Debate: Should you tell clients about a mistake or just fix it quietly?

Had a situation last month where my team sent the wrong version of a landing page to a big client in Austin. It had outdated pricing and some broken links. I chose to own up immediately and explain what happened, then we fixed it within 4 hours. The client appreciated the honesty, but my partner thinks we should have just fixed it silently and said nothing. What would you do - come clean or keep quiet and fix it behind the scenes?

2 comments

2 Comments

thompson.xena13d ago

My buddy runs a small webdev shop and literally just had this happen with a dentist office's booking system. He tried the "fix it quiet" route, spent a whole weekend patching it up, and then the client found out anyway through a timestamped backup they checked. The client was way more mad about the cover-up than the original bug, so he always says honesty saves way more time in the long run.

ross.jessica12d ago

Did he really not mention it was a third party plugin causing the issue?