Tuesday, January 6, 2009

How to Lose a Client in One Day

I didn't actually lose the client, but I easily could have. One of my tasks is to write and upload a new post to the blog module of their Web site each week. No problem, right? The writing wasn't difficult. It just meant gathering some industry-specific information and getting the login information for their content management system.

I'd used plenty of content management tools before. After all, for several years when I had my day job I was in charge of Web site maintenance. This tool, however, was more complicated than the others I'd used and I ended up creating a new blog instead of posting to the existing one.

As soon as I realized the mistake, I attempted to delete the new blog—and ended up deleting the company's entire existing blog. Luckily, I didn't panic. Instead, I got in touch with one of tech guys, who was able to restore the posts, which had just been dumped into the recycle bin.

My client was understanding about the whole situation. I think because the situation was resolved it didn't bother him. Yet again, though, I've learned a valuable lesson in the freelancing world. Don't delete anything unless you're absolutely sure you want it deleted.

2 comments:

Chris said...

Please don't title posts like this. It makes your husband's hart skip a beat.

Thanks

Unknown said...

Oh My Goodness!

I really admire your calm in the face of a potential storm.

The scenario you described would have been headache producing for most of us.

Modern technology is great . . . until there's a problem.

Positively ulcer producing.