I was at a business clients yesterday. I started working on their network a few months ago and as of yet they have not signed on for a “maintenance contract” which typically I would of been upset with by now but if they do not seem to care I am not going to hound them about it. But, I will bill them for each and every minute I am on site or my technician(s) are on site.
Well yesterday was setup so the “old” computer person they had would come in and try to recover some old data that apparently only he and the owner knew about. They had been running a program to monitor all e-mail traffic and then log it into sql databases.
Well someone should of coordinated better due to the “old” server that had crashed was at another location for a “possible” data recovery job. But, that is the system the guy needed to see if he could get to the sql databases. I looked at the owner and said “well maybe you should of said something this week when I asked you twice if he needed the old server to be here”. So then the owner goes on about trying to recover from old tape backups etc. Old tape backup machine is not even hooked up to the new server. Finally I told the owner I was leaving, no time to guess at things and I don’t do work this way.
Well as i’m walking out the old tech was following me with a stack of papers. I asked what’s up and he said “I am going to leave these invoices on (person’s name left out) desk and hopefully they will get around to paying me. I said they still owe you money? He said ya, from jobs that were done months ago. I said really, they have paid on-time for each and every time we come here. He said they never did that with him and then I thought I misunderstood what he said….I looked at him and said “how much did you just say they owe you?”….He replied $6,000…..WOW….
I could not believe they owed him that much. But, more importantly I could not understand why in the world he would come there to help them. To this business those old files are “very very” important due to a law suite with an ex-partner…So they need this guy….I said to him “why in the world would you help them if they owe you that much money?”…His only answer was “some people think i’m crazy that way”….
Now I know this guy and have talked to him in the past, he actually is a good guy. He tried opening a store-front couple years ago but location was terrible and it didn’t work out. I know him to be a proficient tech….
Whole point of this is I can’t understand for the life of me how a business can allow a client to get 6K into them, and then still do work for them. Even if they are important customers (which all of them should be) nobody should allow their business to be put in this situation. Invoice your customer(s) and if you don’t receive payment in a timly manner pay them a visit. If you do it once you should not have to do it again.
5 Responses to “How Not To Do Business”
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January 18th, 2010 at 12:16 pm
I agree, we however, 1-invoice, no-pay, no more work, and we have systems in place where if they have Saas, etc, we notify of unpaid invoice and stuff starts getting shut down and placed in inoperability… not to damage or penalize the client, but to not incur more unneccessary billing for the client until it gets worked out…
Yeah… good reminder… recommendation…. 1 shot and move on… life does happen and people do forget… for us much of this is avoided by getting their credit card info up front…
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February 5th, 2010 at 2:58 pm
I have ran into similar problems, however, as long as I have some history with the client I am willing be flexible. We are in tough times right now and it never hurts to be human
February 19th, 2010 at 9:18 pm
I agree services rendered should be provided timely and with all due diligence. Then payment should be promptly provided afterward. I don’t blame you for cutting ties with such a company. Some people you just don’t want to work for. The Tech Angels of New Rochelle recently had a call from someone that wanted virus removal. They asked our fee. It was quoted. We always attempt to keep our pricing low but sufficient to maintain business. The caller said “Well (company name with held) offers to do it for $19.99. My computer already said it is the Trojan virus” And my response was “Proper removal of viruses requires identification and isolation of the virus. Trojan is a classification of virus and then proper removal techniques. I hope you receive the same service from (company name with held) that you would have received from us.” I was glad to hang up the phone. Not a client we need.
Tough times are indeed at hand. But we need to remember that our time and effort is precious as well. The customer is always right but sometimes they push us right out the door.
February 19th, 2010 at 11:23 pm
We to have encountered several companies that dont comply with their own pay schedule. Why they would think someone will continue to do work without being compensated for months. We had to have companies sign a contract stating the pay scale. You agree to pay in x amount of days, after x amount of days ( 5 days) your agree to pay the late fee, which increase every 10 days.
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