Question

One of your clients, “Shelley” sends you at least four emails a day and will call your office up to six times a day. How will you address this issue with Shelley? What other boundary issues could potentially occur?

Answer 1

Some ways in which this issue with personal boundaries could be addressed are:

1) A mail could be sent to the client establishing clear agreements regarding meeting times, calling times, etc.

2) The language used while discussing boundary issues should be extremely sensitive so that the client does not feel humiliated but at the same time understands the issue in hand.

3) If this continues, then the issue could be raised to the supervisors.

4) Also, the service provider can role model the expected behaviour.

Other boundary issues which might potentially occur are:

1) The client might start considering the service provider as a friend. This might lead to the client getting personally attached to the service provider through gestures such as gifts to conversations about home and family.

2) Client might ask the service provider for off-work socializations.

3) The client might try to extract confidential information of the service provider's company.