We know them all.
- Those customers who challenge everything, all the time.
- Who want more, faster, with less budget.
- Who call at 7pm for a “small urgent change”, or who drag out the validation process until they’ve eaten up all the margin.
Demanding? Yes.
Profitable? Not always.
Avoidable? No.
But the good news is that you can learn to manage them better, without sacrificing your teams or your profitability.
1. Set limits... right from the start
The frame is what will save you. And it begins even before signing.
- An ultra-focused quotewith a clear scope, precise milestones, and defined validation conditions.
- General terms and conditions that leave no room for interpretation (number of round trips, validation times, handling of emergencies, etc.).
- A shared, co-signed shared, co-signed and regularly updated.
In short, you set the rules of the game. And you stick to them.
2. Track everything, all the time
Demanding customers have one thing in common: they eat up time everywhere. And every minute that goes by unattended means lost profitability.
Adopt a rigorous military approach to time tracking even (especially) for so-called “minor” tasks:
- Creative round-trips
- Unscheduled meetings
- Informal advice
- Last-minute requests
Thanks to this comprehensive tracking system, you’ll be able to say:
“This is what we planned. Here’s what was actually consumed.”
And that changes everything in the relationship.
3. Evaluate profitability in real time
With demanding customers, slippage is not always immediately apparent. It is progressive, insidious… until it becomes irreversible.
The right reflex: monitor profitability job by job, week by week.
As soon as the time consumed exceeds what was planned, you can :
- Adapt your workload
- Readjusting priorities
- Negotiating a rider
- Or simply… say no
With a clear vision, you act in time. Not when it’s too late.
4. (Re)educate your customers
A demanding customer can become an excellent partner… provided you educate him. And that requires consistency.
- Don’t give in to chronic emergencies. An emergency accepted without discussion quickly becomes the norm.
- Enhance your value. Remember what you bring to the table, what has been accomplished, what has been optimized.
- Bill for extras. Yes, even if they “seem” insignificant. Because they’re the ones eating away at your margins.
The idea is not to become rigid, but to professionalize the relationship.. You’re not a doer. You’re a valuable partner.
5. Protect your teams
Demanding customers can be energy-hungry. And trying to satisfy them at all costs can wear out your talents.
Your role as a manager is also to provide a protective buffer between the customer and the project team:
- Centralize requests through a single point of contact.
- Avoid direct channels such as instant messaging outside established channels.
- Celebrate internal victories as much as customer deliverables.
A customer can be king. But your teams are your kingdom.
Furious: your ally in staying on course
With Furious, you stay in control, even with the most demanding customers:
- You can track time spent on each project in real time.
- You measure profitability from the very first hours consumed
- Detect load deviations before they become critical
- Manage your margins with reliable data, without re-entering data
And above all, you gain in responsiveness without sacrificing your financial visibility.
In a nutshell
Demanding customers are not a problem in themselves. The real risk is to manage them blindly.
With a clear framework, rigorous monitoring and a real-time vision, you can transform the relationship. From an operational headache, it becomes a solid – and profitable – collaboration.
Request your Furious demo today.
