Is the client always right?
Everything written in the estimate, estimate signed, we all agreed: 3 rounds of retouching and then we charge extra. But we’re already at the fifth.
When does the pursuit of perfection cross into fantasy land? When can we say that what we’re retouching is pointless, because nobody will ever see it?
The topic is extremely delicate and has to be handled just as carefully. Being rigid almost always means losing the client, being too soft means that the client, whoever they are (agency, brand, or photographer), will never stop finding a hair in the soup, even when the hair isn’t there, or you need a microscope to find it.
I believe there are several situations that can be coded.
The longtime client
The client is an old acquaintance, we work a lot with them and usually there are no problems. Well, a bad day happens to everyone and it doesn’t seem the case to be too rigid. After all, it’s an isolated case.
The new client
The client is new: heads uuuup!! Too rigid means looking like a stickler, and nobody wants to work with such a rigid structure that it snaps at the first problem. Too soft means that every job that follows will be like this one, or worse. As a general rule we state, and we write it clearly in our estimate, that after the third round any further revision will be subject to a new quote at an hourly rate. And make sure it’s a high one, make it a deterrent. That way you’ve got the room to be picky when you feel like it, but you’re also relaxed enough to understand that a couple of hours won’t make you rich, but will make the client happy if they don’t have to pay for them.
The holiday-gap client
The client is an old acquaintance, and asks us to work in the periods when their regular retoucher is out, like the August holidays, or Christmas. As far as I’m concerned, no mercy! They only call us as backup, so we’re authorized to do pretty much anything.
Italian or American
There’s one more huge consideration to make.
Is the client Italian? A solid 30% extra elasticity, if we can afford it, is worth considering. Is the client American? No problems there: elasticity is a luxury that gets quantified upfront and gets paid for, the client actually considers it normal and asks for the extra. So we can “act Italian” and be elastic and accommodating halfway. Everyone happy, the famous one hand washing the other is always much appreciated.
When to stop
That said, there’s one case where, in my opinion, it’s worth not giving too much room. When the client changes their mind 5 or 6 times on the direction of the work, and forces us to do and redo by changing course every time, instead of adding or removing within the same vision. Everything seemed to be going smooth as silk until, one evening, an art director who isn’t even on that job, or somebody’s boyfriend/girlfriend, walks past the monitor with the image open while holding a sandwich in one hand and a beer in the other and pronounces, between bites, the fatal phrase: “but do you actually like it?”. Atomic explosion, a flood of comments never seen until a minute before. That’s when it’s worth stopping, writing a very polite email asking for consolidated feedback, then quantifying the time we need and the change in budget. That way everyone’s happy, there are no surprise final prices that clients always react badly to (rightly so), and there are no constant changes of direction that make the project unmanageable and often the images messy.
PS. This post was written by a human.
