How do you handle refunds, cancellations, or dissatisfied clients?

Set your business up for success by sharing in writing your policies. Those who work with you want to know what to expect and sharing these expectations in writing smooths the path for everyone to work well together.

One of the most important lessons I learned early on 10 years ago: People who hire Professional Organizers can be... disorganized! Having a cancellation policy in place that helped to combat things like "I forgot to put it in my calendar" or, "I thought I was ready to start but maybe I'm not", helps to protect me and my time and the value of my time, but also helps to establish the professionalism of my business and our relationship.

The most important things : 1) Meet all your clients before you do work for them - this gives you chance to see whether you're a good fit for each other. 2) Agree the scope of the project in a proposal. 3) Get the client to sign off on this along with a legally tight set of T&Cs. 4) If there are any revisions to the work after the proposal is signed make sure you have the client confirm/sign off on this in writing along with the cost. Having a short-notice cancellation policy in place is helpful, however I have yet to enforce it. If a client is sick or something unexpected happens in their life, I try to be as flexible as possible and reschedule (at no cost). Showing this flexibility has earned me a lot of repeat business!!

Adding flexibility with my clients has helped us build trust. If there has been a miscommunication, being flexible means seeing the client's perspective and responding accordingly.

Flexibility is key! The pandemic really threw cancellation policies for a loop! The concept of testing positive for COVID-19 or being exposed putting us both at risk allowed for a lot of people to abandon or restructure their cancellation policies. For many, we now talk about it upfront -- what happens if/when these things happen, and work that into a separate part of a cancellation policy discussion. Being in New England, we also talk about inclement weather, and understanding that snow days mean difficult travel, but also potentially my client doesn't have the flexibility to work (kids home from school? Daycare closed?) that they did when we set it up. I walk through these policies as early as November for setting expectations ahead.

We are in the business of being good listeners. When we first assessment, when we work together and when we end our sessions, listening is what is most important.

I think the most important thing here is to take any emotion out of it. Listen to the feedback and try and learn something from it. Sometimes you may think the client is being totally unreasonable, but when you go back over all the steps and interactions with them you'll often spot somewhere you can improve your process. Or it may be that you decide to change the boundaries around the service itself. I try to follow this process: 1) Ask them to explain in detail the concern 2) Tell them it's important to me that they have a brilliant outcome 3) Ask them what their ideal next step is (rectify, discount...etc) and try and meet them where they are at. 4) Note and action the learning 5) Mentally move on...