Today I fired our first client. We had been dealing with them since 2003 (remember when you could get meetings by cold calling?) In that time we had done three technology refresh cycles where we provided the hardware, custom software and installation/training. We also provided on call support – in that time they had 1 day of downtime (caused by their freight provider).

Earlier this year their head office decided they wanted the system installed in a new site out of the blue and asked for a quote, which we provided.

Unbeknownst to me, they were working with another company to buy the same model of device from another vendor and decided to accept part of our quote (services) and buy the hardware elsewhere. The next I heard was an “urgent” demand to get everything installed and up and running (they were suddenly on a tight timeline).

I told my contact that this isn’t the way we worked – we are a systems provider and not a software agency. They responded that there was never an agreement to buy the hardware from us exclusively.

And they are right.

So today I flew to their offices and told them we would not do any more customisations and would instead help them to transition to a new vendor when they found one.

Personally I feel the loss. When I visit their office it is like seeing family since we’ve know each other so long. New management have no idea about favours done for their predecessors – goodwill has an expiry date (in one case because our contact at the company died).