Tricky buyer, cancel order or not?

[mvrphotodesign]

Hello all,

I would like to ask for advice regarding a somewhat difficult buyer: cancel order or not? I know it will influence my rank.

The buyer approached me with a big order. In doing so, she indicated that the revisions in my package would probably be too few. She preferred that I’d take more time and show her every step of the process so she could provide feedback without using the revisions. I already had my reservations, because buyers like these are generally not easily satisfied. Still, I accepted the challenge.

~50 logo designs later she still isn’t satisfied and still doesn’t seem to really know what she wants, which of course makes it very difficult for me aswell. It’s not necessarily that she finds my logos bad, but they don’t seem to fit her vision. She now even asks for the color codes and fonts to create some logos herself, which is always a red flag for me. I’ve put so much time and effort into it and I feel like we’re both getting nowhere.

[humanissocial]

Hello all,

I would like to ask for advice regarding a somewhat difficult buyer: cancel order or not? I know it will influence my rank.

The buyer approached me with a big order. In doing so, she indicated that the revisions in my package would probably be too few. She preferred that I’d take more time and show her every step of the process so she could provide feedback without using the revisions. I already had my reservations, because buyers like these are generally not easily satisfied. Still, I accepted the challenge.

~50 logo designs later she still isn’t satisfied and still doesn’t seem to really know what she wants, which of course makes it very difficult for me aswell. It’s not necessarily that she finds my logos bad, but they don’t seem to fit her vision. She now even asks for the color codes and fonts to create some logos herself, which is always a red flag for me. I’ve put so much time and effort into it and I feel like we’re both getting nowhere.

She preferred that I’d take more time and show her every step of the process so she could provide feedback without using the revisions.

This isn’t a good thing because this way you can’t protect yourself. It’s highly suspicious that the buyer would suggest this.

This is a red flag that the person is going to manipulate or steal from you.

And that’s what appears to be happening.

[looseink]

It took you FIFTY logo designs to get to this point?

Wow!

I wouldn’t have gone past THREE.

I have other things to do with my time besides trying to please someone who has no clue what they want in a logo design.

I feel for you.

But you walked into this one.

[anniejenkinson]

If that were me, I would cancel and move on–spending the time on better buyers who like my style more.

While it is hellishly frustrating not to get paid for all this work, buyers like this will only ask you for more and more work and they behave in such an ‘entitled’ manner that you will probably never manage to please her even if you deliver the moon and stars.

Continuing will cost you more in the longer term, trying to keep working to satisfy someone who cannot be happy with your designs. If you’re like me, it will also stress you out and stop you from working to your best ability.

As you said, we can usually tell which clients will behave in an entitled way and which ones will be troublesome. We should listen to gut instincts!

Many people in this scenario would say they’d struggle on so that they’d get paid for all this work completed to date. But as I see it, that means throwing “good money after bad” by investing yet more time in a project that is heading nowhere fast.
.

[mvrphotodesign]

Thank you all for the advice. I’ve canceled the order, she agreed without any hard feelings. It’s a bummer, but gotta learn the hard way sometimes! I will trust my gut instinct more from now on.

[english_voice]

Thank you all for the advice. I’ve canceled the order, she agreed without any hard feelings. It’s a bummer, but gotta learn the hard way sometimes! I will trust my gut instinct more from now on.

I feel for you but also agree with all the comments posted so far. There was a red flag from the start, and it’s important we all listen to that little voice inside us.

For future reference, it is possible to ask customer support to cancel an order without it affecting your cancellation stat, which in turn is partly used to influence where your gigs appear in the search results.

While there’s no guarantee that CS will cancel in this way, it’s worth giving it a go. But for what it’s worth, I think you were right to draw a line under this order as it sounds like it could have dragged on for much longer.

[genuineguidance]

Thank you all for the advice. I’ve canceled the order, she agreed without any hard feelings. It’s a bummer, but gotta learn the hard way sometimes! I will trust my gut instinct more from now on.

I hope you do not offer “Unlimited Revisions”. This is the fastest way to get buyers like you just experienced. Only offer maybe 2 or 3 at most IF you feel you need to offer them at all.

GG

[mvrphotodesign]

I hope you do not offer “Unlimited Revisions”. This is the fastest way to get buyers like you just experienced. Only offer maybe 2 or 3 at most IF you feel you need to offer them at all.

GG

No, I used to - but definitely learned from that! Which in hindsight is basically what I was offering this buyer with the free ‘feedback sessions’ :woman_facepalming:. So I guess I still needed an extra lesson.

[catwriter]

For future reference, another thing you can do is charge them extra for any additional work. They go past the point of being reasonable, you send them a custom extra for the additional work.

That’s not what I do, I simply refuse to work with those who don’t know what they want or only have a vague idea of what they want (or think that “just write something about drones” or “write something about how great we are and how satisfied our customers are” is giving specific enough instructions). However, some sellers do succeed in charging extra for additional work (though even they tend to become frustrated with buyers who can’t decide what they want).

[mvrphotodesign]

For future reference, another thing you can do is charge them extra for any additional work. They go past the point of being reasonable, you send them a custom extra for the additional work.

That’s not what I do, I simply refuse to work with those who don’t know what they want or only have a vague idea of what they want (or think that “just write something about drones” or “write something about how great we are and how satisfied our customers are” is giving specific enough instructions). However, some sellers do succeed in charging extra for additional work (though even they tend to become frustrated with buyers who can’t decide what they want).

Yeah, I’ve definitely done that with some buyers, but they’re never the indecisive ones. So they are usually very understanding about the extra costs. I don’t believe that would’ve been the way to go in this case, like you said.