My client says the work wasn't done right. How do I respond?
Respond by converting the fog into items: ask which requirement the work misses, then check the record for each item. Review the receipt and actual deliverable before accepting a handover.
The sentence "the work wasn't done right" bundles three different claims: a requirement was missed (a fact, checkable), the result is disliked (a preference, negotiable), or more was expected than was agreed (a scope question, documentary). Arguing with the bundle produces heat; itemising it produces outcomes. Your first message has one job: invite the items, using the record as the shared surface.
With items named, the record arbitrates. The brief's requirement against the steps that delivered it. Where the record shows a genuine miss, fix it immediately and visibly, as a new step on the same record, and say plainly that the item was missed. The credibility of that admission is what powers your answer on every other item: taste items get a bounded revision offer, scope items get the change-note conversation, and payment for the delivered work stays its own thread, as the rejection page in Part 1 of this cluster sets out.
Close by restating the standard both sides can use next time: requirements in the brief, changes in notes, decisions on the record. Clients who say "not done right" and watch it resolve into a fixed item and two answered ones usually become more precise clients, which is the actual asset being built here.
Template: the itemising reply
Message 1: "I want to fix anything that misses the brief. Here is the delivery record: [handover link]. Against the brief, the work is steps [map in one line each]. Which requirement do you read as missed? Name the item and I will answer it directly today." On a real miss: "You are right on [item]; the correction is now step [n] on the same record." On taste: "That item matches the brief as written; I can revise it as a change: [scope, price, date]." On scope: "That was outside the agreed brief; the change note route is [process]. Happy to add it."
Worked example
The shared surface for the itemising is the record itself, in the shape of the public handover at https://zambo.dev/handover/508a46e2-8d6e-4099-bd12-7ae461c72c55 : four steps the client can point at, one at a time, instead of at the work in general. Arguments conducted at step level are shorter and kinder.
Frequently asked questions
The client will not name items, just repeats the general complaint. What then?
Name the items yourself from the record: list the brief's requirements with their steps and ask for a yes or a specific no per item, in writing. A complaint that cannot survive itemisation usually resolves into the one item that was real all along.
What if the record shows the work really was done badly?
Then the record protected the client and taught you where your process failed; fix the items, record the fixes, and change the step that produced them. A supplier who finds and fixes their own misses from a shared record keeps clients that fog would have lost.
Should I discount the invoice to settle it?
Settle items, not fog. A real miss can justify a remedy on that item; a general discount for a general complaint teaches the market that complaints are a pricing mechanism. The record lets you be generous precisely, which is the kind that works.
By Brennan Zambo, founder of Zambo.
Last verified: 2026-10-17.
Try a handover
A handover gives your client one proof link with verifiable receipts to review, then Accept or Flag.
try it: say 'use zambo to hand this over to <client>' in your ai