Sometimes, your relationship with a particular client is not all that it should be. Perhaps communication between you and your client is less than ideal. Possibly the client does not like your work. Worse, maybe the client does not see the urgency of paying you what they owe you.  

So, how do you deal with such clients? Here are some suggestions.

Important: As stated, the following are suggestions - a far cry from hard and fast rules. I hope you find these suggestions useful; however, every situation differs, and you may find that an alternate course of action works better for you than those listed here.

The client who expects work that is out of the scope of your service:

Sometimes, a client will expect you to perform tasks that are not part of your job description. For example, if your work consists of proofreading documents, and the client expects you to completely rewrite the entire document, you have a problem.

How to handle it:

Do what you should have done before accepting the job: Explain that your service does not include the additional tasks that the client expects.

Not explaining the scope of your work has resulted in the client hiring the wrong person (you), and since you cannot complete the job, you have wasted their valuable time and money. Therefore, depending on the amount of work already completed, consider waiving your fee or charging a reduced fee.

Refer the client to a professional who does perform the desired tasks. If you don't know such a person, do some research. Leaving the client with no one to do the work will contribute to a sense of betrayal and the perception of you as unreliable and irresponsible.

Lesson learned:

You know your job description, but your  client may not. It is therefore crucial to explain exactly what your service includes before you accept a job.

The client whose project involves more work than anticipated:

Let's say you are a technical writer, and a client hires you to document their product. You quote them a price for the project and then start dutifully writing the documentation. When you are just about done, the client decides to make major changes to the product, and you have to rewrite 50% of your work.

How to handle it:

Before starting the additional work, explain to the client that the price you quoted was based on the scope of the project that they described, and that since they changed that scope, your quote must also change accordingly. Then provide them with your revised quote and ask them if you should start doing the additional work.

Lesson learned:

Always try to determine the scope of a project before accepting  it. Ask about possible scenarios  in which the project scope would be expanded, and adjust your quote accordingly.

Alternatively, charging per hour will ensure that you get fair recompense for your work.

The client who is not pleased with your work:

The old saying "You can't please everyone all of the time" is trite but true. Over the course of your career, there will always be at least one client who is, for whatever reason, displeased with your best efforts.

How to handle it:

Depending on the amount of work you put in, consider waiving your fee in whole or in part, or offer the client the option of not paying for your work, if they choose not to use the product (if relevant; for example, if the product is a logo). There is nothing worse than a dissatisfied customer who has to pay for work that did not meet their needs. Keep in mind that one bad word goes a long way to dissuading potential customers from trying your service in the future.

If the client is so displeased with your work that they intend to hire someone else to redo it, try to provide them with contact details of other professionals.

Lesson learned:

Examine your work to make sure that you did your very best. If you did, then don't beat yourself up about it. Everyone is different and has different ideas of what is good.

The client who does not pay in a timely manner:

The bane of every freelancer's career is the client who does not pay up. Excuses may include the infamous "We can't pay you until our client has paid us", the less than reassuring "You'll be paid really soon, it's just a slight delay, don't worry!", and the irritating "We can't find your invoice, so we can't pay you. Could you please send it again (for the umpteenth time)?"

How to handle it:

Once the agreed-upon payment time has come and gone, wait a week. Maybe the check got lost in the mail? Maybe a new employee in the Accounting department lost your invoice?

If payment still does not arrive, call or email your client and ask what happened. If you are dissatisfied with the answer, inform the client that you are very sorry, but you cannot do any further work for them until you receive payment. Tell the client that you will continue to contact them once a week to find out what progress has been made towards payment, until you have been paid.

Then do exactly that.

If a month passes, and your client is still singing the same song, consider whether you actually want to work with them in the future. If this client is trying to avoid paying you, you probably don't want their future business anyway, and you need to sue them.

If you choose to give them extra time to pay up, be sure to continue calling every week, to show that you have not forgotten their debt and you take it seriously. If you still have not been paid by the end of the extended "grace period", you need to sue them.

Lesson learned:

You want to believe that the client will pay. You want to give them the benefit of the doubt. You want to avoid the hassle and unpleasantness of suing them. But more than anything, you want to get paid – you deserve to get paid! - and the only way to do that is to stand up for yourself. No one else will do that for you.