Think about the last customer who was genuinely annoyed. There is a good chance the cause was not poor work. It was a difference between what they expected and what was always going to happen.
The four that cause most trouble
Timeline. Not "about a week". A date, and what could move it.
What is not included. Nobody reads a scope document, but everybody hears one sentence. "This covers X, it does not cover Y, we can quote separately for that if you want."
What you need from them. Most delays in service work are waiting for the customer. Saying so upfront makes a later delay a shared fact rather than your fault.
How changes are handled. Agreed at the start, a change request is a process. Raised mid-job, it is a confrontation.
Say the awkward part out loud
There is always something you know might go wrong. A dependency, a supplier, an unknown behind a wall.
Mentioning it at the start makes you look experienced. The same sentence after it happens looks like an excuse. It is the identical information, and only the timing changes how it reads.
Put it in writing, briefly
Not a contract. A short message: here is what we agreed, here are the dates, here is what we need from you.
Nobody objects to it and it settles ninety percent of later disagreements, because both sides are reading the same thing rather than remembering different conversations.
Under-promise a little
Not by much. Enough that normal delays still land inside what you said. A job delivered on the day you promised is fine. A job delivered two days early is remembered.
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