Instead, he called them and notified them that we were no longer able to service the account. Even though they generated several thousand dollars in revenue of month, his explanation was simple: It wasn’t worth it.

After finding someone new to support them, the customer realized that they had been getting great service all along, and attempted on several occasions to convince my boss to ‘hire’ them back as customers, to no avail. It just shows that while the majority of responsibility in the buyer-seller relationship lies with the seller, there are things that the buyer should so to make it worth it to the seller. In your case, the buyer didn’t so I fully agree with your decision not to sell to them anymore.

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@ MLR: We’ve done the same thing with a few customers in our business. A lot of our business is custom designing for special events, and customers email us to discuss having something made just for them. Most people are nice to work with, but we get an occasional very nitpicky, difficult (and sometimes rude) one who won’t give us the information we need or measure their own pet or horse, which makes it impossible for us to properly do our job. So we quote them a higher price than we otherwise would, hoping they’ll just go away. (We jokingly call this an “annoyance fee” in private conversation.)

I painted houses in college.

I turned away customers that talked about past contractors they had issues with. I would ask what kinds of issues. As soon as I realized they were nitpicky and hard to deal with, I would give them an estimate for 30% more than I would have. Most didn’t book, but a few did. Even for the 30% I don’t know if it was really worth it to work on those people’s houses.

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People would come in and sign up for a Radio Shack credit card and buy a big TV or stero on Friday then they would return it for a full refund on Monday. At the time there was no restocking fee or store credits and many customers abused the policy. I’m sure the company would have been more profitable by turning those customers away.

Now as a data modeler I have build customer segmentation models for the express purpose of isolating customers who cost more than they are worth. Once identified it is a matter of changing policies so that they are not encouraged to do business with my clients anymore.

You are in business to make money, you made the right decision.