I have worked from home as a freelancer for several years now. A big part of my communication with clients involves politely deflecting constant requests to video chat. It usually goes like this:
Client: explains problem that I understand perfectly in two sentences.
Client: "but maybe we can jump on a quick chat so I can explain this"
Then I have to come up with some way to deflect the request because I know the "quick" chat will take at least an hour (maybe 30 minutes actually chatting, but one hour productivity cost).
If it's a quick fix, I usually just don't reply for a few hours and then send them the fix. If they are persistent, I bill them for the time spent chatting. But I'd rather spend that time being productive.
On the other hand, I feel it's important to have one longish video chat with a client when I start a new project, because that gives me a connection to the person.
Client: explains problem that I understand perfectly in two sentences.
Client: "but maybe we can jump on a quick chat so I can explain this"
Then I have to come up with some way to deflect the request because I know the "quick" chat will take at least an hour (maybe 30 minutes actually chatting, but one hour productivity cost).
If it's a quick fix, I usually just don't reply for a few hours and then send them the fix. If they are persistent, I bill them for the time spent chatting. But I'd rather spend that time being productive.
On the other hand, I feel it's important to have one longish video chat with a client when I start a new project, because that gives me a connection to the person.