In my other life I’m a freelance creative. This means I offer a creative service, people search for that service, find me one way or another, ask for a quote, receive a quote, and decide if they want to book it.
If they choose to book I’ll send them a booking agreement to read and sign. I provide the bulk of the creative service in person, then go home to finish the work at my desk, and deliver the finished work a few days later.
I provide an abundance of detail across every step so nobody should ever be left wondering things like:
- what the service includes
- what they’ll actually receive
- when they’ll receive it
My fellow creative freelancers may not be surprised to learn that at every step of the process the questions I am asked most often revolve around:
- what the service includes
- what they’ll actually receive
- when they’ll receive it
And yes, often in reply to emails that literally answer these questions.
Clients are our lifeblood, but very few of them ever read what we’re telling them, and act surprised later.
Recently I provided my services to a client I’ve worked for before, so they should know exactly what to expect, no reading required. Nonetheless, all their booking emails reiterated in simple terms how it works, including that it takes 2-3 working days to receive the finished work after the principle engagement.
On the day of the job as I was leaving I asked if they needed me to provide any previews of the finished work urgently or could they wait until Monday for the full delivery. Nope, Monday is fine.
The following day (Friday) just as I was about to start work on another project the client from the night before emailed to request urgent delivery of some of the work so they could share it online.
This is literally what I asked if they needed the night before, and they said “no.”
As a freelancer you want to make your clients happy so they come back, so I stopped what I was doing and rush-delivered some of the work. The very first line of the email I sent them included a link to download the urgently requested part-delivery and an expectation that the rest would be delivered on Monday afternoon. Very simple email.
Did the client download the urgently requested work on Friday after I went out of my way to meet this urgent request? No, they did not. It was left unused until Monday morning. Clients do this a lot too – request urgent delivery that can lead to late nights trying to meet their expectations, then don’t do anything with it until days later anyway.
But then on Monday morning after downloading the urgently-requested part-delivered work did the client immediately ask when the rest would be ready? In reply to an email that literally opens with the answer to that question? Yes they did.
Most people do not read emails, or websites, or booking agreements.
One of the creative services I offer is for a specific group of private clients, and warrants a tailored booking agreement / contract that’s easy to read and lays everything out simply and clearly.
There’s some things I need these clients to agree to so that I can do my best work on the day. It’s not an onerous ask but if they don’t provide these things the work will suffer, and this is made clear in the booking agreement.
The number of times the client does not provide what they signed a contract promising to provide is utterly infuriating.
So I added a new clause to my contract, very near the top, with an amusing and eye-catching heading, in which I offer the clients a significant and popular freebie worth over £100 if they mention this clause after booking. It’s written in a light-hearted tone and specifically mentions that they’ll be rewarded simply for proving that they read what they’re agreeing to because – like the South Park iTunes episode demonstrates – most of us sign stuff without ever reading it.
In 5 years of trying this experiment, only one client has ever mentioned it.