Hi

I get so tired of apologising for a crappy product. Bugs nobody seems to fix, workarounds that become permanent, and “coming soon” features that never quite arrive.

Clients aren’t idiots. They can see through the BS. Same issue, same apology, same “I’m chasing it.”

It’s like Groundhog Day. Client complains, I nod in sympathy, then chase the product team with another slightly snarky “as per my last email.” I go back to the client: no timeline yet, but I’ll let you know. Repeat.

So what do you do when everyone’s fed up and the product is starting to look more lemon than peach?

Read on. I’ll tell you.

Something that should take two clicks takes twelve.

The reporting is wrong. The integration keeps stalling. And that feature the client thought they’d paid for? Still not there.

Meanwhile, you’re expected to talk about the product like it’s brilliant. Your client isn’t buying it. And if you’re being honest, neither are you.

Because you hear the complaints all day. You see the problems yourself. After a while, their voice gets inside your head: They’re right. It’s crap. I’d be pissed if I was them too.

Sometimes, they are right.

The problem starts when talking about what’s broken becomes the only thing you do together. Another hour agreeing the product is a mess might feel honest, but it still doesn’t help them get the job done.

And if every call turns into another moan about what’s missing, something starts to shift. You stop being the person helping them get value and become the person helping them build a case for why they’re not getting any.

This doesn’t mean you stop fighting for your client. You still raise the bugs, chase the fixes, push the product team and call out promises that should never have been made.

There are really two conversations going on at the same time:

That second conversation matters because your client still has work to do while all the fixing, chasing and escalating is going on.

Not when the roadmap catches up. Not when that missing feature finally arrives.

Today.

You know those meetings where everyone agrees about the problem and nobody has anything new to add?

The client is fed up. Quite frankly, you’re fed up too. So you spend another hour talking about why it shouldn’t work like this.

It can feel helpful because you’re showing the client you’re on their side. But there comes a point where agreeing with them isn’t enough because downstream, things are about to get more difficult. A dark cloud hangs over the renewal. New opportunities dry up. And the whole relationship starts to revolve around everything the product can’t do.

Sometimes you need to change the conversation, starting with calling the situation out:

“You’re right. This isn’t how you wanted it to work. I’m still pushing on the issue, but I can’t give you a date for a fix. Can we look at another way to get the job done with what we’ve got now? It won’t be perfect, and there may be a trade-off, but at least we can look at the options.”

You’re not asking them to forget the problem or pretending the product is better than it is. You’re simply asking: what can we do while this problem is still here?

Sometimes the answer will be “nothing.” Fair enough. But sometimes there’s a second-best option that gets enough done to be worth trying.

There’s a useful idea from some research into fine-art auction houses.

The buyers valued more than the thing they bought. They valued the advice, the conversation, the help and the feeling that someone knew what they were doing and was there when needed.

Does that mean a great account manager can save a terrible product? No. But it is a good reminder that the product is not the whole story.

What you bring matters too.

You know what the product can really do. Not the sales-deck version, the real version. Your client knows what matters in their world: what has to happen, what can change and what would be too much of a pain.

That’s why the best answer usually comes from working it out together, not from throwing a workaround over the fence and hoping they like it.

When a client keeps asking for a feature or a fix, it’s easy to stay stuck on the ask. Try going back to the job they need to get done.

1. What are they really trying to achieve?
Ask: “What are you trying to get done here, and which part really matters?” You’re not trying to talk them out of what they need. You’re trying to work out where there’s room to move.

2. What can the product do now?
Be straight with them. Show them if you can. And leave future promises out of it.

3. What would they have to change?
Maybe they need to add a manual step. Maybe they get less detail. Maybe they need to change the order they do things. Whatever the trade-off is, say it out loud. Extra work is still extra work, even if we dress it up as “another way of working.”

4. Is it worth it?
That’s a call to make with the client, not for them. Try something small. See if it works. Agree what “good enough” looks like. And if the answer is no, say so. Sometimes the gap really is too big.

The goal isn’t to pretend a bad option is a good one. It’s to find out whether there’s still something useful there.

This is where it all comes together.

You find the smaller things the product does well, then help the client use them to get something that matters. Now you’ve got proof, not a pep talk or a sales pitch you’re trying to believe.

You might still hate the reporting. You might still be furious that the bug hasn’t been fixed. The client might still wish they’d bought something else.

But you can still say: we found a way to get this job done.

Keep pushing to fix what’s wrong while helping the client get what value they can today. Those two things can live side by side.

You don’t have to believe every word in the sales deck.

You just need something real you can stand behind.

Reading about a difficult client conversation is one thing. Having one is another.

So this week, instead of my usual three links, I’ve made you something to practise with.

The Complaint Clinic is an AI role-play prompt that turns ChatGPT, Claude or your favourite AI into an unhappy client with a genuine product problem.

You give it the situation. It plays the client.

Your job is to stay honest about what’s gone wrong without becoming their complaints department, work out what they’re really trying to get done, and see if there’s a way forward with what you have today.

And it won’t make life too easy for you. If you dodge the issue, defend the product, promise a fix you can’t control or jump to a workaround too quickly, the client pushes back. At the end, you get a debrief on what worked, what you missed and what you could try differently next time.

Think of it as a flight simulator for the client call you’d rather not practise on a real client.

👉 Get The Complaint Clinic prompt and have a go.

Sometimes the product is the problem. The client knows it. You know it. Pretending otherwise just makes things worse.

You may not be able to fix the bug, move the roadmap or wave a magic wand and make the product better. But you can still help the client work out what’s possible now, what isn’t, and whether there’s a way forward worth taking.

If anything landed in this edition, hit reply and let me know.

And remember: just because something isn’t moving doesn’t mean you have to be stuck.

Until then, stay Account Minded.