5 Steps to Firing a Difficult Customer
We’ve talked about whether or not you need to fire your customers by establishing rules. We’ve talked about firing your customers BEFORE they become customers through screening. Now, if you’ve got those two items down and you have ended up with a difficult customer you’ll need different strategies to sever the relationship.
If you are at this point in the process, let me first say, I understand that it’s no fun. It’s stressful and frustrating, and it can be very fatiguing.
But in order to move ahead and stop the bleeding you need to “cut the cord”. Firing a customer is emotionally difficult because part of our business brain thinks we need the customer. Another issue is one of fear, what if the fired customer goes off and talks badly about me and my business. My experience has been that given the appropriate methods of dealing with the situation, most times you didn’t need the customer and are much more profitable without them, AND they typically don’t go off and spread negative information about you.
First, understand that your customer, however much you may or may not like them is still a human being and as such he/she has feelings. Most of the time a difficult person knows they’ve been difficult. Many times they will apologize profusely. Again, in this situation, be prepared. Have a standard statement that needs little modification to get your point across. Be respectful when you make your presentation. I call it a presentation because you should have a legitimate reason for firing a customer. If you want to fire customers who pay consistently but you just don’t happen to like them… this information is not for you. I don’t do business that way and neither should you. Reasons for wanting to fire a customer should be related to the customer breaking the rules, consistently. I say consistently because sometimes people screw up and make mistakes.
Now if you’ve done your best and it’s not going to work out, for whatever reason, have your prepared statement ready. I’m not going to get into the right way/wrong way of communicating with people, I think it’s a decision you need to make on your own. So sometimes it can be handled by phone, sometimes by email, and, of course, in person. Again, I don’t think there is any wrong way, I’ve used them all. Find the best way for you.
A prepared statement should have a couple of points to it. First, tell the customer that you’ve appreciated working with them or that you’ve appreciated their business. Second, tell them, you just don’t feel the relationship is working out. Third, make sure you make it about them, i.e., “I’m not sure I’m doing the best job for you” or “I don’t think we are achieving the best results for you”. Fourth, give them a referral. Something to give them a potential solution now that you’ve let them go. You need to give them something and this is one way to help them leave. Finally, thank them. You need to leave the conversation on a good note. It’s hard to argue with someone who has thanked you, given specific logical reasons and given you a solution.
Best regards for a profitable day.
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