How would you handle this situation?

I subcontract some for a social media company, doing wordpress for their clients. Today she sent me a new client, a law firm whose wordpress is pretty messed up. Very slow, dozens of plugins that may not be needed, and lots of things displaying incorrectly.

So, it's hard for me to give a quote on fixing the site, because I'm not sure what is causing the problems. I know wordpress well enough to fix them, though there would be some trial and error involved. It's just very difficult to estimate how long it will take without doing a lot of work and seeing what happens.

I was thinking of listing all the issues, then giving a quote with a pretty wide range of hours/cost to protect myself. I'm sure many of us have been in this situation and curious how you handle it? Thank you for any suggestions.

 

Sounds like a tough one. My first thought is to explain the issues as you mentioned, tell them you can't specify how many hours you'll spend on the fixes, and quote them an hourly rate.

 

You will have to juggle some diplomatic balls in the air all at once. You need to come across as professional but friendly at the same time. Be straight with them and be decisive and honest. They will respect you for it.

Give them the lowball estimate first and then the highball. Also be sure to indicate that the final tally would more than likely be somewhere in the middle. When they see the highball number, but receive the middle or lowball at the end...they will be more than happy.

 

Can you see a scenario where a flat fee would be profitable for you and a better solution for the client (in this case only)?

 

This is a simple one.

Law firms BILL BY THE HOUR so QUOTE them EXACTLY the same way - So much per hour until the site is finished. Be sure to tell them that they must pay you for all work done, even if they decide to abort the contract. And do NOT give them a low ball quote - When they bill they do not low ball, so make sure you don't.

DON'T give ANY indication of how many hours it will take. If you go over the number of hours that you tell them, they are likely going to refuse to pay for the extra hours, and being a law firm you are NOT likely to prevail against them.

I would also bill them WEEKLY for work done, and if they fail to pay on time, I would suspend further work until payments are current. Law firms, at least around here, tend to demand on time payments from their clients, but do not want to pay their vendors on time.

 

@mmerlinn has the right advice in terms of how to propose handling this for your client. However, I would also consider adding an option of you working on this for X hours (at your hourly rate) to size up and scope what the problem is and how long it will take to fix. Payment upfront on this part of the project. At the end of those analysis hours, you will then be able to provide an estimate for the project completion (+ or - 10%, of course.) They can then choose whether to proceed or not with the full project.

 

You aren't experienced enough to be able to give an estimate on a wordpress site? It's actually pretty easy stuff...copy the site for testing. Disable all plugins that aren't being used or don't seem to be used. Testing the site one by one until load speeds improve. If you mess up copy the site again. VERY easy to trouble shoot. As for cost.. hit them on the higher yet reasonable range. They have the money and aren't sweating a few hundred dollar difference. Heck.. they may not even sweat a thousand dollar difference. They are writing it off and most likely profitable and this is top priority to them to get fixed.

 

Don't imagine something, tell them about the situations. I think, the normal people understand it, if they will not, then it's their problem... Maybe, it's stupid, but I prefer not to imagine, just say the real situation.

 

Thanks for the input everyone, it's helped me get a clearer handler on the situation... much appreciated.

 

It's the very best decision. The client should know what the problem is and why it would take so much time. But be sure that you could do that in order not to lose client and money.
That way you will protect yourself from their questions, anger and so on.