You are more than welcome to come out with us any time but it’s a long way down from ware you are ??? we dont wipe sills down , but first cleans we take our time with making sure they are 100% right all subsequent cleans are then a doodle . Most of our work is very compact this makes a huge difference to speed we have roads ware we do evert house in the road . I hate to say it as some will laugh but hot water makes a big difference speed wise as well , having the van set up right , routes logically planed , all add to an efficient set up . All my guys are conscientious and work hard not sitting in the vans drinking tea or on there phones again this makes a big difference to productivity.
I don’t class our operation is anything special just well organised for maximum volume of work in the shortest time that’s all , I don’t think we do anything that others cannot do it’s just a logical way to run a business as far as Ime concerned
I agree offering 12 weekly is daft in most cases but can be acceptable for some bigger jobs. But there's nothing wrong with offering 6 weekly for a slightly higher charge. In fact, it's more lucrative than offering a lower price for 4 weekly.
i have a lot more jobs than you(and quite a lot of larger ones too)and work part time hours with weekends off..........i worked in the rain for 5 hours today and picked up 2 new jobs!in fact ive picked up 12 new jobs now in the last 2 weeks without even trying!....
This has been a burning question for me. Do you work in 50mph winds like they've forecast the next couple of days. I mean, I know its possible but surely its a little impractical if cleaning attached or terraced houses. Ya know like spray going all over the place onto neighbours windows, cars etc. Rain doesn't bother me but I'm not sure about high winds ?
High winds is really a no no it blows the water off the sills onto the glass, and it’s windy conditions that make windiws dirty more than rain , we couldn’t work today and doubt we will tomorrow either due to height winds and doing costal work ????
So working this out you get 8.6 cleans a year from a 6 weekly customer, and 12 cleans a year from a monthly customer. If the monthly customer is say £10 you would have to charge that same customer nearly 50% more to make a small profit and have a much more confusing rota. Just to break even on that customers annual pay with the business you would have to charge £14 for the equivalent of £10 monthly. I may be wrong but seems easier on all levels to do a nice monthly clean then this? And if I was a customer I would rather have a monthly clean then pay the same amount over the year to have less cleans?
its often not as bad as they forecast.......if it is 50 mph winds then even i will sack the day off.....i doubt itll be that windy though.....
Say you charge £10 per month for one customer. That's £30 per quarter.
Yea I agree and I think sometimes it's only high up exposed areas that feel the full strength, obviously. Anywhere below sea level or sheltered towns and it just feels like a normal windy day
That's true but when I was a customer and my window cleaner used to clean my windows every 4 weeks, I got fed up with seeing him so often and cleaning my clean windows. Still, he cleaned my windows for 15 years without any cancellations etc! There are not many customers out there believe in the "you pay me to keep the windows cleaned" rather than "I pay you to clean my dirty windows".
As you say there is no right or wrong , I want to earn the maximum amount of money in the shortest possible time and give my customers a reliable value for money service so all parties are happy 4 weekly work does that for us , plus with our costal work 4 weekly cleans are vital due to salty windows , again I think it’s an area thing the majority ask for monthly cleans down hear and we are happy to do it ???
You are long established with plenty of customers so I couldn't possibly disagree with you ? I think Cornwall is quite an affluent area too so most are happy to pay for 4 weekly, especially with the sea air. I find most of my customers are not keen on 4 weekly so I don't offer it anymore.
When I started I offered 4 weekly as that was what the only other one window cleaner in my town did , it wasn’t a planed thing , but looking back I feel it was the right choice. We get a lot of new customers moving down from , London, Surrey , midlands all seam to ask for monthly apart from the ones from the midlands who ask for fortnightly , I always say try 4 weekly and if you arnt happy we can do them fortnightly so far all have stayed monthly , we will do 8 weekly at a higher price but the vast majority go for monthly , the exceptions that go for 8 weekly are jobs ranging from £60-200 on domestic houses , that amount to clean windiws to me is astronomical but to them as multi millionaires I doubt it’s much .
You don't sound like a *** and it's a fair question. So I probably have in total now about 280 customers. But I work by myself and the houses in my village are pretty big and can get really big. So yeh I may say I charge £10 for a normal semi but alot of my houses here are 5 bed detached with conservatory's that take me on my own 30--40 mins and I charge accordingly. So I actually tend to sit at around a comfortable 10 jobs a day. Also these houses are what I refer to as back breakers ?, I have to bend like a circus act to reach some windows . So the chance of doing 20-25 houses a day just isn't possible. Also I do gutter cleaning and Conny roofs on a Saturday morning and booked up for next 6 weeks so I'm honestly not really needing as much work as I've got. Look at today for example I'll be lucky to get 3 houses done today, really really windy and throwing it down. And now I have to catch them back up again with just a single person .
