A client's 15 second apology fixed what 6 months of feedback forms couldn't

I had this one client who kept sending these long, detailed feedback forms after every project, but I always felt like they were just going through the motions. Then one day after a rough call where we missed a deadline, they just said "look, I know this one's on us, sorry about the chaos" before hanging up. That was it, 15 seconds, no template, no bullet points. It made me realize that the informal, off the cuff stuff is where the real relationship shows, not the process stuff. Has anyone else had a moment where a client's casual comment meant more than all the official check-ins?

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the_ben10d ago

You must have gotten the rare "human client" spawn, congrats. Most of mine only apologize through a forwarded email chain and a 20% discount request. Maybe we should all just skip the forms and make clients call us for 15 seconds before every deadline.