When Should You Fire a Customer?

The Cost of the Wrong Customer

If you have users who are disengaged, rarely use your product, and are unprofitable — should you keep them around? No. They are consuming time and attention that could go to customers who love your product and drive real revenue.

There are several reasons to cut ties with the wrong customers:

• They give you bad data. If a disengaged user's behaviour is shaping your roadmap, you are building for the wrong person
• They create noise in your metrics, making it harder to see what is actually working
• They are usually the most demanding. The people paying the least money are often the most needy and have the most complaints

Questions to Ask Before Firing a Customer

• Do you know when to cut bait with disengaged users?
• Has your ideal customer profile shifted as your product has evolved?
• Should you change the product to increase their engagement — or is this simply not the right customer?
• Are you prepared to tell a paying customer: "We're not for you"?
• How do you manage the relationship transition?
• Is it better to actively fire them, or let them continue knowing they may churn anyway?

In most cases, a clean exit is better. A customer limping along with a bad experience will eventually churn — and may leave a negative review or word-of-mouth trail on the way out.

The Superhuman Model

Superhuman takes this to its logical extreme: they fire potential customers before they are even onboarded.

If a user does not fit the specific profile of an ideal customer during the screening process, they are not brought on at all. This is only possible because Superhuman understands their ICP so precisely that they can make the call upfront — before any support cost, churn risk, or misaligned feedback is incurred.

The goal is not to be exclusionary for its own sake. It is to protect the quality of your product, your data, and your team's focus.