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Price rise after 5 yrs.

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89
Location
Lurgan
After 5 yrs of cleaning windows decided to price rise a few houses this particular customer sent me this text today after I sent the following. 

Dear customer price rise from £6 - £7 from July any queries let me know thanks. 

His response was actually funny but also borderline bullying your thoughts guys?

"No queries with that at all mate but def a prob with it..thats a rise of over 16%..not happening for me..my neighbours get theres done for £5.50 by traditional method which still gets the windows cleaned..so your choice to keep cost at £6 for me no matter wat or... happy wiping!!
New vans and fancy filtration dont cut it?"

 
After 5 yrs of cleaning windows decided to price rise a few houses this particular customer sent me this text today after I sent the following. 

Dear customer price rise from £6 - £7 from July any queries let me know thanks. 

His response was actually funny but also borderline bullying your thoughts guys?

"No queries with that at all mate but def a prob with it..thats a rise of over 16%..not happening for me..my neighbours get theres done for £5.50 by traditional method which still gets the windows cleaned..so your choice to keep cost at £6 for me no matter wat or... happy wiping!!
New vans and fancy filtration dont cut it?"
Only one word required, goodbye 

 
This very much depends on your financial circumstances,  my reply. It actually equates to 3% per annum but to save putting them up every year I wait till it's a round number. This has cost me money over the last 5 years and I very much doubt you haven't had a pay rise in this time. Good luck with the traditional window cleaner, I hope he is as good and as reliable as I've been. Regards

 
This very much depends on your financial circumstances,  my reply. It actually equates to 3% per annum but to save putting them up every year I wait till it's a round number. This has cost me money over the last 5 years and I very much doubt you haven't had a pay rise in this time. Good luck with the traditional window cleaner, I hope he is as good and as reliable as I've been. Regards
Luckily I'm doing good but even when I needed the work I wouldn't have backed down on that text

Ciaran?????
Hope that's approval ?

 
Dont like losing a customer but will sleep good tonight noing I did the right thing?




I don’t know how many customers you have but people with this type of attitude you can well do without, dump and move on ,it takes many years to refine a round and get rid of the dross , onwards and upwards 

 
I don’t know how many customers you have but people with this type of attitude you can well do without, dump and move on ,it takes many years to refine a round and get rid of the dross , onwards and upwards 
10 customer's or 10,000 I'd rather have nothing than that attitude from a customer.

 
The last 10 days I have removed a couple of clients but added 6 new ones honestly the last year I have culled many, especially the ones that think we are subhuman the fella sound like he think's he is super human giving you increase percentage from this month price to next month without considering the last 5 years service you have provided (you must have done a good job btw) as he sounds like he would have been on your case otherwise., honestly I have a couple  jobs that are underpriced but they are really nice people and got me a tonne of work, people with that attitude can go a jump as far as I'm concerned. 

 
After 5 yrs of cleaning windows decided to price rise a few houses this particular customer sent me this text today after I sent the following. 

Dear customer price rise from £6 - £7 from July any queries let me know thanks. 

His response was actually funny but also borderline bullying your thoughts guys?

"No queries with that at all mate but def a prob with it..thats a rise of over 16%..not happening for me..my neighbours get theres done for £5.50 by traditional method which still gets the windows cleaned..so your choice to keep cost at £6 for me no matter wat or... happy wiping!!
New vans and fancy filtration dont cut it?"
I found this funny as he isn't bothered why the increase has to be made although he is smart enough to realise it's a 16% increase, he simply wants the cheapest price, 5 years in between price increases is way to long 50p to £1 increase every 1-2 years on houses until you feel you've increased as much as you can that's my plan but I know I will hit a wall at some point and have to increase the time frame between rises on some. 

 
After 5 yrs of cleaning windows decided to price rise a few houses this particular customer sent me this text today after I sent the following. 

Dear customer price rise from £6 - £7 from July any queries let me know thanks. 

His response was actually funny but also borderline bullying your thoughts guys?

"No queries with that at all mate but def a prob with it..thats a rise of over 16%..not happening for me..my neighbours get theres done for £5.50 by traditional method which still gets the windows cleaned..so your choice to keep cost at £6 for me no matter wat or... happy wiping!!
New vans and fancy filtration dont cut it?"


Normally I am polite with people that leave for whatever reason and just say thanks for your past custom if we can help you in the future please get in touch. But this guy would annoy me with his stupid comments. My response would be a dig like this.... thanks for your message although all my other customers have been happy with my minimal price rise I completely understand not all can afford to pay slightly more and need to go with someone cheaper. All the best

 
I hadn't put my prices up in 4 years. So I put all monthlies up £2. Got to this one customer who was an absolute helmet. When I told him about the rise his reply was, 'I don't want to pay that for my windows'. Fair enough mate, bye bye. Sure enough 3 months later he comes out while I'm doing the neighbours all smiley, 'can you start mine again mate I've tried doing them myself but they're a right chew on''. To which I replied, 'sorry mate you've been replaced and I'm not taking on'. Soon wiped the smile off his face as he slunk back into the house. D**khead people (I'll not even call them customers) can do one. No one needs that in their life.

 
£2 for some reason is bit much for some, I did a £1.50 increase today that I had always forgotten to raise, but it had been 3 years and his reply was well we will see how it goes, I doubt I'll lose it as they have been on my rounds for over 12 years. 

 
Back in April, I put the rest of my prices up (put half of my customers up last April). Put everyone up £5 and the jobs that are over £50 went up by £10. Only lost one so far, which is strange as I was charging her £45 for the last 5 years and told her it was going up to £50. Had a text saying that it was a big price increase but also told me that her old window cleaner used to charge her £80 for the same frequency. I'd be surprised if she found anybody willing to do it for less than £60.

Moral of the story - don't be afraid to put your prices up. All of our bills go up each year, so why shouldn't the window cleaning?

 
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After 5 yrs of cleaning windows decided to price rise a few houses this particular customer sent me this text today after I sent the following. 

Dear customer price rise from £6 - £7 from July any queries let me know thanks. 

His response was actually funny but also borderline bullying your thoughts guys?

"No queries with that at all mate but def a prob with it..thats a rise of over 16%..not happening for me..my neighbours get theres done for £5.50 by traditional method which still gets the windows cleaned..so your choice to keep cost at £6 for me no matter wat or... happy wiping!!
New vans and fancy filtration dont cut it?"
id just reply.......its not my ambition to be the cheapest window cleaner in the area!good luck with your new cleaner!

ive had it myself....dont worry about it.....its a fair rise considering no price hikes for 5 years......

i had one  around 5 years ago,id cleaned his windows for 15 years+....ive put my prices up twice since he sacked me....he was always commenting on my van,fancy equipment,etc.......honestly some people dont like to see you doing TOO well esp being a window cleaner!(its only over the last 9 years ive started to make decent money,the 17 years before that i was just getting by most of the time)

SOD EM.......it wont affect your round,earnings anyway as most customers will accept your rise...?

 
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I've said it a dozen times. Once a year 50p per job when the budget get announced.  Like everything. You have to train customers. Get them used to it.  

Say you got 300 customers and toy do a 50p bump you have an increase of £150.00 

5 customers on say £15 say they won't  stand for it and drop you you just lost £75.00 of business but you are still £75.00 per month better off with 5 extra slots available for decent paying customers.  

All in £900 per year better off before those 5 have been replaced.  Now you replace them with 5 jobs at £16 that's another £960 per year

All in a 50p pay increase every year sees you better off by over £1800 per year.  Not bad for the sake of a 50p piece right? 

 
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