[henrygabby]

I think I am following your question but can you clarify if what you mean is if: I take a portion of the proceeds to send customers gifts, take them out to dinners, etc to ensure the relationship remains strong? If so, then not really. Usually these clients just want smooth problem free services. I am working with him on holiday gifting ideas but that's really the extent of it. I also incur some expenses such as marketing costs, software, etc but it is pretty nominal. In summary, clients just want the teams to show up, do a good job, not break anything, listen to special requests, execute those special requests, and rinse wash repeat.

[busterarm]

No, I meant if you need to discount or give them service gratis to smooth over an unhappy customer.

In a former life I was a support drone. Days were full of us taking calls from abusive a-holes who just wanted to get over on someone and also people who had legitimate grievances and deserved relief. We typically weren't empowered to do anything about either of them.

[henrygabby]

Ah, no, never had to do that. There are cases sometimes when the janitorial staff breaks say a light fixture. What we've found is that immediate and direct communication about what happened, how it happened, what will be done to prevent it from happening again, and how we're going to fix is usually is well received and the partner compensates/credits them for the damage. Of course the invoice amount is smaller for the "repair" so therefore my scrape is less. I've tried to explain to my partner that there is a very select type of client he wants and he for the most part has received it well. The larger industrial type facilities are better than the smaller in my experience.