clients generally squeeze too much out of you without significant value to either parties - in my little experience.

For a website made 3 yrs ago, any change being requested now would attract a small fee - would let the client politely know about it.
If we were already managing hosting and client was paying us something annually/monthly for it - then we’d do it for free - adding SSL or changing some text is ok to do for free.

For emails, would not take that up. It gets messy real fast. We suggest them vendors like resellerclub that have chat and other forms of support and offer better pricing than most on gsuite, etc.

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#5

Can testify to that. Once you get involved with bad IP’s and blacklisting issues can take up a lot of time (just an example of what spanners can be thrown in the mix), best handed over to a third party. I don’t know what it is but many Clients think it’s as easy as setting up a Hotmail account… If only they sat with us for the day to witness the pain.

If they are a serious business, the Client, they will understand the need to pay for your services. Raise a proposal and attach an invoice (standard payable within 30 days), and see how they respond…? Talk with them first though, a call can make things a lot easier, and face to face is even better if the distance is not too great. They will appreciate your professionalism.

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#6

Thanks guys, it’s a great help to get everyones take on this, especially the email one, honestly I thought I was just doing email migrations wrong or something, because they take forever, my last one I did was more than a year ago for 32 email accounts, going from a microsoft exchange system to Google for business.
Over 300 gb of email in total, address books, notes, smtp signatures not on each users device but added after sending out.
Honestly, it took me more than a week to complete in total, which is why i figured I was just doing it badly, what a nightmare.

Anyway, for some reason it seems to always be my smallest clients that give the least financial support that are the biggest pains, lol.

But good to hear everyone else’s perspective on it, never want to say no to paying work, or burn bridges, but some jobs are just not worth the effort.

Luckily I have 2 or 3 really good, supportive, friendly clients now that keep me more than busy, but always find it difficult to say no, because I am a nice guy, add to that the barrage of family members who think because I sit behind a computer all day that suddenly I am Trinity from the matrix and can hack all their husbands phones for them and recover their missing baby pictures off their 90 year old hard drive whittled from an oak tree. lol

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#7

Mostly true for us as well.

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#8

Well if I take my car to the garage for some minor repairs and the mechanic notices a few other issues and I ask him to fix them then I pay his time to do this.

Cars are considered expensive items and a mechanic’s time costs money.

Sadly, since so much of the internet is free, a tech guru is sometimes not valued the same way.

Time to change that perception! :tada:

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#9

indeed.

except that even for a mechanic i would rather to pay for expertise rather than time. complex problems are solved by experts in much less time and more reliably than a novice can do - this is critical which billing against time ignores in almost all services. this may not apply to all problems being solved by those services - but for most software services this would hold good i believe.

this perception needs some change as well.

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#10

This is probably the core of the issue I have, if it takes me a week to do something like transfer 30 mail accounts to Google for Business, how long would it take another person who has better expertise.
So when it comes time to charge for my time, its often a thought of “well that took me a week, can i charge for a week, maybe it would have taken other people 4 days” so it is always a struggle in my mind to come up with a fair charge.

#11

1 we find it better to politely decline and refer others on stuff that we can do but is not core competency nor is a focus area in long term. As an example - that’s why we’ve stopped selling web hosting services. Just managing handful of old clients.
2 stop thinking in terms of time instead think in terms of the value to the client. This is easier to do for big things than small - but you got to start somewhere to get a right fit.

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#12

Hello Paul, I’ve always found email setup (Account setup, and DNS config) to be something everyone can google and find the way to get it up and running. But, the risk and chances of messing things up are high for inexperienced people.

It’s not easy to sell it if you charge for the setup. Specially if you charge by the hour. But if your proposal focuses on the real value: peace of mind and on-going support if any issue arises, it becomes easier.

For non-regular customers I usually offer a) free guidance or b) expensive, but guaranteed advanced setup. They usually go for the latter.

Regarding the other scenarios (SSL setup, Google Maps API config/payment, etc): The more you move into value based pricing, the more buffer you’ll have to take care of those “for free”. It all depends on your overall margins and available time.

Another way of looking at it is: Maybe doing it your self is way faster and easier for both you and the client. But if you go down that path, I suggest you communicate to the client that you had to do un-expected work. Try to highlight what was the generated value for them. That would at least make them appreciate you more.

Regards.

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