Do you create a contract for businesses

[Guest]

Do you make businesses sign a contract, I.e., we come one a month, any weather, cost, payment etc and if want to cancel two months notice for example and on-going contact.

I am not talking for the £10 shop or £20 small business building but rather the bigger jobs like £200-300 per month business jobs which would have a impact of your business if you lost the customer.

I think a contract gives a more professional image and job security knowing they have to give notice to cancel you and cant dump you quickly.. I know people say reputation is key. But I had a issue recently where I did a business the lady left and new lady started and because she didn't know anything about it, she wouldn't let me do it, where as if they had a contact in place, that problem would no longer matter, you just turn up do the job and go...

Just a really simple basic contract, would it be hard to get them to sign it?

Any advice would be great?

 

[Jake]

I often wonder the same thing mate, be interesting to hear from those that do contracts..

 

[Guest]

its something I wanted to do for a while, but didn't want to scare the customer away...

 

[Tuffers]

I see you're a supplier @Roy. What do you sell?

 

[Smurf]

I think service contracts are not worth the paper they are written on myself.

I also would not want to sign one either if a company insisted.

 

[Gavin]

I never did contracts for domestic or commercial stuff. What I did do though was a sort of customer agreement.

It was just a one pager with tick box for how often a clean was agreed, how much price wise we agreed. Their address and contact details and a little disclaimer about things like we do clean in the rain and does not affect the clean. The day/date we clean may not be for example exactly one month due to weather or other circumstances pushing jobs back. Think that was about it. Oh also how to pay with different options.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

[Guest]

Couple of things I do know seen I started this thread, which seem to help: quote by email and make them accept by email - that way you can prove they accepted job and price and then send invoice to email. Also try to talk to a few different people at the business so if the person you are dealing with leaves - others remember you.

Talk to people approach seems to work well when its small jobs, shops, restaurants, etc. If the main man leaves and is replaced some else remembers you an says hes our window cleaner.

Quote by email - works well for those which say yes x amount is okay and once the job is done forgot about you. You can write a email then you accepted quote to pay x amount for job after job. That solves that normally

I found most wont do a contract. scares them. If they like you they ask you to come back.