A hypothetical situation: I, as an employee of ABC Public Relations Inc, agree a project with a client, with a set of deliverables to be produced within an agreed timeframe – in this case, two weeks.

After two weeks, 75% of the deliverables have been met. After three weeks, much prompting from the client and a string of excuses from the service provider, 95% of the deliverables have been met. A further three weeks later, with no movement on the remaining 5% of the project, the client receives an invoice for roughly double the fees initially quoted.

I honestly can’t imagine this scenario actually transpiring in the Public Relations industry – at least not if ABC Public Relations Inc wanted to survive beyond the current quarter.

So why on earth does the firm of builders I engaged last month to carry out some alterations to my house think this is an acceptable way to behave?

With apologies to Leo Bottary for blundering clumsily into his Client Service area of expertise …!