“Hi I’m sorry I didn’t respond to you yet. I guess I wasn’t clear enough to you last time but I found someone else to finish the job. It was too hard for me to do it thru you I couldn’t speak Hebrew to the editor and when you gave me someone else to work with he clearly didn’t know the situation and I had to try to convince him to work on it. It kind of felt like I had to figure out how to make this work and I didn’t have time for that. I found someone else that just took my notes and figured out what to do without me having to deal with it. You never charged me yet let me know I guess what you feel I owe and we’ll work it out. “
[ouch]
My commentary: It was truly an illuminating email for me. I profit every time I read it. Don’t take your customers for granted! Give them TLC! The editor in question has aspergers syndrome and does not communicate well. I was totally at fault for not anticipating that – the editor had insisted on talking to the client directly, in his foolishness – and setting things up for them.