How do you tell a customer that you don't want to work with him anymore?

Question

We have a customer who just is person who doesn't want to pay enough and all our work on creating the documents for the price will be worthless since he will never be able to pay. How should I tell him that we don't want to do the job. Also we are trying to get out of projects and more into products.

Answer 1

Raise your price until it is worth dealing with him. If it's high enough it will either scare him off or be worth your while. Also make sure he pays before delivering anything.

Answer 2

Either tell them outright or quote a price that's so outrageous that they won't accept it.

There's no good way to sugarcoat it. Just tell them.

Answer 3

Well, there are a few ways you could look at this. You could first just be straight and to the point with him and let him know that the project isn't going to be cost effective for him. If you're that concerned with the costs, you could obtain a partial payment up front for the design costs, then split the remaining costs as development occurs. There's always the honesty route, too. Tell the customer you're unsure of his ability to pay and perhaps he'll either leave or else offer a down payment of some type.

As far as getting out of projects and more into products, you need to just draw a line at a project, and say that this is the last one. If you have code you can develop into a product then you are well on your way.

Answer 4

You raise your price until it is fair. If he's willing to pay it, then you should be willing to do the work. After all, even a crappy project might be worthwhile if the price is right. If he's not willing to pay it, then he'll have to look elsewhere. Problem solved without any trickery or white lies... you just tell him what it's worth to you.

Assuming that he won't want to pay up, you might suggest to him other firms that can take on the project.

As far as making him pay goes, that's what contracts are for. While a contract doesn't guarantee that somebody is going to pay you what they've agreed to, it sure does provide some motivation.

Answer 5

Even if this customer doesn't want to pay enough, you need to be courteous. An effective method might be giving the customer a rough estimate of what it would cost. A sufficiently high number with a large deposit should get them to back off.

Don't misunderstand me, you certainly don't want to waste too much time with customers like this. If they aren't willing to or are unable to spend for quality, it's not likely they're well enough connected to warrant doing it 'on the cheap' to curry favor with them.

Answer 6

I have a similar situation where a customer I've been helping for the last year would complain and low ball all my quotes until I lowered them (which I sort of had to do at the time if I wanted to pay my bills and buy food).

Now I have regular steady work coming in and I no longer need their money to live. They upset me enough that I really don't want to do the work they have, but on the other hand if they pay me what I'm asking I see no need to turn away the work.

Answer 7

I charged someone a flat rate to set up an OSCommerce store on their GoDaddy site a few years back, and offered some training at an additional rate. When he decided to let his GoDaddy account lapse for 6 months he demanded that I restore his site as I hadn't "warned" him that everything would be erased if he didn't pay up. I told him straightforward that I was only doing him a favor because I knew he had been going through some rough times financially and that his expiration was not under my control, but then he got demanding.

After I got the site up and running, he started insisting that I create custom graphics, update content, and re-train him.

Before doing any work, I made him fill out a statement of work document that outlined what would be done "under warranty" and what he would be billed for. I cut right to the point, showed him how it was, and moved on. I've had no troubles with him since.

Answer 8

Play Johnny Paycheck's "Take This Job and Shove It" while telling him you do not want to continue a business relationship with him.

Answer 9

Explain to them gently that you don't think your organization is a good fit for their needs, and recommend another organization that you (truly) think would be a better fit. There's no requirement that you must provide service to every customer, especially those that don't understand the concept of paying for value received.