We finally decided to “fire” a client who was the client from hell. I can’t tell you how happy we are knowing we won’t have to deal with someone who is always unhappy, complains about everything and expects it done for no additional charge. On top of all that, one who ignores deadlines, doesn’t pay invoices on time and then wakes up and wants everything done ASAP. The last straw was ignoring an invoice for six weeks and then sending an e-mail in a panic that this work needed to be done ASAP. All I can say, is good riddance!
What is your getting rid of the client from hell story?
My wife has fired several over the years. There’s not much exciting to tell. She never had the patience for flakes, nor the desperation for business to keep one on to the point where drama ensued.
“Sorry, we won’t be handling your work any more. We can send a copy of your files to you or another practitioner; which would you prefer?” Next.
We tried that. For the annoying ones sometimes it works great. For the slow payers, being owed a larger unpaid number doesn’t help.
Being ruthless with firing slow payers is essential. Which also means being willing to write off that first bill for slow payers that turn into never payers. And being ruthless that 100% of a late bill is paid before starting more work for the same customer.
I’ve had clients like that. It really isn’t worth it. They are usually incredibly late to pay, they argue everything on the bill, and then expect that their stuff is an emergency and a top priority, and must be done today. On top of it, they tend to be rude to everyone who has to work with them.
First, this is a passive-aggressive way to go about it. First, even at an increased rate these customers are not worth having (and most won’t pay it anyway) because of the time-suck and strain they put on staff. Second, if you go high enough on purpose that you know no sane person would agree to the cost, they’ll badmouth you around town for pulling such a stunt instead of being straight with them.
It’s a given that there will always be these customers, they will never be happy, and they will be a drain on your resources. The best strategy for handling them is to give them to your competition, where they will drain them instead. You simply say straight that you can’t work with them any more, but you know another good company or person for them to call about their needs.
My client I just fired. Sent him an email saying it wasn’t working out, never heard back.
I love this site by the way–except for the annoying ads and an occasional popup trying to get you to buy their book. Many are sort of lame but there are some good stories there about bad clients
Years ago when I was a branch manager at a large bank, a client began cursing loudly at one of my tellers. I calmly walked over, asked him to give me one minute, looked up his balance and cut him a check for the full amount. He said “What is this?” I replied “The balance in your account, consider it closed. We will not tolerate that kind of abuse.” “But” he said" I have checks outstanding!" I said “Perhaps you should go to (competitor down the street), open an account and replace those checks. Oh, and do it quickly before all those folks come after you for writing bad checks.”
Once every year or three I tell someone, “It’s obvious you aren’t happy here, and likewise we aren’t happy having you.”
I once had someone decline, saying they weren’t going anywhere. My follow up is, “Well, the one nice thing about owning a small business is that I can tell asswipes like you to get the fuck out and never return or I’ll call the cops.” It worked.
I’ve never understood why reasonably intelligent business people will continue to put up with so much shit from clients who, if they took the time to review their records, only cost them more stress, aggravation and $$$ than they ever made off those people.
And it usually boils down to “The bigger the asshole, the more it’s going to cost you to do business with them”.
That and I’ve seen enough arguments with bad people who owe money, but scream “I’ll never do business with you again!” when you press them to pay. Hey, you haven’t been paying for the business we DID do with you, so fuck completely the hell off already!
I worked for a large truck leasing corporation. One of our clients was just like to Op’s client. He was also one of our largest clients. My boss asked me to handle him. I was shop foreman and my primary duties were managing the shop not the customers.
He called up one day in his usual demeaning, rude and demanding manner reminding me in every other sentence how big his account was. I stopped him in his tracks and told him he had lost his good customer status and was behind on his bills. I told him our first step would be to stop fueling his trucks and doing repairs. Our next step would be to file a law suit over his unpaid invoices. He paid all his bills the following week and never called back. He had his secretaries deal with us from then on out. Simple truth was that he was not as high up in his company as he wanted us to believe. My boss bought into all his bullshit.
Back when I worked at the grocery store, we had a few problem customers (i.e. drug seekers) that we got to leave by not playing their game. Usually, we’d say something like “The state is investigating us” (not entirely untrue) or “We don’t have any.” Oh, we usually DID have it, but they weren’t going to get any of it for any price.
This was a chain where telling someone not to come back was a firing offense. :rolleyes:
We did hear about one woman who filed so many complaints against the store, the manager asked her, “Then why do you shop here?” Never found out what the answer was, but we all wondered if she’d been banned from every other store in town. :dubious: