How to fix a client relationship problem?
For this homework assignment for my elective ‘Consulting Communication’ we have to write a blog post ‘How to fix a client relationship problem’.
Here is the problem I will discuss: What should I do if I work as a consultant for a client, and a lady in the clients team is interested in me and tried to flirt with me several times during the previous work days. She then asks me out for dinner to discuss some work related things.
This situation contains several problems. One aspect is the legal and ethical issue; most consulting companies have regulations which do not allow having a personal relationship with a client. Even if the consulting company would allow it or not, I strongly believe that the only way to maintain a professional long term business relationship with the client is to not engage in any personal relationship. So the main problem is what should I do in this situation, since my client frames this dinner as a business discussion. My goal in this situation is to maintain a professional business relationship which includes two things. Be respectful and try to fulfill the clients whishes but on the other hand I have to set the boundaries between business and personal lives. What options do I have to do that?
One option is to accept the ‘invitation’. But that means that I have to manage the expectation of my client and show her that this dinner is purely business. This could be achieved by telling her upfront that I won’t come alone. A potential answer to her question could be: “That’s a good idea. I’ll bring Jonathan along since he is an expert in X, and then we can discuss the full spectrum of the project.” By answering this way I accept the invitation but at the same time I also show that I clearly have a business focus. With the start that it is a good idea, I also show that I have no doubts that this is purely business related. If for whatever reason I end up at a dinner with the lady alone I still think that it should be possible to maintain a business focus. First of all I could pick the environment where this whole meeting happens. It is a big difference if there is candle light and a piano player or not. Obviously, I don’t want either of it. But to be honest I guess she would pick the location since she suggested it and also might be familiar with all the restaurants in town. The key during the dinner is to not send the wrong signals. Have an interesting discussion is okay, but it should not be flirting. The main thing to do is not to wander too much into private conversations, but rather to focus on project related things. Another thing which will help to prevent a negative outcome is to set the time limit upfront. Let her know that I have to leave after a certain time. This way I can use this as an excuse to leave the dinner before anything happen and it also prevents the awkward situation when I want to go but the lady doesn’t.
The alternative would be to decline the offer. The important part here is the way I decline to offer. Just saying that I’m not interested is not a good idea, since she proposed this dinner to discuss project related things. Declining this offer directly would show that I’m not interested in helping the client. So I have to be more subtle about this. I think a good way to decline the offer would be to say that I have to do more work for the next day. This might work pretty well, since as a consultant there is seldom a time where you don’t have more work. If she is insistent I could push it off to the next day and go on a business lunch. A lunch is less dangerous in this aspect since there won’t be any drinking involved and the environment won’t be as nice as for a dinner. Besides, I’m sure there are other polite ways to decline the offer with a good reason.
In either case if the situation gets out of hand, I would discuss this problem with my superior. And in the worst case I would ask to be removed from this project in order to maintain a professional relationship with the company. In my opinion it would be better that the consultant company still works with the client company without me, rather than in the worst case cause a scandal because of this one person at the clients company. Besides the goal of consulting is to help the client to achieve his goals and the goal for the consulting company is to do a good job which could lead to additional work in the future. In this context one person should not matter that much as long as these goals are still achieved. But removing me from the project has a negative side too. As it seems I was obviously not able to maintain a professional business relationship with the client which leads to additional coast for the consulting company. They have to send a replacement which needs to be trained and I need a new assignment. If that happens more than once I’m sure the consulting company would blame me and not the flirty client. After all I’m the consultant and should be able to deal with this problem myself. Since all the other consultants aren’t experiencing such problems.
The remaining question is: What would I do in this situation? I guess there is not a single answer which is true for every situation. It depends on how well I know the client, how long have I worked with the client and also details of the dinner like the environment and place. But I’m sure that declining such an offer would be the best way to handle such a situation when you notice that there is more than just business involved. Declining can prevent many small issues or explanation as a result of such a dinner. Besides can a client hate me for declining a dinner?
Comments or additional thoughts on that topic are encouraged!
July 22nd, 2009 at 4:09 am
LOL
July 24th, 2009 at 6:01 pm
decline: sorry i can’t make it, my wife is and i have to take care of the kids
seriously though, if she’s nice, say yes, do the business thing and after you’re finished with the work part, see what else happens… just try to separate work and private life. both have to be professionals at work but at home, do whatever you want
July 25th, 2009 at 5:38 am
Now what would you do if you were single?
July 25th, 2009 at 6:22 am
Do you think it would change things? Obviously, it could.
But I think the short term ‘benefits’ you get is not worth to risk a long term business relationship. Or what do you think?
July 25th, 2009 at 7:09 am
short term benefits? I don’t know what you’re talking about. I was talking about the long term risk of not going out with her. Let me play devil’s advocate for a moment. Imagine you’re a bright, young, single consultant and the client asking you out is a bright, young, single, tech savvy girl. Let’s call her amy just hypothetically. Wouldn’t you be worried about the long term consequences of not going out with her? Would you put your career before an opportunity at true love?
July 26th, 2009 at 2:42 am
Let me be a little more specific. Suppose you’re single. And suppose by the time she gets to asking you out to dinner, you’ve been working at the client site for several weeks, and you’ve already had lunch with her several times in the company cafeteria mostly discussing business. And despite your best attempts at keeping things professional, every time you talk to her, you get more interested in her. You’ve already found out that she’s into the same kind of music, she has the same hobbies and interests, she holds the same beliefs, she has the same goals and motivations, and most surprisingly of all, she gets your jokes. She may be, as far as you can tell, your soul mate. You even talk to your friends about how well you get along with her. And you know by the way she flirts with you that she’s interested. And further suppose that by the time she gets around to asking you to dinner, you’re going to be at the client site for only a few more days but her company has been a long-time customer of your company and you expect her company to continue being a long-time customer of your company.
I think the longer a person has been working and the more committed he is to work, the more likely it becomes that he’ll meet his future spouse through his growing professional network.
I once dated a coworker and after that ended I made it a personal policy not to date coworkers. But there have been times when I thought to myself that I would ask some girl out if only I didn’t work with her and I’ve wondered what would have happened if I had asked her out (probably a friendly rejection). Once I went out with a customer I met at a company event (I wasn’t a salesperson and she wasn’t the one making the purchasing decisions so I think it was acceptable), and it turned into one of the most meaningful relationships I’ve had.
I definitely think that there’s a wrong way to date people with whom you have professional relationships, but I think it’s unavoidable. If you have a group of single people working together for long enough, someone (maybe not you) is bound to start dating someone else, and simply saying that it’s against company policy isn’t going to prevent that. (One of our salespeople married one of our resellers, and if there’s a company dating policy, that’s probably prohibited.) Someone is bound to meet someone worth risking his career for and when that happens, he’s not going to want to know how to turn her down while maintaining the client relationship. He’s going to want to know how to go out with her without getting himself fired. At least that’s what I would want to know in that situation. I wonder what advice the consulting communication prof would give for that.
July 28th, 2009 at 4:41 am
Just to clarify the short term benefits. What I meant by that is, since you might be working in another city or even country a relationship could be really hard to maintain and last not long at all since you will work soon at another place.
But I see your second point. Of course it could happen that you start to like someone you work with like you described in your scenario. If you are working as a consultant or as a sales person you are representing the company and people might watch you closely what you do and how you behave. Where as a ‘normal’ employee other people don’t associate you directly with the company and dating someone might not be a big deal.
But to be honest this would be a really difficult situation and there is no single answer to it. I guess at this point the question is, if it is worth to risk the job.
But to go back to my initial post: I wrote this post from the perspective that she likes just my look and not that we have a lot in common and feel connected. I guess more often this will be the other way around. (Good looking consultant woman and a ‘horny’ guy on the client side). One part of being a consultant is that you have to look good and professional since you represent the company, this might also lead that you get people who admire your look.
July 28th, 2009 at 9:40 am
Yes, 99 times out of 100 you’re better off just turning the girl down. But you might run into that 1 girl where you’re actually sincerely interested and you really want to get to know her. And in that situation, I think it is possible to conduct yourself in a way that doesn’t put your company in a bad situation. For example, even if there is a company policy against dating clients, I doubt there would be one against being friends with them. So if you were to choose to go out with the girl, you wouldn’t necessarily have to keep the dinner strictly about business as long as you kept it strictly platonic. Here is my experience. I once met a girl at a conference being hosted by my company. During lunch we talked about how.her company was using our product and about LA and other random stuff. And she mentioned that in the evening she was planning on doing some site seeing since she had never been in LA, and she asked if I would like to join her. I turned her down. She asked again later that day and I agreed. So we visited some sites around LA, we talked a lot, and she bought me dinner for my troubles. It was strictly platonic. After the conference I sent her an email and we kept in touch ever since. Throughout all that I don’t think I did anything that would embarrass my company and I think I would have regretted it if I decided not to go out with her because of some company policy. Maybe the situation wouldve been different if I had a different position but I think that would be sad. Granted this only happened once during my career so I agree its rare. But when it does happen, I think it would be nice if there’s another option besides just turning her down.
August 1st, 2009 at 9:04 am
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