Questions
How to reject customer requirement/highlight to them that is outside our job scope even though they feel we are able to do it?
How to explain to customer why our charges is higher when they receive a cheaper quotation by others company? Most of the time I believe the client did not provide full job specifications to the service provider.
How to explain to customer that we are going to charge him for the additional requirement. They might think that that is just a minor changes but in fact there are quite a lot of minor changes add up and used a lot of time to fullfill his requirement.
Background
I would like to have your advices on how to handle difficult customer. I am not complaining about the customer but just want to learn a professional way to avoid similar incident occur in future.
I have developed a custom CMS website for my boss's friend. The job I have done so far include:
- Logo design
- Custom template
- Content update (Copy Paste from M. Words up to 50 pages+)
- Basic SEO Based on Google optimization guide (Submit sitemap, etc.)
- 3 custom form (Application form/training form/contact form)
I used 1 month to design and developed the website. Also I have offer the customer with 1 month free website maintainance which include small changes or content update to the site.
Basically it would be a simple job and we can done all the requirements within 1 month. Unfortunately, the customer can't provide the full details upfront. Initially, he just send us a hardcopy form and ask us to develop according to the form. After we have developed, then he told us to make some changes to the form. So we follow exactly and update the form. This process keep going round and round and every time he also got new small request to add on.
Just the changes to this form and while waiting for his feedback has already spend for a month.
Also he request us to test certain software and let him know whether it is user friendly and suitable for his business. But we haven't use this software before and it is not in our job scope. I don't know how to reject his request most of the time.
We have charge him for USD 1600++ for the whole project. I feel the price is reasonable for the efforts that we have put it in. Unfortunately he complains to our boss said our charges is very high while he getting the quotation from others is just around $800. Almost half of our charges.
How should I explain to him in this situation.
Also he is expecting us to quote him for maintenance agreement by next week and I am worry if I quote for too less and we receive a lot of changes from him, or quote too high then he complains to my boss again.
If I am not allowed to post this question in this project management section, please feel free to close this thread. I welcome any and all criticism and advices. Thank you.
I have read this and found it useful. What are the techniques to elicit requirements from customers who don't understand their needs?