El Sombrero
Well-known member
- Messages
- 51
- Location
- Cheshire
I give my customers two options with regards to payment: cash at the point of clean only and GoCardless. Being relatively new I wanted to cut the faff from the start, but allowing customers to pay cash was an oversight in this context, especially now at this time of year.
I text all customers the evening before and remind those paying by cash to leave it in the usual/safe place. However, the past couple of weeks a LOT of my cash customers are suddenly forgetting to pay, but strangely gates are usually left unbolted (Coincidence? Me thinks not)! For example, I had six customers this morning, 3 on GC, 3 on cash who failed to leave money out despite my text yesterday evening.
Now, I have a one strike policy with most cash customers, if they forget/fail to pay then the only way they can continue with my service is by signing up to GC, as far as I'm concerned I can't trust them to pay cash. I do make customers aware of this when they sign up.
Also, customers that haven't stumped up by 21 days get a £3 late payment fee slapped on to their bill, plus £3 for any subsequent weeks thereafter. I haven't implemented this policy yet, but it's an option to get what I'm owed.
The question is am I being too harsh or not harsh enough? I don't want to lose customers especially at this stage of development where every £ counts and you've got kids to feed, but on the flip side I want to cut the **** out early on.
I text all customers the evening before and remind those paying by cash to leave it in the usual/safe place. However, the past couple of weeks a LOT of my cash customers are suddenly forgetting to pay, but strangely gates are usually left unbolted (Coincidence? Me thinks not)! For example, I had six customers this morning, 3 on GC, 3 on cash who failed to leave money out despite my text yesterday evening.
Now, I have a one strike policy with most cash customers, if they forget/fail to pay then the only way they can continue with my service is by signing up to GC, as far as I'm concerned I can't trust them to pay cash. I do make customers aware of this when they sign up.
Also, customers that haven't stumped up by 21 days get a £3 late payment fee slapped on to their bill, plus £3 for any subsequent weeks thereafter. I haven't implemented this policy yet, but it's an option to get what I'm owed.
The question is am I being too harsh or not harsh enough? I don't want to lose customers especially at this stage of development where every £ counts and you've got kids to feed, but on the flip side I want to cut the **** out early on.