3 Design Problems Clients Are Facing... and How You Can Solve Them
As a designer. a huge part of my job is customer service. Clients often come to me feeling at max capacity, unsure of what to to next, and it is privilege to take problems off of their plates and return them beautifully wrapped up with a bow on top. 2023 is no exception. I am definitely seeing some trends across the industry, both in terms of the clients I am personally interacting with as well as what I hear from the designers that I mentor. Let’s dive into a few of the struggles I am seeing right now.
General Overwhelm
I would say that the number one thing I am seeing this year is general overwhelm. Clients are trying to do a lot (with a little budget – we’ll tackle that next) and they’re trying to do it all at once. Nearly everyone I am interacting with this year is in a perpetual state of overwhelm. I am seeing more disorganization, more rushing, more quick turn projects.
While I never want my clients to come to me feeling overwhelmed, taking clients from frazzled to zen is sort of my specialty. Here’s how I take charge:
Help them understand the scope of their needs. Make a comprehensive list of the type of work that could be included and make sure you leave no stone unturned. I often try to think broader than my client is thinking. So let’s say someone comes to me for an estimate for packaging design. I will also include pricing for social media launch graphics, a sales sheet, and other ancillary items. It gets their wheels turning and a) allows them to feel more aware of what may be coming down the road but also b) typically leads to significantly increased project totals because oftentimes they will say “Oh you’re right, we will need that. Let’s add that too.”
Clear project timelines. I make a project timeline for every single project I work on. It includes when clients will hear from me and also when their feedback is due – this keeps everyone organized and on top of things. When a client misses a feedback deadline, we rework the timeline so there is no confusion about what is happening when.
File organization. Sometimes in the hurried, frazzled state that clients are in, they will send me 10-20 forwarded emails of relevant assets for a project. I try to nip this in the bud by making sure that before any project starts, I send them a link to a Drive folder where they can place all of the assets. Easier for them, easier for me. A win-win.
Make sure they feel taken care of. This is probably my favorite part of my job. Our role as designers is to solve our clients’ visual problems. I LOVE getting to say “you don’t need to worry about that, I will take care of it!” Remember that you are in a service-based business which means a LOT of customer service. If you have been around for a while you know how passionate I am about what I call “Client-Centered Strategy” – operating with the mindset that my business exists FOR my clients. To serve them. To take care of them. To go the extra mile.
Budget Cuts/Increase in Cost Consciousness
There is a buzz about the design industry right now – people are seeing big hits in their leads, project totals, and what clients are willing to spend on work. I think across the board everyone is trying to do more with less. That is pretty par for the course – not just in 2023! There is also a demand for hiring designers, but seemingly fewer and fewer full-time roles.
The primary way I have addressed this in the past has just been trying to figure out a way to get my clients the best possible value. I do this a couple of ways:
Truncated Timelines / Design Intensives. This is a great way to be able to charge your client less for their project. Send an estimate for $1,500? Client responds that their budget is $1,000. This is a great time to propose a shortened project timeline or a design intensive (single day project). You can work with their budget a bit BUT they can’t have the same extended project timeline. You need to control when, where, and how long the work will take with no gray area.
Design Retainers. You know I LOVE a design retainer – I have sold hundreds of thousands of dollars in retainer contracts and pretty much can credit them exclusively for getting my studio to where it is today. I have found that the number one reason clients want to hire me on a retainer is that they want a member of their team who is a designer, but they do not want the overhead of chaos of hiring a full-time employee. They want their go-to person but with no strings attached. Retainers are such a huge win for clients and also a huge win for designers.
Batch Projects. Client needs social graphics? Is there any way they can send over a list of what they are going to need for the next six months? Working on one item at a time versus six at the same time is always going to cost more. I sometimes will work with packaging clients to build out future variants so that we can loop them into the original project scope instead of billing one-off down the line. There is always a cost savings there!
Template customization. Does your client want to spend about $0 on their project? Offer them an option where you customize templates they purchase. There are a lot of great templates for things like social media graphics/presentations/powerpoint decks on Creative Market/You Work For Them. If your client wants a custom 40 page presentation for $500… that is probably not going to happen. But don’t be afraid to let clients know what you COULD do within their budget. At the very least it will communicate that your prices are firm and exist for a reason, but you are willing to try to find a way to make something work.
Lack of Originality in the industry
A few weeks ago I needed a referral for a client so I reached out to my network and I got about 25-30 names and websites which I spent some time reviewing/vetting before passing them along. Probably 12 of those 30 websites looked almost identical. I was really surprised, and then kept digging and just found more and more of people doing the exact. same. thing.
Clients notice this. If they are looking for a designer and you are doing the same thing as six other designers, you are going to be hard to remember. So here’s what I would emphasize: Constantly evolve. Constantly! Never get comfortable. Never stop pushing yourself to create new things, try different things, be different, swim upstream, go against the grain.
In terms of communicating that originality to your client, be sure to emphasize your process. What do you do to make sure that their work is unique and exclusively their own? Are you drawing, illustrating, customizing, editing – be certain that is part of the conversations you have so your clients know you have a vested interest in their design assets being as original and uniquely theirs as is humanly possible. *Please note, it is pretty much impossible that you can guarantee your client that there is not another logo out there in the world that is the same as what you create for them. The design industry is enormous, and it is literally not possible for you to have vetted every logo in the world – so be careful not to make any promises that you cannot keep. (This was an addition my attorney made to my contract in 2022)
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I hope that was helpful! At times it can be easy to forget that clients often come to the table a bit off balance, overwhelmed, and unsure of what the next step is. It is our privilege as designers to help them right the ship and stay the course.
Want to brainstorm how you can solve problems for your past clients, stay ahead of the game, and book more work? Download this free worksheet: Client Problem Solving Brainstorm