How to let a client know you no longer wish to work with them

No matter how long you have been in business there comes a time when you have to let certain clients of yours know that you no longer wish to work with them. The reasons that you might not want to work with them are going to vary depending on what is going on but the reasons can be as simple as you just don't have the time to take on anymore work, you don't like the client or something even more complex. But regardless of your reason or reasons when you are telling the client that you no longer wish to work with them you are going to want to approach this situation in a tactful way because if you don't handle this situation correctly it can come back to haunt both you and your business. Basically what this means is that it can actually affect how much business you might bring in for the future or it can even affect your old business.

Difficulty rating: Easy to moderate

Step one:
The first thing that you are going to need to do is to think about what your reasons are for not wanting to work with this client anymore. Basically you want to be able to justify your letting that client go ahead of time so that you are prepared for whatever they might throw at you.

Step two:
The next thing that you want to do is to talk with your other members of management to see if they all feel the same way. This can also help you to brainstorm about different ways that you can tell your client that you no longer wish to work with them.

Step three:
The next thing you want to do is to pick out somebody who has a good relationship with the client to tell the client that your company is no longer going to be working with them. The reason for this is that bad news, no matter how small that bad news might be, comes off sounding better if you hear it from somebody that you have a good working relationship with. Basically what this means is you don't want somebody who loathes the client delivering the news because it can botch the entire thing.

Step four:
The next thing that you need to do is to come up with a tactful way of telling the client that you no longer wish to work with them. But one thing that you want to do is to avoid lying to the client. Even if the reason is that you despise the client you don't want to lie about it, you just need to come up with a better way to phrase it. The reason why you don't want to lie to the client is because it can come back to haunt you, meaning that they can find out that you lied and then ruin your business reputation.

Step five:
Something else that you want to do when you are letting a client know that you no longer wish to work with them is to give them names of other people that they might be able to use. This is especially important if you no longer want to work with them because you are trying to cut down on your work load but they are still a great client to work with.

Just keep in mind that when you are trying to tell a client that you no longer wish to work with them the most important thing that you can do is to be honest but still be tactful. This is especially important because you still want to have a good business reputation and if you are rude you might lose other clients as well, not to mention you might not be able to attract any new clients further down the road.

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Categories: Management,

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