Price INcreases the Right Way

How a bad experience with a supplier’s price increase helped make our experience with customers a positive one!

Earlier this year we had a price increase put upon us without notification or justification. When we tried to find out what was happening it was met with an abrupt and rude response. We were told that they were within their rights to increase their prices. The last point is arguable – (you can’t just do that without telling people and with no notice! When we pointed this out, we were told that they would terminate our service.

I was really surprised with the naivety of this approach. We were in a position to put more business the way of this supplier and had a live enquiry for them that was potentially worth way more than our contract. Needless to say, that opportunity didn’t go their way and we have also found an alternative supplier for ourselves since.

When I needed to increase the prices for a couple of our customers recently, I drew on this experience to inform our approach. Here is what I think are the key ingredients to getting it right.

1. Start from a Place of Fairness

Customers don’t expect prices to stay static forever. What they do expect is fairness. A fair price increase is one that is:

• Transparent: You’re open about the reasons and the timing.
• Consistent: It aligns with your market and past behaviour.
• Justified: The customer can understand why the increase is necessary

Before announcing a change, review how your increases compare to industry benchmarks and how you’ve communicated such changes in the past. Consistency builds trust.

2. Communicate Early and Clearly

Nobody likes surprises, especially when they affect budgets. Give customers ample notice — ideally 60–90 days — so they can plan and adjust.

Your message should:

• Lead with value, not cost: Remind them what your partnership delivers.
• Explain the why: Link the change to factors like inflation, investments, or service enhancements.
• Show the benefit: If you’ve improved delivery times, added new capabilities, or increased reliability, connect those dots explicitly.

Transparency and context help customers see your increase as reasonable rather than opportunistic.

3. Invite feedback

Organisations spend time trying to get customers to fill out surveys and let us know what they think of our services and yet often people hope they won’t react to price increases.

When customers feel you understand their position, they’re far more likely to accept yours. I was particularly keen to put myself in the customers position as we had a price increase handled really badly earlier in the year.

In Summary

In our case the price increase was purely an inflationary increase and reflects our own increased costs. Having checked the RPI inflation figure over the previous 2 years that we had been working with these customers, we only applied an increase of that amount. We gave plenty of notice and were clear about when the change would take place. In addition, we asked them to confirm if they were ok with the increase before applying it. After all if they weren’t, then something else must be wrong and I would want to know what it was. If it would have been difficult for our customer to afford then I would also want to know – sometimes we could be flexible.

In B2B relationships, fairness is the foundation of pricing trust. When customers understand that a price increase is rooted in shared success — not short-term profit — they’ll often respond with respect and even appreciation for the consultation.

Handled well, a price rise isn’t just an operational necessity; it’s a chance to reaffirm your commitment to partnership, transparency, and long-term value.

Questions?

If you have queries, please contact us – we are happy to answer any questions you may have.