How to deal with losing clients as a freelance web developer?

One harsh reality of being self-employed in any industry is learning how to deal with losing clients.

When first setting out on running a business, many of us tend to underestimate just how much work is involved in getting the business off the ground. It can be a real hard slog at the start, and perhaps one of the most challenging parts is finding clients. Of course, the holy grail of most businesses is securing long-term clients who regularly need work completing. In the website industry, this is most likely to be clients that need their websites looking after and are willing to enter into a maintenance/support contract. It could also be a business who needs a Google Ads campaign managing, or search engine optimisation services. Website hosting is another repeat form of business.

Indeed, having several contracts with clients can provide that all-important regular income stream, therefore taking the pressure off sourcing new work every month. Of course, it may seem obvious in understanding that clients need to be looked after and expect a certain level of service. If you are a respectable business owner it’s only natural that you will want to please your clients, particularly if you are a new business. Afterall, reputation as a new business is everything and word-of-month can certainly help with securing new clients.

The nature of clients

For many new business owners, however, it can soon become apparent that some clients can be challenging and demanding, even rude at times. You might well bend over backwards to please certain clients but whatever you do it just isn’t good enough. These clients will often have high expectations and very little patience – they want things done now and do not want to wait, nor are they interested in listening to reasons why something can’t or shouldn’t be done. Inevitably clients such as these will be more inclined to think the grass is greener elsewhere and source another business to work with.

There are also those clients that fixate on that one issue that they had, despite having an otherwise great experience. These clients will sometimes panic and quickly seek to source another business to work with in an attempt to prevent any further issues that they now foresee might happen. These clients will catastrophise the situation, and any attempt to win them round will be met with a degree of scepticism based on that one bad thing that has happened.

Then there’s those clients who will always focus on the bottom line – money. This is understandable in these tough economic times but, as the old saying goes, you often get what you pay for. Unfortunately, however, despite offering them a great service they will think nothing of switching to another business who is offering the same service for cheaper.

Focus on the positives!

Suffice to say, it can be very hard to keep all your clients happy all the time, and even if you do this, they might still decide to leave you. This can be a bitter pill to shallow, and particularly as a new business, you might well take this personally. It can even invoke feelings of anger and resentment towards that client or just leave you doubting yourself. What’s important, however, is not to take this to heart. Being a business owner means growing a thick skin and reminding yourself that you are still good at what you do – it’s very important to believe in yourself and see the business as a journey. Yes, you might have a lost a client, but you might have also gained several new clients that more than make-up for the one you have lost. Focus on the positives and try to learn from any mistakes you do make. Remember that clients will always come and go. This is just the nature of any business, particularly in the website industry, where competition is rife from similar set-ups elsewhere. The technical nature of the service also means it’s more likely that things will go wrong from time-to-time.