How To Fire Your Non-Paying Customer

Have you ever had a customer repeatedly tell you that the "check is in the mail". Well thanks to a letter submitted by Jake Hansen you can now fire your non-paying customer in style:

Dear _____________:

1) You decided to play the power struggle game with me on my check. This game gives you minus 10 points on my favors scale instantly. You then persisted in playing this game for 4 months giving you minus 10 points each month it was delayed. Currently you are at negative 50 points. I only do favors for clients that maintain a positive favor rating before I will do anything for less then my full rate.

Lesson: Don't play games with the IT person's check. We want to help but don't appreciate being treated as though we are a dog waiting to get the treat after we perform a trick correctly. That is basically how you make us feel by holding our check until we go out and pick it up.

2) I have the equiv of a master’s degree in my field. Treating me like I'm overcharging you does not win you any points either.

Lesson: Your IT person has been training in his field for years and has thousands of hours of experience in these matters. Do you really want to make this person feel devalued like he should be lucky to get 10 bucks an hour? I think a better approach would be to figure out why you don't have a full time employee running you IT department. Maybe because that would cost even more then paying him by the hour to put up with all your problems that he really would not rather deal with, but does because that's how he makes a living.

3) Your sorted history with you previous IT company also gives you negative points in my eyes.

Lesson: Never badmouth your previous IT person in front of your new one. It makes him nervous that you will do the same to him. Keep it a secret from him that you have now had a string of IT people quit working due to major differences in opinion.

4) You don't follow my recommendations.

Lesson: Nothing is more frustrating to your IT person then drawing up an action plan, one that his experience has told him is the best way to go and then having it be dismissed out of hand or worse not followed with no approved plan in place. It makes him feel as if he is spinning his wheels and wasting his very valuable time. Especially if after the fact he is blamed for the failure of the plan to produce the desired results.

5) You are out of my normal coverage area.

Lesson: Don't make your IT guy drive unnecessarily to pick up checks or work on systems that could be mailed or worked on remotely. This costs the IT person more to operate his business which will translate into higher costs to you. If he suggests something could be worked on remotely, then do it to save yourself money.

6) You are slow payers when I was getting paid.

Lesson: IT people are people too. Collections is one of the most stressful thing your IT person has to do and the cause of many bad feelings between client and tech. Slow paying your IT person only increases this level of anxiety as he has probably been cheated many times in the past by lowlife scum who use his resources and then dodge out on the bill. Don't make your IT person wonder if he is actually going to get paid for his services. In fact clients that pay like clockwork promptly get my highest level of service as well as free hours and favors. Clients that slow pay don't receive these unspoken benefits.

7) Don't try and butt heads with your IT person as you are at a disadvantage

Your IT person has many clients not just you. You on the other hand have only one IT person. Due to this fact, your IT person will not hesitate to bail on you should he feel that his time would be better spent elsewhere on clients that have a more favorable rating. This should be avoided as usually there is a learning curve for the IT person to learn how the system was setup before he can do anything useful. During this period, your paying him to relearn what the previous guy already knew, resulting in higher costs to you. There is also a period of time before you can find a replacement guy as we are not a dime a dozen and tend to work in a tight knit group. That is to say, we all know each other and I know I would not work for a client that I knew was problematic for another tech I knew. This would limit the support that you could receive in the future. You should try to keep your IT guy happy to keep your costs down so you don't have a high turnover rate.

This is not meant to be sarcastic in any way. This advice should help you to keep your costs to a minimum in the future.

Had you followed these interpersonal relationship tactics with me or your previous IT company, I suspect this situation could have been avoided.

I bid you good day