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How to Fire a Client
The objective of most businesses is to grow their customer base. However, there may come a time when you need to get rid of a client. A bad client can suck the life right out of you and make you hate the job you previously loved and sometimes the price of money is not worth it.
However, its not always easy to fire a client because there may be other strings attached. The client may be your father-in-law, a family friend or your bread and butter client.
The Time to Fire a Client Comes When:
They insist that you work for less than your usual rate
Unless you are desperate for work, you should always insist that all your clients pay your usual rate. Clients that are unwilling to pay full price obviously doesn’t appreciate the value of the services you offer. These clients usually expect more for less and will treat you as if you were their personal employee, rather than a skilled contractor.
They don’t pay on time
You started your business to make money, not to provide your clients with free tech work. There are a few reasons why a client wont pay on times. Sometimes they simply forget, they are falling on hard times or they simply don’t respect your work. For clients who don’t pay on time its usually best to find out why they haven’t paid before firing them.
They become aggressive or threatening
When a client threatens to sue you or cause bodily harm, its time to get rid of them. If you have any contractual obligations to fulfil, do them and fire the client quickly.
They client wants you to compromise your ethics
They might want you to do something like break into another persons user account, install keyloggers and other spying software or provide and install pirated software. Often clients simply doesn’t understand that these practices are questionable, you need to educate them and let them know your moral standing about them. If they still expect you to do what they asked then they need to be fired because they don’t respect you as an individual.
How to Fire a Client
Once you have made the decision to fire a client its best to do it in writing such as a letter or email. It helps prevent misunderstandings and raised emotions which could occur over the phone. It also serves as a record should any dispute arise.
If they owe you money then its best to get the money before you fire them. If you cut your ties with them then they will see little reason to pay you. Its also possible that they will withhold payment from you as a means of revenge if they feel bitter about being fired.
As mentioned before, if you have any contractual obligations that need to be fulfilled, either fulfill them or be aware of any termination clauses in the contract. If you cant do either its probably a good idea to contact a lawyer.
When giving them a reason why you can no longer do work for them. Its usually best to be honest but not offend. If you feel that they are likely to be offended because of the reason, there are many things you can say such as:
“My business is currently changing direction and we can no longer do this type of work”
They cant really argue with this but its a good idea to have an answer ready if they ask what direction your business is now taking.
“My schedule is booked up and I wont be able to get onto it for (insert distant date here). If you need it done faster its probably a good idea to call someone else”
So that you don’t leave your client high and dry, recommend another provider to them that is not a friend or tell them to look in their local business directory.
Questionable Tricks:
- Double your prices for them. If they don’t want to pay that much tell them that you cannot help them and they’ll have to find someone else. If they accept, they are a little less painful to work for when you are being paid double. This option only works when you don’t have your prices posted on your advertising.
- Refer them to your competitor. This frees up more of your time and slows your competitor down.
Unfortunately, most businesses will encounter a bad client sooner or later and firing a client may seem like a move in the wrong direction. However, it might be the best strategic move you can make. Spend less time on bad clients and use that time to find more good clients.
I have personally had a few bad clients in my years as a computer technician which you can read about here. I would love to hear some of our reader’s bad clients stories. Leave a comment.
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Good advice in there, i’ve had a couple clients myself that want me to work for free, as they think working for them might get me recognition. Its also a good practise to get paid on the spot, thats why we usually carry enough change with us on the job not to leave the customer with excuses.
Good stuff. I have found the worse ones to be family. They seem to think its just a hobby and not a “real job” so you should just be happy with whatever they give you. As far as installing keyloggers goes, if its the customers computer and I know he/she wants a keylogger on their system to keep track of a kid, I’ll install it. Its their system, they can have whatever they want on it.I have only refused to do this once when I was pretty sure it was just a case of a wife wanting to spy on her hubby. As for Double your prices, I have not had to do that yet but I do have one customer that I must have payment up front.
Yes, sometimes clients are really really worse. I cant name them, but i have my experience. There is a client here in delhi who wants me to work for free insisting that he is a brand name and if i will work i will get more reward from outer side. HUH
That’s funny, we were just contemplating how to “let go” of a client. Two checks bounced, they got an attitude when we called them to make arrangements. Got the payment and just don’t return their calls. Life’s good when you have a secretary!
Good advice… Having worked in the media and television production field for years, I can definitely say that inevitably, you’ll run into clients who insist that you do great work but then seem to always be the ones who try to get something for nothing. Phrases like “I have looked elsewhere, and they’re not charging what you are – why are your prices so much more?” (especially when comparing apples to oranges). I have even had clients tell me “that’s too much! I could do this myself for less $$!” (in the video production world, this almost always ensures a “made it at home” look to their final project). I don’t answer calls – I always take voicemail. My voicemail even points people to my e-mail address. e-mail & voicemail are great ways to buy yourself time and come up with snappy responses. Moreover, most cell carriers will allow you to send an outbound message from your voicemail menu to another subscriber… a great way to communicate with troublesome business contacts without ever having to speak to them in a “live” setting. I have Verizon service; in their voicemail menu, pressing *,2 and following the voice prompts will allow you to send a voice message to another number of your choosing.
I had a customer whom came by with several issues wrong with his computer. One was a bad stick of memory; another was a short in the board. It was difficult isolating the issue but I was able to narrow it down by trial and error. The customer was very concerned about the data on his drive. In his efforts at a “self fix”, he corrupted the partition and it was basically unreadable. Since I had the box apart, I’d offered to recover it up for him for free, as long as I was hired for the rest of the work (i.e. mainboard/os install, etc..) as he’s been a occasional customer over the two years I’ve been in business. He says, “Okay”. He comes by the following evening and states, “I want to take it to get a second opinion!”. I
i had a teacher in 8th grade who said he did the work, and the client owed him money. after a couple of weeks the client didnt respond to calls, or emails and he said he finally got an idea. he sent a letter saying that he (the client) owed him money and he put a higher amount than was due. i.e, he owed him 150 and put 275, so later a letter came, and it said that he didnt owe 275 but 150 and with that letter he had the evidence to sue him for not paying. i dont think it’ll come to that, but if it ever does, its worth a try.
I had a customer whose system I wiped clean and reloaded the operating system for. She didn’t understand that she would loose some configuration settings- and I had told her it was more drastic than just adding ram. I told her things would look like they did when she first bought the computer. Not much would be on it. I told her we could take her files, back them up, and put them back on. I told her after all this we could reinstall the programs she used (as long as she had them still). I asked her how she used her computer.
It all seemed ok except for a missing copy of MS Office. I explained to her I could sell her a newer version. She accepted- although not happy about the price. She still wanted to go through with it since her computer would run ‘like new’.
After all was said and done I got paid and left. Big mistake. I should have set her down and asked her to play with it and confirm it was to her satisfaction. Anyway- she called up angry as could be. Accusing me of software piracy (MS Office 2007 vs her old version), having sold her a kiddy version, and loosing her emails.
Anyway- I went back several times to resolve her issues. None of which were my fault and all of which I explained to her before I did anything. The only one that might have been my fault would have been the emails- but I had warned her of certain risks. After careful examination (hour or so) of her email I concluded the email wasn’t even in the backup of which was 100% backed up. Turns out she had deleted it or maybe it was sent to her work email – I forget which (but I used a hex editor to search through for the persons address just to see if some weird bug between versions or something was causing it to not appear).
Point is some customers have serious mental issues. Definitely not worth dealing with from a money perspective. Look at it from the bright side though- at least you aren’t them. You should feel bad for these customers and do everything you can to make them feel better. They are the ones with the problem(s). Not you. It could be you someday with an imbalance. If you have ever taken drugs (legally) and then had to stop right away- you’ll realize just how these people feel. Withdrawal sucks and these people are living under these conditions with little or no relief. They can’t deal with it-and you should consider yourself fortunate.
I knew a classmate in school who blamed themselves for a similar mental issue (when in college). On his good days where he was agreeable and on his bad days everything was your fault- and he’d disagree with everything. Even if you said the sky was blue you’d be wrong. Point is I realized he was on medications of some sort for this and that was why I saw these huge changes in personality. Without the medications he was a problem- and with it he was happy. The way I dealt with it by avoiding him on the bad days. It wasn’t his fault and I didn’t want to not be his friend over something that wasn’t his fault, nor would it have been fair to him. What bothered me was on one of his good days he told me he was on medications and then when I said I understood and didn’t blame him for his issue- he actually took responsibility for it and then some saying it was his fault. To feel bad over something that I knew he had no control over is just fucked up. Whoever has these types of issues shouldn’t blame themselves even if they have some responsibility to resolve their own issues. We’re all human-
And just remember that it isn’t always the customers who have the issue either. Sometimes it is the techs. I have a competitor who is just as insane as my worst ex-customer(s).