Have you sacked a client?

[Slade]

I have just been reading this article over at Anthill ( Have you ever sacked a client? | Customer Relations - Anthill Magazine (http://anthillonline.com/have-you-ever-sacked-a-client/) )

The article discusses getting rid of clients that you dont work well with or seem to be using you for more than they pay in value.

This is something I feel pretty strongly about personally, I only like to attract the types of clients that I enjoy dealing with, those that I dont cringe when I see a call coming in from them, or those that I know when I see an email from them its going to be some issue that is over exaggerated and the end of the world.

I guess I currently have the luxury to choose the clients that I like working with, but I want to know how do you guys deal with customers or clients that break your balls.. have you got the guts to sack them?

[Brendan]

I cant recall ever sacking a client, but we tried to set our business up to attract the right type of people we want to work with.

As mentioned in that article, you can usually gauge within the first few minutes whether or not the client is going to give you a hard time and be more trouble than what you might have time to deal with.

I guess it can sound a bit over confident and this sort of approach is easy enough to stick to in an good market.. but if its a hard market and business isn't doing to well, I am sure businesses will take what they can get to keep the cash flow going.

[JamesGG]

I guess I currently have the luxury to choose the clients that I like working with, but I want to know how do you guys deal with customers or clients that break your balls.. have you got the guts to sack them?

Yes, this is a policy that we have, too. We only take on clients who are nice to deal with, and going in the same direction that we are. We'll also cull our client list on an annual basis for the odd client who no longer suits our firm (or where we clearly no longer suit them), to ensure that we're always moving forward. Those who do the wrong things by us, such as not paying an account promptly or being rude to my staff, are sacked immediately.

Everyone wins. We then only deal with people who we enjoy working with, and the good clients then have access to more of our time and value.

[justinsigns]

I have a couple that fall into this category.

I managed them off my client list by slowly overquoting their work to the point they stopped requesting quotes altogether.

[kimono]

I suggest you apply Pareto principles 80-20 rule in this situation. In other words, realise that only 20% of your customers make up 80% of your sales. With that in mind, focus on those 20% and minimise time with other hard customers.

[aande61]

Yes we 'sack' clients if they are bad at paying. More trouble than its worth chasing some clients for money.

[xmasdeer]

Yes, I have sacked clients. I keep only the good payers, the ones who continually work with me and not make my life difficult, the ones who arent rude, the ones who arent using me as a scapegoat when the tax auditors come along and of course, the nice ones.
5 of my 10 current clients are the original 5 I started out with 11 years ago. Loyalty returns both ways.
As a result of culling clients, I am very satisified with my workload and my clients and that makes for a happy job.

[pink_briefcase]

The famous English writer, William Shakespeare, once said, “The pen is mightier than the sword.” In emotional and psychological planes, perhaps, the use of the right words could be of great help for anyone who would like to convince another to agree or act up on something.

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