Pages in topic:   < [1 2]
Seeking for advices on how to face difficult clients not willing to pay
Thread poster: Federica Duello
Federica Duello
Federica Duello  Identity Verified
Italy
Local time: 17:22
Spanish to Italian
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Thank you Mar 21, 2017

Angela Rimmer wrote:

What does Federica's English on her profile have to do with this?! She doesn't work into English, first of all, and second, she never asked for your advice in that matter and it's rather presumptuous to sit there and dole out unsolicited criticism about something that is not even related to her query. (She asked for specific advice about her problem, not general advice about her profile etc.)

I also don't see a problem with her raising this issue on ProZ to ask for advice. That is what this forum is for. She has not broken any forum rules and her query is not unprofessional, so I'm not sure where the issue is, even if her client DOES see this thread.

ANYWAY, Federica, it sounds like when you quoted your price you were not very clear, and so there was a misunderstanding. It's odd that the client would interpret your rate as EUR 1.50 per hour and not ask you to confirm that price since it is CRAZY LOW. But ultimately you could have been more clear.

If the client really is a good one to you, and you don't want to lose business or leave them with a bad feeling, I would accept the cost he offered. Explain that you are accepting his price because of a misunderstanding, but for future reference, your hourly rate is "EUR XX per hour". Make it very clear what your real rate is. Do not use asterisks (*) or multiplication signs; write out your prices fully so that misunderstandings can be avoided.


Thank you so much Angela, for your precious advices. Other people's ones are precious as well, it does not really matter if they are OT or not, because they teach me something anyway
As for this one post, I really don't see the problem: I mean, even thought they might read all this, at least they might think I consider them good clients of mine and they will also know my feelings about not wanting to stop collaborating with them... I will try to communicate once again with them, let see what they reply, althought I find the other advice about "taking the loss and learning from it" very wise too...
I thought my quote was clear enough (and besides, before accepting it, would you not wonder why my rate is that low? - meaning the impossible 1.50), but I now understand it, while at first I thought they were just trying to fool me (you know...).


 
Federica Duello
Federica Duello  Identity Verified
Italy
Local time: 17:22
Spanish to Italian
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Somebody understands me finally :) Mar 21, 2017

Merab Dekano wrote:

Your quote would only be unclear if it were 10% or 20% lower than an average hourly rate of a professional translator/reviewer. However, 1.5 EUR per hour is something no project manager, no matter how new they are to the job, would possibly believe in.

This number is way off and excludes any possible confusion whatsoever.

If they “thought” 1.5 EUR per hour was the rate, and you “thought” is wasn’t, I don’t see why on earth we should place a burden of proof on you. If they “thought”, and therefore weren’t sure, they should have checked it with you.

If a UK company sends me a quote of 1,200 GBP for a piece of software, can I pay them 1.2 GBP and tell them something like: “Oh, in Spanish the comma separates decimals and I ‘thought’ it was 1.2 GBP. And since I ‘though’, I’m of course right and you are wrong”?


Right??! Ok, I might not have been that clear, but there is no way I can actually believe they ACTUALLY thought that I was asking 1.5 per hour (translating, proofing and reviewing). So the question, now, is:"what to do when situations like this happen?" I have tried to meet them halfway, but they have being very strict, something like the evergreen "I can pay you XX, no more"....


 
Thomas T. Frost
Thomas T. Frost  Identity Verified
Portugal
Local time: 16:22
Danish to English
+ ...
Hourly Mar 21, 2017

Federica Duello wrote:

Thomas T. Frost wrote:

What do you mean by "hourly: 1*xx" / "1*50"? Is "*" intended to be a multiplication sign? If so, why would you include a multiplication sign in an hourly rate? And if so, why would you include a multiplication by 1, which makes no difference?


I could have accepted if the client had asked me all this: hour= 1*whatever (at least to me) was clearly stating that 1 hour is worth xx euros.


"1 hour is worth xx euros" is what "hourly" expresses, so you leave the reader wondering why you would repeat the same information you have just stated, and what "*" is supposed to mean.

Besides, this is just not how an hourly rate is stated.

"Hourly rate: EUR 50" leaves no possibility of misunderstandings.

However, interpreting it to mean EUR 1.50 per hour, if that is what your client did, is quite a bit of a stretch too. That would not be reasonable. Or did they understand it as a flat rate of EUR 50 for the job?


 
Federica Duello
Federica Duello  Identity Verified
Italy
Local time: 17:22
Spanish to Italian
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
So grateful Mar 21, 2017

Nikki Scott-Despaigne wrote:

There can be confusion when quoting as some countries use "," where others use a ".". These quirks are known and so it is common to write amounts in full using words, or to query an amount or a rate which seems abnormally high or low.

You chose to use "*" which is a standard multiplication sign in machine calculation and on keyboards, but not in daily business writings. The agent should have asked you to clarify what you meant, but they did not and were probably deliberate in taking advantage of that.

I can understand how you feel, probably more so as until this incident, you had worked well with this agency. If they are prepared to think you will seriously work for 1.5€ an hour, then you may just have discovered they are not the people you should continue working with.

In future exchanges with clients, particularly when establishing price, cost, rates and so on, use standard in-text notation.

[Edited at 2017-03-05 03:12 GMT]


Thank you a lot Nikki, I know I should improve myself at least in this kind of matters; besides, you gave me a good point which to look at the whole situation from


 
Federica Duello
Federica Duello  Identity Verified
Italy
Local time: 17:22
Spanish to Italian
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Reply Mar 22, 2017

ILAN RUBIN wrote:

So it was a good client. What does that mean? For me a good client should be somebody who regularly provides you with a fair chunk of your income (say 20-25%). Anybody less is probably replaceable without too much effort.

And it also sounds like it's no longer a good client.

So I would move on and write off the loss and stop working with them, there are lots of agencies out there. Or if they really are important then just don't argue with them and accept their position, which might not be unreasonable, as it seems that there was a genuine miscommunication.

PS, you are asking for advice so here's a couple of tips:

1) if I had this sort of dispute with an agency I wouldn't dream of raising it on Proz. Why? Because if the agency sees your post they might feel rather upset that you have brought a dispute in which they are involved to public attention. Just because you don't mention their name doesn't mean they won't be upset.

2) your profile has a number of errors in English: you should brush it up and that should help you to get more clients (e.g. "Italian" not "italian", "centrered in" isn't English at all (you misspell the first word and it should be centered on / centred on depending on US or UK spelling), etc.); also your profile isn't particularly business-like - starting with "Hi" and finishing with a smiley. Some agencies won't care, but others will and it's best to be conservative.

[Edited at 2017-02-28 18:59 GMT]

[Edited at 2017-02-28 19:01 GMT]


Another thing: the word "italian" has to be capitalised only when indicating the language, not nationality. But thank you again.


 
Thomas T. Frost
Thomas T. Frost  Identity Verified
Portugal
Local time: 16:22
Danish to English
+ ...
Countries, nationalities, and languages are always capitalised in English Mar 22, 2017

Federica Duello wrote:

Another thing: the word "italian" has to be capitalised only when indicating the language, not nationality. But thank you again.


Countries, nationalities, and languages are always capitalised in English. No exception. You can look it up on a zillion sites if you don't believe us. Many people do notice errors like that. But you didn't ask for linguistic advice.


 
Pages in topic:   < [1 2]


To report site rules violations or get help, contact a site moderator:


You can also contact site staff by submitting a support request »

Seeking for advices on how to face difficult clients not willing to pay







Trados Business Manager Lite
Create customer quotes and invoices from within Trados Studio

Trados Business Manager Lite helps to simplify and speed up some of the daily tasks, such as invoicing and reporting, associated with running your freelance translation business.

More info »
TM-Town
Manage your TMs and Terms ... and boost your translation business

Are you ready for something fresh in the industry? TM-Town is a unique new site for you -- the freelance translator -- to store, manage and share translation memories (TMs) and glossaries...and potentially meet new clients on the basis of your prior work.

More info »