How to Tell a Friend/Client You Don't Want to Work with Them

In My Humble Opinion
1

My husband and I own a small but very successful tutoring company. The majority of our students are high school age. We’ve had troublesome students in the past and we’ve been able to let them go without incident. However, we have two clients now that are giving us a lot of problems, and we’re not sure what to do.

Client A: I was actually a client of hers a few years ago. She owns a consulting business. She had a contract that I signed, I paid in full on time, my case was very simple and I was a very easy-to-work with client. After that, we remained friends and met up for coffee sometimes. At one point, she asked if we would tutor her daughter. I was happy to, and because she had offered me a discount on her services, I reciprocated the favor. She is very aware of our cancellation policies, but her daughter will cancel last minute or she will reschedule her times too often. This has cost us a lot of time and headache, and we’ve talked to the mom (my friend) about it, but nothing really gets solved.

Client B: This client is a family friend who’s fallen on hard times. They’re very good people and I was initially thrilled to help them out. I asked them to pay whatever they could each month, so they pay about 50% of what tutoring actually costs. They’ve cancelled more than 50% of the time - either they forget to come or they have a lame excuse. The student is very immature, disruptive, and uninterested in getting help.

We have no problem cutting ties with clients who give us these problems, but here are clients that were supposedly friends. We’ve now learned to treat friends like any other client - they pay full price, they sign a contract. We want to end our business relationship with these clients, but we’re afraid of any unforeseen backlash. They haven’t treated us like friends, and we have every right to cut them off.

What would you do? Thanks!

2

Cut them off.

You said that you have learned to treat friends like clients-then do so.

They most certainly are not treating you like friends, nor like professionals.

As for backlashes, you are already dealing with them. You want their friendship/warmfuzzies, and you have them. The backlash is that you may not have same if you treat them as clients. There is no way to have the relationship that you had imagined that you had, and cut them off at the same time. They may be just as happy to not be dealing with their idiot kids’ expenses as you would be not to deal with the idiot kid.

3

Do you have open ended tutoring contracts or for a set time period (like 15 sessions etc)? If they are set time period, just politely refuse to extend. Open ended is a bit more of a problem, but what I would do, is send out a letter/email saying, due to large amount of unannounced cancellations, absences will be charged full price. Then stick to it. Either the clients behavior will modify or they will stop using your service.

4

In memory of James Gandolfini I suggest having the two kids whacked.

5

I’m a retired teacher and also do private tutoring.
I agree with handsomeharry.

It is a little awkward, but polite honesty is the best:

  • tell Client A you’re sorry, but the constant cancellation / rescheduling has got too much for you

  • tell Client B you’re sorry, but the constant cancellation / rescheduling has got too much for you

You don’t need to mention to Client B about their student’s behaviour (it’ll probably just start an argument.)

For your amusement, I once had a college student who was late for every lesson. I reported to my superviser, who contacted the family.
The mother came in, insisting her daughter was God’s gift in every way.
I showed her the register.
She stormed out.
Later we got an apology (and discovered the daughter was having an affair :eek:)

6

I would law down the law with both clients, and be aware that it could cost the friendships, then go on to have a future policy of not working with friends and family (or, as you say, treat them exactly like any other client).

I think what you’re seeing is a strange phenomenon where people don’t value things that they aren’t paying full price for. Since you’re giving Client B a discount, your services aren’t valued by them (and this might also be happening with Client A). Also, you may have noticed - people can be really thoughtless and shitty - cancelling/being late/being disruptive doesn’t affect THEM, so therefore it isn’t important.

7

I think this is true. It may well even work this way in their head: “They aren’t making any profit on us, so whether or not we show up doesn’t matter”. That would be true if, for example, I had an unlimited supply of socks and I sold them to friends at cost: if the friends didn’t buy any, it wouldn’t affect my bottom line.

But tutoring is different. There are limited tutoring slots, and so every time you provide tutoring for them you are giving up a slot that could have gone to a full-pay client. So if a normal session costs $100, helping them costs you $50 in lost profit a session and each cancellation costs $100 in lost profit.

Explaining this to them may well start an argument as they try to defend themselves, so I wouldn’t go so far as to recommend it, but do be aware that if they are not sophisticated people, this way of thinking may really have not occurred to them.

If you want to try a really advanced level dodge, you could try explaining it by making some mythical accountant the bad guy “Apparently we have to count each cancellation as a full loss because that’s what we could have earned, so these cancellations are killing our bottom line”. They’d take that less personally.

You also could offer them “stand by” services if that works with your business model: kid can’t schedule anything, but can drop in and if anyone is available, get help. I kinda suspect that if you put that agreement in place, he’d never show.

8

I would also “lay down the law,” but in a very neutral, unemotional, businesslike way. Let’s face it, these people know that anyone who wasn’t a friend would have kicked them to the curb ages ago.

Say “The frequent, short-notice cancellations aren’t working for us and we’re terminating the tutoring relationship.” PERIOD.

Don’t go into TONS of explanations, or justifications, or comments about the money, or even the inconvenience, rudeness, etc. That is just 1) stating the obvious, which they already know, and 2) it’s an invitation to them to defend themselves, explain, make excuses, ask for another chance, blahblahblah. They know they screwed up and they’re probably surprised you haven’t terminated them before now. You’re perfectly justified in your position, so remember that and terminate with dignity. If you can keep the conversation about this issue to a minimum (with no insults or implied insults), you might save the friendship(s), if that’s one of your goals.

There was a discussion on the board in a similar vein a while ago, and I cited Miss Manners (Judith Martin) who said that in social situations, you don’t have to explain why you’re turning down an invitation. I realize this is a business situation, so I think you prolly do need to say you’re terminating because of frequent, short-notice cancellations, but then fall back on Miss Manners’ suggested response to all further pleas, requests for mercy/another chance, and attempts at discussion thusly:* “I’m sorry. It’s just impossible.” *You don’t have to have any more discussion than that.

ETA: I would expressly AVOID what MandaJo is suggesting, namely:

Your bottom line and your profit is NONE OF YOUR CLIENTS’ BUSINESS. They have no right to that information, and giving it to them just opens the door to further conversation, which can’t go anyplace good. You don’t have to give an explanation, only a reason, and your reason is a good one, i.e., “The frequent short-notice cancellations aren’t working for us.” Don’t go into any more detail than that. You don’t need do. You’re in the right. You don’t need a “dodge” of any kind, elementary or advanced.

9

Note that I explicitly said “I wouldn’t recommend doing this”. My point was more like “These people don’t realize they are literally stealing money from you, so you don’t have to hate them. They are most likely stupid, not absolutely evil”.

10

My bad. I read too fast on my teeny screen. :smack:

I agree that they’re not evil, just pushing some boundaries. I still think any kind of explanation on the part of the OPs just invites rancor and defenses and could get icky fast. To me, it saves face for everyone to make this a clean break from the **business **R, which *may *save the friendly R. Or it may not.

11

Is there a time slot you can give them where it won’t make much difference if they flake? That’s what I do with flaky customers. I schedule their appointments for days and times where it won’t inconvenience me if they don’t show up.

12

That’s what I would do, but I would add something. A few hours before the appointment or, say, a few hours before they cancel, I would call them sand say “Hey, I just wanted to make sure she was still planning to come in today for her lesson”, if they say yes, great (and maybe you reminded them so they don’t forget) and if they say no then you can say “I’m sorry, I think I’m going to have to stop tutoring her, the cancellations every other week are a problem and I’ve got other students that can use the openings. I’m really sorry it didn’t work out”.

It’s a little passive aggressive, but it gives the mom a chance to say “Huh, she hasn’t been coming in??!” That reminds me of a time when I got a call at work…“This is Sarah’s mom, she’s not [SCHOOL BELL RINGS] going to be able to come in today, she’s sick”. Then I called Sarah’s mom, just to confirm that it wasn’t actually her and let her know what just happened. I think we fired Sarah shortly after that.

Don’t forget, the customer isn’t always right and if they’re a pain in the ass they might actually be costing you money. I have one customer that places orders that are so ridiculously detailed that my employees end up spending 20 minutes on the phone with her for a $20 sale and since she’s a complainer she ALWAYS calls back to moan about something or other that’s wrong about it. We’ve fired her…twice.

13

So what are your cancellation policies? Because at this point, if it’s not included already, I would include a clause to the effect that cancellations with less than (24 hours/48 hours/whatever) notice are charged the same price whether you show up or not. Then you can either communicate with your entire clientele about the new addition to the policy, or communicate with the problem clients and reiterate this policy. And then do it.

They’re blowing you off because there are no real consequences for them. I bet that the parents would get involved right quick if they were constantly having to pay for tutoring sessions that didn’t happen. Either way, you still get paid.

14

The hair salon I go to and the massage therapy practice I go to both text you the day before your appointment and ask you to reply “yes” to the text. And they text you AGAIN about 15-30 mins right before the appointment and again ask you to reply “yes” if you still plan to come. No way to say you forgot. I’m one of those people who NEVER forget appointments and I’m also compulsively on time, but even so, I appreciate these reminders and fully understand the need for them, because most people aren’t like me. I know this because I wait for people a lot.

I used to go to a hairdresser who never made appointments because people never showed up for them, so she just took people on a first come first served basis. This was really inconvenient for those of us who DO keep appointments, but I went to her for years because I liked her work. Sometimes I had to wait for an hour or more to get in her chair.

15

The problem is that you can’t really separate the personal and the business after the fact. If they don’t understand now that cancellations are a really big deal (and they clearly don’t), then they are probably going to assume that the short notice cancellation thing is an excuse and a cover for some other personal reason.

I guess what I am saying is that the personal relationship is probably screwed, and only the person there can decide if trying a more complete explanation–a sort of Hail Mary pass–is worth the hassle.

16

“Dear Friend, As you may be aware, I’ve been bending the rules regarding last minute cancellations and no-shows, and not charging you as indicated in our contract. However, as a business person, I can’t keep doing this. I was happy to tutor your child for a reduced fee, but the no-shows are actually causing me to lose money because I haven’t been given sufficient notice to fill that slot with another student. Since I value you as a friend first, I am terminating our business relationship before it negatively impacts our personal relationship.”

17

Well done!