I have a customer I'd like to fire. How do I go about it and not piss off the homeowner? I want him to think it's in both our best interest.

I went and did an estimate for this guy last week. Gave him my quote, all was good. He gave a deposit and we scheduled the install. Basic living room surround sound and hanging several televisions in his new home he's just moving into. 24 hours or so passes and he emails me and wants to add whole house audio. I generate a new quote and email it back. Once he gets the quote, he thinks it's too expensive. I change to a cheaper system, basically an 8 channel amp, some basic distributed audio speakers, and some volume controls. Can't get much cheaper than that.

At this point I'm already having second thoughts because this is not the kind of job I want to put my name on. No control whatsoever. This job isn't going to win me any referrals or wow anyone at all. He then goes to a big box store and purchases about half of the products necessary for the install (A receiver and some speakers), further cutting my profit. It's obvious now he's only concerned about price and isn't the kind of customer I want to add to my client list. There are people on Criagslist who would be better suited for this value customer. Usually I weed these type customers out before getting this far along.

How do I gently tell this customer that we aren't the best fit for each other and that we'd like to return his deposit and part ways. He has not signed the contract yet, only given a credit card which we ran for the deposit so we could put him on the schedule. He had not signed a contract yet because he wanted to change the scope of work.

Should I suck it up and do this job or part ways now before losing any more precious time. He wants to meet tomorrow and possibly make some more changes as well.

you know, I was actually going to ask about how to do the same thing and ended up not doing so because the customer is behaving himself so far.

once his project is finished and he asks me to bid on the next room ill have to decide whether or not its in my best interest to fire him.

What I thought about doing was asking someone if they were slow if they would be willing to take over a customer. then let MR. client know that its in each others best interest to part ways but for his connivence have a contact for another company that would be willing to take on the job. (obviously give him the deposit back) I think this is easier now because you dont have a working relationship.

I have a feeling ill be fireing my customer after this project is completed, the straw that broke the camels back for me was one of the last conversations i had with the guy he near demanded that if i was going to do the work in his house that i needed to provide my cost so he knows im not ripping him off. (even after completing work previously 2 weeks before) I also explained to him that im a small business and need to cover the overhead. After this he finally got it and has been behaving him self but im still urked about him. he tried to beat me over the head with a 2x4 over price, i stood my ground and didnt budge.

I really hate super rich people and how the treat people sometimes. i swear its like a game to them to see how far they can push service providers around.

What angered me most, was while I was there he had an estimate from a landscape company, didn't budge, wrote them a check for the full amount. About 20 minutes or so later a fence guy comes out, does a quick estimate, and the customer sets up a date for install with me in the other room without even asking about the price. Me though, he is trying to nickel and dime. It's obvious he doesn't value what I do and I'd prefer to not work for a customer like that.

dude, that's not half as bad as what my customer put me through. Basically sat down with another estimate for this room (AFTER I FINISHED THE PREVIOUS ROOM) and was willing to go with another contractor because he was $199 less then I was. I didn't realize it until that point because we were working way down the hall but WHILE WE WERE THERE he had another company come out and do a site survey for this room.

I would of loved to of seen the guys face that pulled up and saw our van in the driveway, he had to off been scratching his head on that one.

He literally was going to let me go after i proved my self in the first room on how great of job we did over that amount. That was also the same conversion where he wanted to see what my margins were.

Err just typing this out makes me want to email the guy and say its time to part ways. To these people landscaping/fence is a neccesity and you cant go down to wally world/best buy and pick up the parts. we are a luxury based business and for the clients that dont see what we do as a necessity and have zero concept of what we do and how we stay in business can be the absolute worst to deal with. I would call him up and professionally explain the situation and that its time to part ways. Also let him know that because he purchased half the parts already that you would have to raise your labor rates to cover the cost of doing this job. Give him the small businness speech, once you put this in perspective most **in their right mind** will understand. this type of client will always cost you more in the long run...

Sticking to your pricing sometimes resolves things. I had a customer who would not learn what I explained to him each time he'd call. He'd push buttons while the macros were still firing, Comcast cable boxes were causing problems, etc.

He would never call me out for a service call, but wasted two hours of my time on the phone over many phone calls.

Finally on a Friday about 6:30 pm, he leaves a voice mail to come out because his housekeeper knocked over some equipment. By Sat morning, in his impatience, he hired a novice from another AV company for a service call.

Two weeks later, the kid is on the phone asking me how to change the programming on the remote. I told him if he has taken over the account, he should know how to program the remote.

Sometimes, cheap people waste your time. Identify when they are a harmful client and stick to your pricing. They will walk and you will be relieved.

How do you fire but also how can you decide when someone can be salvaged or turned around? How do you give this your best shot? I know, instinct, but for me things come too slowly and I'd like to understand more sooner.

This is a deep subject and I would like to see this thread cover a lot of this role of what we do: wearing the hat of the audio video politician. Perhaps there books on salesmanship that really touch on it: how to get some of these clients (who are still malleable in the minds and do not believe they know everything ) to understand we are trying to do a professional job and making design decisions in their best interest.

Is there a bibliography we could produce on deciphering psychological traits in people and deciding who is worth our time to attempt to influence. How can we break down and interpret what drives and motivates people?

The issues with people may not always be about money. The may not necessarily think we're "going for the jugular" but instead are designing a system that is more sophisticated than it needs to be. Multi-room audio is the big one for me. How do you convince those who have a hells chance that the more expensive design equals a simpler overall fixture, ie no in-wall volume controls but rather true multi-room and separate interactive interfaces for each zone? How do you convince people that less is more but not necessarily less expensive?

Just a side note -- is it an estimate or a quote? A quote is a fixed price and you're in trouble if you mix up those words.


Jerry (whatever his name is),
I made a proposal to you to provide you an audio/video system. You agreed that you would like to proceed based on my estimate. That included me supplying the receiver, speakers, and everything else in the estimate. Since you've purchased the items yourself, I see you don't want to proceed with the proposal I made. I'm soy to say that I agree with you, and here is your deposit back.

Maybe add this --
I wish we could have proceeded the way you agreed to proceed.


And lose money on him, while not serving other customers who will agree to do something and then do what they have agreed to... making you some money in the process.

What I'm getting at here is that you don't just lose money with him if you work with him, you lose money and momentum from the other clients you would be working for if you weren't screwing yourself with this dweeb.

While I've always been able to win over the client in situations like this,I can see why you want to bail on them.

Keep it tactful while you explain that they may wish to hire a lower caliber installation firm to complete their project judging from their input if cost is the main priority.

Ernie said it best, leave the dweeb. Focus on the good customers and kick the bad ones to the curb.

Ernie has it just about right....


Credit his CC and let him know that it just isn't going to work out, and let him, and the end user, know that you're disappointed he didn't follow through as he agreed.



Maybe ask the end user, who is the actual client, if they would like to deal directly with you. The GC will probably go ballistic, but who cares?

I have two rules I always follow; And if the answer is yes to both then I fire them.

If the customer is a pain in the ass before I even get started on a project it's only gonna worse.

I listen to my gut, it's rarely wrong. If it says fire them I fire them.

I like what Ernie said.

I always want to get mad at the customer or say something negative about him being cheap, but that only makes things worse.

I keep it short, sweet, and to the point and remain positive. And if they ask why? I say that my time is valuable and that our jobs need to maintain a certain level of profitability and integrity. The profit that we make on the products we sell helps to cover the costs of the system design, our training, experience, trucks, insurance, and the general costs of operating a business. And more importantly being able to back up the systems that we install. Not only now, but five years from now.

If you want the job done "the right way" and value a high level of service than we're your guys. If that's not important to you than I'm sorry but we are going to have to pass on your project. Blah blah blah good luck and sorry we couldn't work things out.

I actually saved a project after having this conversation, the customer did a complete u-turn.

Good luck man.

I think a very well worded letter, to include Ernie's verbiage and Matt's reason why, with the returned deposit, is the best option at this point.

What can be done to avoid the problem to begin with? I think it's been discussed many times.

Use protected lines, don't itemize, and/or increase installation costs - don't rely on points. Sell your service and expertise. Clients will gladly pay for expertise but don't want to swallow hardware markups.

Unfortunately, not all customers value service, and simply value their dollar. Explaining to these types of customers the importance of maintaining a profitable level will often times change nothing. I hate to categorize, but there is a certain nationality that I avoid working for. 99% of these potential customers have not shown any interest in service or my ability to make a profit to offer a level of service. They simply want it done cheap with as many freebies thrown in. It's frustrating to deal with them, and I have found it just better to quote them way out of the ballpark over the phone rather than waste my time. I learned to go with my gut after dealing with one of these people I am referring to above. After he whipped out his iPad and shopped stuff right in front of me, and I did not walk out. We did the job, he bought some stuff from me, purchased his DLP online, and it was delayed a couple weeks pushing me off schedule. The major problem I had with him was with an instance after we installed ceiling speakers. It was a finished room with a soffit running that we were able to blindly snake the wires. Very clean job. It took a while to do of course. The front, right ceiling speaker was 1/16" closer to the center than the front, left speaker. He refused to pay and wanted me to pay to have the entire ceiling patched and painted. What he didn't tell me, and the contractor did, is that their plan was to create a coffered ceiling with wood panels. He was simply trying to get me to cut him a check. He was the first customer I ever fired.

I would have a sit-down with him and explain that a quote can only be given once the system requirements have been defined and won't change. If he keeps changing the requirements, you can't give a quote but let him know that any changes after the quote has been accepted will be accompanied by a change order fee because of the expense to you. This is how it works in construction and we should be doing it the same way. Also, tell him that using his equipment removes the performance of that equipment from your control and that you won't be responsible for it, even if it is the same brands/models you specified. Further, tell him that, by his supplying some of the equipment, it changes your price because you have the ability to modify his price, based on how much he buys from you. Think of it as a "quantity discount", if you want. Don't discount your labor- that's not a commodity.

Honestly, this all falls under the stage of qualifying the customer, which needs to come before anything else. The budget is a major part of this stage and if he is vague about the budget in the beginning, you needed to tell him that you can't do a quote until he's willing to be more specific. You also need to make him understand that by slashing the budget, he'll lose the kinds of controls that would make the system a lot easier to control or, at least, less annoying. Having to walk a long distance just to turn a speaker down a little is not going to make him happy, even if it meets his budget.

I'd ask why he paid the others their full amount, when they make more on the job than you do. I have asked some customers why they have chosen to insult me and they usually didn't see it that way, at all.