But you’d be surprised how many don’t.

Either the customer’s company is financially hurting and procurement is not going to consider increases.

And many times these customers are looking for year over year decreases in contract amounts. Not a happy prospect for asking for an increase.

The other issue that springs to mind is when a customer contact leaves the position of managing the contract.

The individual who left may have had the political power to internally push through an “uncontracted but understandable contract increase”.

And their replacement isn’t up to speed or chooses not to ruffle the waters by asking to increase their budget.

Any suggestions on when is a good time and approach to get increases on the table?

For cost of living the increase should calculate a few different variables as well as clearly outlining the calculations used to determine increases (if any) that should be agreed upon up front by both parties as well as added to contract verbiage. Not only should the national cost of living increases be viewed but you also must take into consideration, local markets and industry trends.

For wage increases if the market is union, these are easily spelled out with dates and dollar amounts and should not come as any surprise. For non-union houses again you will want to work with the customer to clearly define timelines and calculations.

For the most part one of the big issues customers have with increases is they are coming out of the blue with no fore warning and are not spelled out in the contract which could potentially put them in a budget crunch.