Hello fellow VA's and Active Rainers,
I wanted to get your opinion on how to deal with difficult clients. I acquired a Realtor client from here at AR everything was going fine the first couple of weeks of working with this client. In total I worked with this client for about a month. They had hired me to handle their lead management. When I started it was right before the holidays and they wanted to clean up their Top Producer and send out holiday cards via Plaxo to their leads and contacts in TP, we would then update leads from the responses we got as we asked the lead/contact to update their contact information or to unsubscribe so we could clean them out of the system. There was probably about 1000 or so contacts that was in their database. So I went through TP and took out all of the duplicate contacts and then did mass e-blasts as they had be break everyone up into different categories. Depending upon what category they fell under determined what type of message they got from us. Well once I got that done the responses started to come in to the company provided email account that I was to be monitoring for them. As they came in I would update the leads/contacts per the emails coming in. In the mean time I was going to get their systems all working together to handle all of their leads. They wanted to use Send Out Cards, Rainmaker and Top Producer for their leads. They had leads coming in from several different areas. So I was in the process of cleaning up the systems and getting the leads from TP and putting them into lists to get them into the other two systems so that all three systems had each contact so when certain items came up it was easy to send out a birth day card or send something from Rainmaker or an item that was in Top Producer. All of which is a process you have to export lists from Top Producer and import into each of the other systems.
Well to make a long story short I was in the process of doing this and updating leads as they came in via the e-blast that we just did. Right before my client left on vacation for Christmas sends me an email tells me to stop everything because she didn't know that I would be updating leads and doing lists that her in-house assistant can do paying her $10 an hour over my rate of $30. My client then said she wanted to talk to me before anymore work was done. I then emailed her back with a day and general time that she could then reach me. That day came and went. I did not hear from my client so I called my client and ended up leaving a message. I then received an email later on that day saying that I know what their schedule was if I would have looked at their calendar in Top Producer and would have know that they were not available. So I then went into TP and viewed their calendar and schedule me in for the next day. The next day I receive an email telling me that that time just wouldn't work because they did not have to to call me as they were going from one appt to the next blah, blah, blah. So I then reply telling my client that they may call me at their convienance as I would make myself available to speak with them. I still have not heard anything from this client I have sent a few emails just saying touching base would like to speak with you regarding our working relationship. I have also twice and left a message as they are never available to speak with me. I left a message yesterday and politely explained that if they planned on canceling their contract with me per that contract I need it in writing. I also wanted them to remove my information from their website and any print media that it was in. No email and no phone response back and my information is still up on their website as working with them.
In the month that I did work with this client they had called and discussed frustrations with their listing agent and was able to vent with me and I called them down regarding the situation with this agent. Shortly after this agent was let go from their organization. So then the costs of having me were solely on this agent.
How would you have handled this client? I am very upset do to the unprofessionalism that this Realtor has displayed. There was nothing done on my part to justify being blown off like this. This started on 12/14/07 I still have not heard anything nothing. No return phone call, no return email saying hey this is what is going on blah, blah, blah. Nothing. This seriously infuriates me. I guess the good thing is at least they paid me everything they owed me before blowing me off. Any advice would be greatly appreicated. This was not my first client and was not my only client but it still makes me very upset that they act this way in a business setting.
We as Virtual Assistants hold ourselves to high ethics shouldn't the Realtors we work with do the same???
(Sorry so long and thanks for letting me vent)
Comments(10)