Can you imagine trying to run your business without email?
It would be possible, but a lot more awkward. You would need to use snail mail more often, which is slow and expensive. Many of the people you know have Facebook accounts, so you could ask them to “friend” you, allowing you to send them messages quickly. Of course, some of these people don’t use Facebook much when they are at work and other business contacts of yours hardly use it at all. (You can join me on Facebook here!)
So, whilst there are ways to lessen the impact of having no email, it would cause a lot of disruption and your business would be far worse off for the lack of email access.
THAT is how you need your clients to feel, about losing you as a service provider!
The service you provide should be solving a significant problem for your clients and their business AND be extremely hard to replace. Offering that kind of uniquely valuable service, means it makes no sense for your clients to leave you.
The question you need to ask and answer on a regular basis is:
How hard would it be right now, for my clients to replace me?
If they could get a similar service for a similar fee elsewhere; you need to work on developing unique value as soon as possible. This means using your creativity to differentiate yourself, based on value – Not just being different for the sake of it.
Never let a week go by, without thinking at least once about ways to pump as much value into your services as possible.