Tell me about a time a client ended up disappointed with what you delivered. When did you realize, and what did you do?
Why this works
Everyone has disappointed a client; the score is in the latency and the repair. Whether they realized before or after the client said so separates people who track expectations from people who discover them at delivery.
Follow-up probes
- Whose picture of "done" was wrong — theirs, yours, or both?
- What had the client been told along the way?
- What did the repair cost, and who absorbed it?
- What do you now do differently at the start of work like that?
What good looks like
They spotted the gap themselves or owned it immediately when raised, went back with a repair plan rather than a defense, and changed how they set expectations at the start — not just how they apologize at the end.
Red flags
The client's expectation is framed as unreasonable from the start, the repair was a discount instead of a fix, or the same surprise has clearly happened more than once with nothing changed between.
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