I've found the forum very helpful in many ways over the past few years of practice. I'm fairly green and working towards a license right now, but have a few years experience under my belt, mostly in light commercial in small cities or suburban areas.
Where I currently work, it seems that clients mainly view architects as a necessary evil. I'm not trying to get on a soapbox, because there are many good clients that trust our knowledge of the local process.
But I'm continuously amazed at clients, even those that regularly GC projects, that just change things without telling us. Then, they're surprised when they need record drawings to final out occupancy permit and we need to basically redesign the building for them and they have to pay for that time.
Is it less like this in larger cities or different sectors of practice? Is this more dependent on the types of clients you take, your business model, etc? Are there better ways to prevent this type of client relationship, besides clear communication, which we have done but the clients like to ignore?
TLDR: Constantly amazed at rogue clients thinking they don't have to pay for us to fix problems they cause. What are factors that affect this and possible solutions?
Hi all,
I've found the forum very helpful in many ways over the past few years of practice. I'm fairly green and working towards a license right now, but have a few years experience under my belt, mostly in light commercial in small cities or suburban areas.
Where I currently work, it seems that clients mainly view architects as a necessary evil. I'm not trying to get on a soapbox, because there are many good clients that trust our knowledge of the local process.
But I'm continuously amazed at clients, even those that regularly GC projects, that just change things without telling us. Then, they're surprised when they need record drawings to final out occupancy permit and we need to basically redesign the building for them and they have to pay for that time.
Is it less like this in larger cities or different sectors of practice? Is this more dependent on the types of clients you take, your business model, etc? Are there better ways to prevent this type of client relationship, besides clear communication, which we have done but the clients like to ignore?
TLDR: Constantly amazed at rogue clients thinking they don't have to pay for us to fix problems they cause. What are factors that affect this and possible solutions?