What is the definition of client management?

Answer 1

If you're looking for a textbook answer, take a class at a community college, or Google or Wikipedia the term. This one is real-life.

Large corporations (the customer) often hire contract companies (contractors) to do specific work for them. A custom contract is drawn up and signed, detailing the work and the fees. For a small contractor, this can mean a substantial income, and may even be the major source for all their income (that's bad -- you should diversify). The large customer may include some 'weasel' clauses that seem harmless to the uninitiated, but enable them to legally cancel or alter the contract on a whim. They don't necessarily want to cancel, they merely want to be able to threaten to cancel.

Later, the customer will squeeze the contractor to do additional work (scope creep), but not be required to pay for it. This means the large customer's work is actually being financed by the small contractor. The threat of finding a clause that will allow the customer to cancel the contract, or threatening to refuse to renew the contract, makes the additional work more likely to get done at no cost to the customer. Sometimes mere verbal abuse and threats are adequate.

Client Management in this context means, "If your customer is making outrageous new demands, and wants them for free or at a ridiculously low price, you're not managing your client properly."

If you're about to sign a contract written by someone else, and you don't have a clear understanding of your duties of SLA's (Service-Level Agreements), SOW's (Scope-of-Work agreements), or RFP's (Request for Proposal), you're out of your depth; someone WILL take advantage of you. The #1 rule for accumulating wealth is 'have someone else pay your bills.'