Dead partnerships left “live” tax everyone: support, product, the partner page, your Monday review. Ending them is the job.
When to sunset
No owner on their side for a quarter. No active connections and no pipeline. A product change that kills the workflow. A competitor relationship you cannot hold. You already tried a revive with a date and it missed.
Order of operations
- Customers. Who is still connected. What they should do instead (export, another partner, a date the connector dies).
- Support. A macro. A date. No surprises for the person who picks up the ticket.
- The partner. A short email with the date and the reason. Not a novel.
- Listing and docs. Take them down on the date, not “when someone remembers.”
- CRM and website. Status = sunset. Remove the logo if it was only theatre.
The email
“We are ending the integration on [date] because [reason]. Customers have been told. If this changes on your side, write me. I am not going to keep a zombie listing.”
That is enough.
Revive vs sunset
If there is still pull and the only problem was a missing owner, try a revive with a written date. One try. If the date misses, sunset. Endless revive is how polite zombies are born.
You will feel rude. You are being clearer than 90% of partner managers. Customers prefer a date to a connector that fails silently.