At wednesday's meeting we discussed the merits of walking away from Clients. It was very interesting to discover that the Members present, Sole traders through to the larger business, all were of the same opinion on this matter. Our business is the one in control and not the prospective customer/client. We as individuals decide who we want to do business with and how. The how being whether we credit check the potential client first ( a resounding yes), put them on a 30 day account, ask for a deposit up front or just decide not to do business with them at all. The over whelming feeling was that it is far better to take a decision prior to commencement rather than to regret a decision further down the line. All of this considered it was agreed that it is still possible to make mistakes but more bearable when a system had been followed.
Have you had to walk away from a client? How did you deal with it?
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We all tend to get hung up on the out-of-date saying "the customer is always right". Sure, the customer is often right but actually he probably knows a lot less about the job we are doing for him/her than we do and so it is up to US to stop the customer asking for somethig that is a mistake - and up to us to explain at the outset what we are and aren't delivering inside the budget. It is also up to us to make sure they understand the payment terms and any exclusions in our terms and conditions.
Very often the customer is an amateur in what we are doing for them (no insult intended to them here - if they were a professional then very likely they would be doing it themselves) so they are entitled to make mistakes but it is up to us to make sure they dont make the same mistake more than once.
But there also exists the PREDATORY customer or client who deliberately and repeatedly selects inexperienced suppliers and abuses the client relationship by demanding more work be done than was agreed and then does not comply with the payment terms or invents disputes in order to avoid final payments (I suspect sometimes this is time-wasting as they havent GOT the final payment).
This happens to us much less now that we have been going nearly 10 years and we have steps in place to screen these dead-beat clients out before they become our clients.
Don't forget the no-trainers rule - if they dont match your requirements - they aint coming in!
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