Customer Won't Pay ?

[All Round Cleaning]

If a customer won't pay I suggest sending them one of these !

For the sake of £2 which of course you will add to the bill and other costs I would reccomend

Sending them one of these letters , I have heard of people having great success through this route .

http://www.thomashiggins.com

Although it says it's for business to business it still works with joe public .

 

[laddergarder]

You could send them one yourself, threatening court action, but I don't think it would be perceived too well. Especially if its for a fiver, and its an old pensioner or vulnerable member of the public. You could end up looking like the bad guy in it. My advice would be, don't waste any more time or money on them.

 

[All Round Cleaning]

Your getting the wrong end of the stick here fella .

I'm talking about the people who won't pay , obviously people need to use a bit of common sense .

Any way if I have done a job for someone I expect to get paid regardless of if it's £10 or £100 my time is my money

If they won't pay they will get one of these .

At the moment I'm runnin round chasing debts from customers where I have called several times for £10 I've worked for it so I want it .

 

[WindyCleanerMan]

Here here, No longer a user, I agree with you there, if its a genuine I cant pay then i'll give benefit of the doubt, but in cases like gmeister has just had I agree 100%

 

[Extremecleansussex]

I don't get stressed about it, if the customer doesn't pay I just don't go back. I don't worry about the money, life's too short!

 

[All Round Cleaning]

I don't get stressed about it, if the customer doesn't pay I just don't go back. I don't worry about the money, life's too short!

Yeah it's ok saying that when you have an established round but when you have been running for 6 months and %25 of your customers don't pay on time it's bloody hard work and it's annoying .

It's ok if your making 2k a week your not going to miss £50 here and there but for guys like me where I'm earning £1k a month , £200 outstanding is a lot of money .

 

[laddergarder]

Its not that I am getting the wrong end the stick. I can think of one job I did recently, big house, £30 was a bit of an irregular payer, anyway never paid two months in a row. So I invoiced them, and it states on it that there account will be on hold until the amount is paid. That's all the time and energy I give it. Its just not profitable, to spend money and time chasing customers that have no intention of paying you. Its just better to drop them and move on.

 

[All Round Cleaning]

But as I've said above every penny counts when you are small time .

Last month I was owed £600 out of my months money now if I didn't get that money I wouldn't be in business would I .

It's ok when you have 300 or 400 customers and 2 vans or 3 vans on the road you can afford to write off the odd £10 £20 off .

It's us little fish who struggle when people owe us money .

I'm sure you have been there when you started out if not then lucky you .

There are people out there who this will help a great deal and then there are people like you who obviously couldn't give a ****

If they got paid or not .

I unfortunately are not one of the latter .

 

[Squeak and Bubbles]

To be honest I know were your coming from. Before I start any job I have all the contact details from the customer, if they don't pay (as they get a receipt) once I have done a clean. They have 7 days to pay, then I send them a text "saying we are chasing payment". If I don't hear from them or they don't pay in another 5 days, then I text and say, "If payment isn't received in the next 3 days, we will give all your information to our debt collecting agency who will collect the funds". I promise this works a teat, and never ever failed.

 

[rcproperty]

I just sent my own letter/ invoices giving them 2weeks between each one, then the one before the threat with court action there is a £5 late payment charge added.

 

[Extremecleansussex]

But as I've said above every penny counts when you are small time .
Last month I was owed £600 out of my months money now if I didn't get that money I wouldn't be in business would I .

It's ok when you have 300 or 400 customers and 2 vans or 3 vans on the road you can afford to write off the odd £10 £20 off .

It's us little fish who struggle when people owe us money .

I'm sure you have been there when you started out if not then lucky you .

There are people out there who this will help a great deal and then there are people like you who obviously couldn't give a ****

If they got paid or not .

I unfortunately are not one of the latter .

When I first started I had exactly the same opinion as I have now. I'd rather spend my time finding good paying customers than constantly chasing up bad payers. Just drop them and move on.

Having said that I give my customers 3 cleans and then a reminder before dropping them and drop very few. Expecting to get paid on time every time usually means you're asking for trouble.

Also I look at my work done only as time until the money is in my hand so I'm not spending any time fretting about all the money I'm owed. It's just the way I deal with it and there's always more doors to knock on to earn more money!

 

[Extremecleansussex]

Yeah it's ok saying that when you have an established round but when you have been running for 6 months and %25 of your customers don't pay on time it's bloody hard work and it's annoying .

It's ok if your making 2k a week your not going to miss £50 here and there but for guys like me where I'm earning £1k a month , £200 outstanding is a lot of money .

At any one time I'm owed between 25% and 35% of my average monthly takings. It's the way the business works and by living with it for a month you'll find that your outstanding payments doesn't double in the second month, it evens itself out. So you'll have some new customers getting behind and some that we're behind paying up to date leaving you about even for the month.

 

[rcproperty]

I'm only ever in debt for a week after each clean as that's the time it takes some people to pay via bank transfer, at this point I'm only owed about £40

 

[harunh]

Im owed 200 kwid out of 1100 takings,,,,,,, its normal u cant expect every 1 to be at home, plus the people who mess about i just take them off... I toke 1 off yesterday but replaced with another today so not bad

 

[david247]

all i can say if you want regular money get some agency work.

your started up a company thats targeting people that servicing there homes just like a phone bill its never paid on time look at virgin if every one paid MR branson would have brought Ireland. /emoticons/tongue.png

you need to chill Rome wasn't built in a day.

also det collecting agencys isnt a way to go.

1) you dont have a contract.

2) if you have word of mouth its called hearsay

3) you need evidence that you been to the property the more info the more that judge will grant a order against the accused

so its realy is upto you.

 

[harunh]

all i can say if you want regular money get some agency work.

your started up a company thats targeting people that servicing there homes just like a phone bill its never paid on time look at virgin if every one paid MR branson would have brought Ireland. /emoticons/tongue.png

you need to chill Rome wasn't built in a day.

also det collecting agencys isnt a way to go.

1) you dont have a contract.

2) if you have word of mouth its called hearsay

3) you need evidence that you been to the property the more info the more that judge will grant a order against the accused

so its realy is upto you.

well said /emoticons/smile.png

 

[david247]

well said /emoticons/smile.png

hahah about time i said something right

 

[harunh]

Window cleaners who make about 6 grand per month have 1 grand in debts owed easily /emoticons/smile.png , whatever you earn take 20% of it and dont let it go over

 

[david247]

well iv learned that dont always expect to have money on time and if your thinking its guaranteed money its a wrong way to think as well.

what happens if some one dies or have there been a fire or there was an emergency or they went bankrupt ????

money in this industry is not guaranteed, as your a relay small company you to think about losses of up 75% per week and you should aslo no that the basic minimum to live on and then multiply that x2 thats how many customers you need just to brake even.