Even when high-quality work is performed, if the client’s expectations are not met, than to us it is not a successful job. Good conscience dictates we do what we can to prevent this from happening. Here is an example of such a situation:

Several years ago we were working with a client who wanted what appeared to be a simple task – allowing printing to a remote site (the client had one office in Pittsburgh and another in California). While in theory this was a simple task, we encountered problems every step of the way. The firewall product at the Pittsburgh site wasn’t easily configurable to allow printing to the remote print device, which had nonstandard printing ports. So, we tried another printing device. This required the remote site to ping the Pittsburgh site, which was prevented by the firewall. The firewall itself was expensive enough that the client did not want to abandon it. Ultimately, we wound up spending entirely too much time on a relatively simple task.

The client was unsatisfied because the time spent thus far was billable, and getting just to this point took in excess of 10 hours. Our consultant was frustrated because, though he was performing competently, he was unable to solve the problem without additional time, money and equipment being added to the overall cost.

The situation we are describing can be likened to car maintenance. Who among us hasn’t taken our car in to find the cause of a rattle, only to find that $500-worth-of-work later, the garage still hasn’t solved the problem? It’s not that the mechanic was inept, but that the problem was more complicated than anyone could have expected.

In our industry, similar circumstances are not uncommon. Sometimes clients want us to look into what seems to be a small problem, but the solution becomes more complex than anyone expected – perhaps due to the existing environment, making the workaround convoluted and expensive. If this happens, we don't want you as a client to feel ripped off, frustrated, or unhappy.

Santore Enterprises wants to ensure that our clients are completely satisfied. In the event that a circumstance of this type arises, we will contact the client and discuss the specifics, including why expectations have not been met. At this point, the customer has the option to stop work (and not be billed for time worked thus far) or else they can choose to start over with new expectations (as they now know the situation is more complicated than initially thought) with a renegotiated fee for time previously worked.