Know-How Exchange : Other

Unless you have a few hundred clients, I would not use email for this. I'd either call (preferably) or send a letter.

I would also take the assumptive close here, which is not that you "hope" they don't mind, or that you "hope" they will continue to do work with you.

Just send a notice that says something like, "Well, we held the line as long as we could, but the price of everything keeps going up, so the following rates for service will go into effect April 1, 2008."

If you want to throw a sentence in there about how the price increase will allow you to keep providing the level of quality and service that they have come to expect, that may or may not be necessary.

And while you may think your costs have not gone up, your real income has certainly gone down if you are making the same amount of money today that you were three years ago. Your gas, food, utilities, etc., have all likely gone up, so you're really "making" less for yourself than you were.

The bottom line, though, is that I would not do this in an email unless you really have a compelling reason. Email is far too often used as an avoidance mechanism.

- Paul

I agree with the others. You should try to do it via mail, instead of email.

I would say something like "We pride ourselves in the high level of service we provide. In order to continue to provide you with the best products and services, our prices will be increasing as of ."

I would also put something like this somewhere in there: "We would like to thank you for being such a loyal customer...." Make sure they know you value them.

Lastly, depending on what your services are, maybe you can offer your most-dedicated customers a lock-in to the old rate for a certain period of time. Maybe offer them a pre-pay deal or something like that.