AIBU to charge a client I am going to fire?

[LemonSwan]

We unfortunately have to fire a client.

Its just not working.

Would you charge the client for work to date, or give all work for free as a gesture of good will to the parting of ways.

I am conflicted.

On the one hand I am firing them because I cannot trust they will pay as they are very rude and accusatory about our service.

On the other hand I just want this relationship finished as they have crossed a line today.

WWYD?

If you hire a painter to paint your living room and bedroom white. He paints the living room white and you scream at him thats its painted pink. Its not unreasonable for him to bill you to date and refuse to paint the bedroom. Thats essentially what it is in simple terms. The relationship and trust is broken. We should be paid to date.

But if someone ‘screams’ at you that a white wall is pink, you have a very easy way to prove otherwise - the fact that the wall is white. Your scenario - where your client felt you had rushed through a meeting - is much more subjective. They felt rushed; you disagreed. You claim ‘the trust is broken’, but they feel it’s you who broke it. You don’t want to work with them anymore, but still expect to be paid when you’re refusing to finish the job.

they haven’t actually done anything huge, they could well respond very angrily that you have not delivered the required services and have waster their time/internal resources collaborating on a project that another contractor may well insist on starting from scratch.

Shelter the team, honestly you need to toughen them up.

Yep - these two posters have it bang on. You seem over-sensitive and unrealistic when it comes to business; hence suggesting you will be ‘firing’ someone who has actually hired YOU.

I appreciate the sentiment justasking111 but considering I am in charge of the eject button I think its only fair I deal with the consequences of chickening out!

I sense a fair few gins will be required over the coming months. When I drink them I will think of your consultant friend and my lack of decisiveness and an adequate contract

Make sure all the payments are up-to-date before you end it.

You've done the work so bill for it and don't feel bad for doing so.

You need to bill at full rate and for every minute and finish the contract. Then put the rate up 35% for the next quote. Better to lose a client on rate than service. The rate may not be the issue, it may be the work.

Some clients have an unusual habit of buying more if service is good even if the rate goes up. The fee is part of your service not distinct from it.

Perhaps assemble a client pitch team rather than a client vet team. Four clients paying £10,000 each is generally easier work than five clients paying £8,000 each. The fees are the same.

If you dump/fire a client, then goodwill is out the window. So forget "making a goodwill gesture". Expect further and worse rudeness.

I would retrieve any unused materials ( either to use or sell) , and bill the client for hours worked. But if they don;t pay, don't be surprised, just let it go.

It didn't seem that you had a conversation with the client yet. Surely, your next move is to have a chat with them. Along the lines off, from their comments/ behaviour you are getting the impression they are not happy with the way you run the project.
Get their point of view and see, whether there is any truth in that first and if it is, you can recommend someone else for the project and split ways amicably. If there isn't, then you know. It may just be their way of small talk or banter and you can explain how it comes across to you. Apologies, if I got this wrong but it didn't seem like you made any attempts to resolve the conflict before contemplating giving up on the project altogether. Seems very odd to me.

Have you had a conversation with them? ‘Eg this relationship needs to work for the project to be a success. When you said this, it made me feel like this? Can we talk about it?’

Seems a bit dramatic to fire them before you’ve had an adult conversation. It might be their idea of banter. Or miscommunication. Or some clients are just knobs! But I feel you need to have pursued addressing their behaviour first before you cut ties

Oops cross post with honeybee above! What they said

@honeybeetheoneandonly

It didn't seem that you had a conversation with the client yet. Surely, your next move is to have a chat with them. Along the lines off, from their comments/ behaviour you are getting the impression they are not happy with the way you run the project. Get their point of view and see, whether there is any truth in that first and if it is, you can recommend someone else for the project and split ways amicably. If there isn't, then you know. It may just be their way of small talk or banter and you can explain how it comes across to you. Apologies, if I got this wrong but it didn't seem like you made any attempts to resolve the conflict before contemplating giving up on the project altogether. Seems very odd to me.

I just came on to type this but you got there first!

I work for a big organisation and we have internal "clients" - I have had a similar conversation a few times and it has always resulted in a harmonious working relationship with both sides adapting their styles to each other.

Double cross posted for me!

If it’s only another £1k for a further six months then presumably the amount of actual work/interaction required must be fairly minimal?

As to what you do if you do want to exit now- that depends on your terms of business.

@honeybeetheoneandonly

It didn't seem that you had a conversation with the client yet. Surely, your next move is to have a chat with them. Along the lines off, from their comments/ behaviour you are getting the impression they are not happy with the way you run the project. Get their point of view and see, whether there is any truth in that first and if it is, you can recommend someone else for the project and split ways amicably. If there isn't, then you know. It may just be their way of small talk or banter and you can explain how it comes across to you. Apologies, if I got this wrong but it didn't seem like you made any attempts to resolve the conflict before contemplating giving up on the project altogether. Seems very odd to me.

This.

Outline expectations and confirm theirs. Use the time to discuss the issues and work out how to progress.

Haha, sod's law. Nobody posts for 10h then 3 come along to say the same thing.

You have a whole team on a 6+ month job for £2k? How do you make a profit?

Haven't read the full thread, but I would charge the client for work done to date. Unfortuantely, some working relationships just don't work; there's not necessarily fault on either side. That's no reason you shouldn't be paid for work you have done. And, sorry to be cynical about it, but I've found that the clients you bend over backwards for / do freebies for just to be helpful or nice are the ones who turn around and stab you in the back a couple of months later. Make it easier on yourself and keep everything professional - presumably you had a contract or written agreement of some sort to state what it was you had to do in order to charge x fees? Take emotion out of it and just send them an invoice saying, "Please find attached Invoice xxx for £xxx, due for payment on xxx. If you have any queries regarding the attached, please contact me within 5 days by calling xxx or emailing xxx."

I’m interested in what sort of work it is as it sounds as though it may be a slight clash of personalities. Is it something creative? As it sounds as though you aren’t very business headed in terms of the legal sides with not getting a clear contract.
whereas the client seems to expect a high level of professionalism so maybe you come across as unprofessional in their eyes.
For many clients a comment about football could come across as very blasé and not committed to the role even though you see it as humorous.

If this is the case instead of client getting you need to consider whether some courses in business could benefit you as you need to know how to deal with all sorts of personalities.

At the end of the day if you want to end the contract you need to consider the position you will leave them in financially and the resulting reputational damage that may occur to your business. You could offer to let them out of the deal with no charge if they give you a gods review or at least undertake not to give a bad review.

Client vetting* not getting

If I'm dropping a client, unless they're in direct breach of contract, I will give them a suitable notice period and then a final invoice at the end of that period.

Sounds as if you have my next door neighbour for a client, he falls out with every tradesman he employs when re renovates houses.
To us though he is a very good friend and neighbour.
I believe he does pay his bills after a bit of negotiation.
Send your client a bill and a covering letter saying that you cannot see the work continuing to the end. Offer to make sure the next person is brought up to date and informed to make it a smooth transfer.

Don't get arsey even if he is.

Would that work for you?

After sleeping on it we will continue, and tighten up the contracts.

When things like this do happen you do question all kinds of things (are we unprofessional, do we need to change xyz etc.).

But then we have many other happy clients; so should we really change the way we work going forward because of one person. I would be hesitant.

As it sounds as though you aren’t very business headed in terms of the legal sides with not getting a clear contract.
whereas the client seems to expect a high level of professionalism so maybe you come across as unprofessional in their eyes.

And to this, its not really as simple as that. Business headed is not just streams of paperwork/ legal etc. Its balancing first impressions, quotes, length and detail of contracts so you get the job with the right people at the right time without putting people off.

We are not overly protectionist in our contracts, and rarely call up bills at stages mid project - because I consider it a matter of trust. They trust us with something important to them and that we will deliver an excellent end result, and I trust they will behave reasonably, at least aim to be good clients (some aren't, but those being 'not ideal' without meaning too get a pass) and that they will pay.

We have never had an unhappy customer before, and we have never had a non payer; and I do put that down to careful client vetting. But that is obviously not perfect as we have had one slip the net here. I do consider it my fault for not seeing this at that stage. But that is also difficult because if we make it too 'tight' then we may miss excellent clients, and some of our best clients/ best projects have been individuals on the borderline who we took a punt on.

And no I do not consider it just business and we just have to put up with it. We pride ourselves on end result and cant do our job properly if the relationship is poor as the project will suffer. The client will be unhappy, we will be unhappy. Its pointless.

So onwards and upwards. Lessons learned although not sure what they are besides adding a break clause and banning comments on 'making xyz' and football.

What do you do that is 'professional' that only costs £2000 over multiple months?

That is less than 20 professional hours- and you have already had more than 1 person in a face to face meeting- with prep and follow up that meeting alone must be 30% of the contract?

We've had arsy clients that I have just charged more. It's business. As the female half of the team clients told OH they were scared of me.

Beware him smearing your name in the industry folks believe bad reviews much more than good ones sadly.

There’s a few things bundled up by the sounds of it.

First you should absolutely bill at the end of each stage, if nothing else paying the invoice is the ultimate statement that the client is happy, and in the event of a client going bust it will minimise your losses.

Second it sounds like there’s conflicting feedback and some unacceptable behaviour from one of the client’s employees. Is there someone more senior that you can talk to, you could approach it from the perspective of conflicting feedback and wanting to check in how things are going, or you could go down an XYZ happened and it’s unacceptable.

Third it sounds like a lesson learned and an opportunity to tighten up your contracts!

What do you do that is 'professional' that only costs £2000 over multiple months?

I obviously cant say what it is.

The pipeline was quiet so we did underquote this project compared to our usual rates.

Its a few half days here and there & 3 x 1 hour long meetings - initial, mid, final (meeting in question was an hour and a half because we do not rush), + a lot of time for client consideration in between so they don't change their minds later on.

At the later stages its fine tuning so an easy client will probably correspond 10 or so times resulting in 5 mins of work each time and a nightmare client (probably 1/25) will correspond 100 times and we will either take it on the chin and quietly despair inside; or run up another quote for additional work.