not today thankyou

[johnny bravo]

got to a customers house today. i could see he had just finished cleaning his expensive BMW
His Mrs comes out. Can you leave them today my hubbys just washed his car. I was gobsmacked WTF Heard it all now HaHa

 

[Iron Giant]

She'd have been told no doorstep cancellations for a poor excuse, I'd have still billed them

I had someone a clean cancel a few months ago she got her daughter to approach me in the street to tell me she was looking after a puppy, she still got billed for the full price and I got paid.

 

[P4dstar]

I would just say either "No problem, I'll cancel that job off for you" (for a permanent cancellation, someone I would never go back to) or "No problem, let me know when you next want them done" (for someone I would go back to on an adhoc basis but not add them back to the round) Absolutely non confrontational, no need to get into a long discussion until they next want them done...

What did you actually say or do though @johnny bravo

 

[dazmond]

I would dump...no question

I dumped 2 long standing customers a few months ago(30 years I've been cleaning their windows)because they kept skipping due to a bit of rain. They have always been bossy and moan a lot and I just thought I've had enough so dumped them both

 

[David K]

got to a customers house today. i could see he had just finished cleaning his expensive BMW
His Mrs comes out. Can you leave them today my hubbys just washed his car. I was gobsmacked WTF Heard it all now HaHa

I would have replied, “leave them forever!”

 

[Scrubsy]

got to a customers house today. i could see he had just finished cleaning his expensive BMW
His Mrs comes out. Can you leave them today my hubbys just washed his car. I was gobsmacked WTF Heard it all now HaHa

They'd be in the bin for me as well mate. Some people have no fathom of how it can mess your day up and that you're trying to earn a living. I had one postpone on Tuesday as "we are are away on holiday, can you come at a later date?". I said no problem. Later on Tuesday I was walking out of the shop on the high street and she walked in. She went absolutely bright red with embarrassment. I just said "oh, hello" and carried on. A couple of years ago I had the "it upsets the dog too much". The dog was an absolute pain in the a*se . He used to come out of a dog flap and thought nothing of trying to chew the pole hose or p*ss all over anything and everything. Felt sorry for him as obviously he didn't have enough care taken after him.

 

[Septimus Meek]

got to a customers house today. i could see he had just finished cleaning his expensive BMW
His Mrs comes out. Can you leave them today my hubbys just washed his car. I was gobsmacked WTF Heard it all now HaHa

Yes, we all get the silly excuses. What I do is not clean them again then usually after a few months they'll phone me up wondering where I've been. I'll reply that I thought they weren't keen on having them done anymore but didn't know how to tell me, which lets them know their excuse was a poor one. I find this acts as a sort of reset, the excuses stop or become much less frequent.

 

[johnny bravo]

it was a silly excuse not to clean them. its the 1st time . i was probably taken back by the excuse. she didnt hang about just said it and went straight in . happens again they are gone. if they want a 2 monthly clean the price will reflect it.

 

[Iron Giant]

it was a silly excuse not to clean them. its the 1st time . i was probably taken back by the excuse. she didnt hang about just said it and went straight in . happens again they are gone. if they want a 2 monthly clean the price will reflect it.

Based on this, I'd either drop her or skip the next clean and see what they say, being curt as she was and going back into the house isn't on in my books, it was a pish poor excuse it was foggy the next day so unless the car was garaged a few drops of water or overspray from you wouldn't have made any difference at all.

 

[tench0771]

I would dump it straight away and take on another house to replace it

 

[Chris34]

I had one that ended up cancelling during this week. It's an 8 weekly clean, a pensioner, really nice and always makes a brew with biscuits. When it was due she text me in advance saying 'leave my windows this time Chris, seen you in 8 weeks, thanks'.

She used to skip cleans when she was every 4 weeks and I lost her briefly when the price went from £25 to £30. She came back at 8 weekly for £35 and I said at the time that there cannot be skipped cleans.

For the last 18 months it's been fine until now... I text her that it's fine but the next clean would be £50. I said the reason being is that I have to reserve her slot and any missed cleans cannot be filled like that. I said the service is £30 every 4 weeks, £35 every 8 weeks and I don't actually do every 16 weeks but for her I will.

She was very abrupt and I think was pretty angry, she just said 'cancel my window clean then Chris'.

I did offer to discuss it with her in person but she wasn't interested. The next day I spoke with her neighbour also a customer who also didn't understand my point of view. She just said if you had agreed to just do it next time at the same price then she wouldn't have cancelled. I was thinking there is no point in trying to explain it.

The thing is... I'm not interested in a job that's going to bring in £100 per year. I worked out I would need 600 customers to bring in £60k per year if everyone did that... I'm not interested in managing that many for such little money.

I'm sick and tired of being flexible, coming back to do cleans when customers are away, building work delaying cleans... I'm super flexible but I have to draw the line. If I had accepted it then her neighbour would also have said please can you leave mine as well Chris and just do it next time, so I guarantee it would have had 2 skipped cleans in one go.

I'm now taking a hard line on skipped cleans like this, it's not often but I chucked one last year who eventually came back in touch asking me to do them this year for £40 and I just said it would now be £60 and it's payment up front every month via direct debit. He didn't agree to it, tried to get me to do it for the old rate but I just said it's 'take it or leave it, that's what I'm happy to clean for...' he left it and I wasn't one bit bothered in the slightest because he was always a pita.

 

[Chester64]

if someone says can you leave them this time, we always leave them the following time as well. When we are there next and they said why did you leave me out? I say really sorry but when you said miss a clean, we only keep a certain amount of customers on and have a waiting list to come onto our books. We took someone else on to replace you. We had a rich customer who likes to be texted the night before. He said the wife might be in if not leave them. So I replied ok I’ll take you off my rounds then in that case. He got pretty peed off ok do them but we’ll have to talk about it when I see you. So I gave him the only keep on certain amount line, and said got customers waiting to come on our rounds. Oh I see. Don’t miss me out then was his reply.

 

[Scrubsy]

@Chris34 I agree with you mate. After that time they are often like a first clean, so why should they pay the same as a customer who is regular and reliable? Not worth the hassle and the next window cleaner they mess about will also let them go. I had similar with a set of park homes I clean. One or two mess about with "oooh, not this time". One sent me a message saying she'd like to cancel as one of the windows was left smeary the last time. It was about 5 or 6 weeks before she said anything. They are the only 8 weekly jobs I do now and I looked through my diary and she'd missed every other clean, meaning she'd have them cleaned every 4 months. I said "sorry about that, if you'd let me know sooner I'd have come and re-cleaned the window, I'll take you off the round as I have checked and as you miss every other clean the are much dirtier than your neighbours and the price would have had to go up anyway". Next time I was there one of the neighbours said she'd had building work done and had complained that the builder had made the windows dirty a few weeks beforehand. Some people also have no fathom that it's your income and they are causing you problems by persistently chopping and changing and cancelling etc.

 

[Jaygti]

My tolerance for customers that are unreliable, was in inverse proportion to how many customers I had.
When I didn’t have enough customers I sucked it up as I needed the work and the money.
Whereas as soon as I had enough customers I wasn’t prepared to be messed around to much.
I don’t try and reason or argue with them , I’ve got better things to do. I just stop doing them.
I’ll give them a reason only if they contact me.

 

[Crystalalan]

Just two custys cancel for tomorrow. One said they are feeling the pinch a bit and could they skip this one. Really nice lady and the other custy said his dog gets nervous when he sees me and no one is there to calm him down so could he skip this one.
To be honest I`m quite happy about his I can get home earlier and put my feet up.

 

[Pjj]

Just two custys cancel for tomorrow. One said they are feeling the pinch a bit and could they skip this one. Really nice lady and the other custy said his dog gets nervous when he sees me and no one is there to calm him down so could he skip this one.
To be honest I`m quite happy about his I can get home earlier and put my feet up.

Reading this reminded me of a customer I had years ago it was a farm house and they had a collie she said the dog was so traumatised by us cleaning the windows it had only just recovered by the next visit 4 weeks later so she cancelled

 

[Septimus Meek]

I had one that ended up cancelling during this week. It's an 8 weekly clean, a pensioner, really nice and always makes a brew with biscuits. When it was due she text me in advance saying 'leave my windows this time Chris, seen you in 8 weeks, thanks'.

She used to skip cleans when she was every 4 weeks and I lost her briefly when the price went from £25 to £30. She came back at 8 weekly for £35 and I said at the time that there cannot be skipped cleans.

For the last 18 months it's been fine until now... I text her that it's fine but the next clean would be £50. I said the reason being is that I have to reserve her slot and any missed cleans cannot be filled like that. I said the service is £30 every 4 weeks, £35 every 8 weeks and I don't actually do every 16 weeks but for her I will.

She was very abrupt and I think was pretty angry, she just said 'cancel my window clean then Chris'.

I did offer to discuss it with her in person but she wasn't interested. The next day I spoke with her neighbour also a customer who also didn't understand my point of view. She just said if you had agreed to just do it next time at the same price then she wouldn't have cancelled. I was thinking there is no point in trying to explain it.

The thing is... I'm not interested in a job that's going to bring in £100 per year. I worked out I would need 600 customers to bring in £60k per year if everyone did that... I'm not interested in managing that many for such little money.

I'm sick and tired of being flexible, coming back to do cleans when customers are away, building work delaying cleans... I'm super flexible but I have to draw the line. If I had accepted it then her neighbour would also have said please can you leave mine as well Chris and just do it next time, so I guarantee it would have had 2 skipped cleans in one go.

I'm now taking a hard line on skipped cleans like this, it's not often but I chucked one last year who eventually came back in touch asking me to do them this year for £40 and I just said it would now be £60 and it's payment up front every month via direct debit. He didn't agree to it, tried to get me to do it for the old rate but I just said it's 'take it or leave it, that's what I'm happy to clean for...' he left it and I wasn't one bit bothered in the slightest because he was always

I had one that ended up cancelling during this week. It's an 8 weekly clean, a pensioner, really nice and always makes a brew with biscuits. When it was due she text me in advance saying 'leave my windows this time Chris, seen you in 8 weeks, thanks'.

She used to skip cleans when she was every 4 weeks and I lost her briefly when the price went from £25 to £30. She came back at 8 weekly for £35 and I said at the time that there cannot be skipped cleans.

For the last 18 months it's been fine until now... I text her that it's fine but the next clean would be £50. I said the reason being is that I have to reserve her slot and any missed cleans cannot be filled like that. I said the service is £30 every 4 weeks, £35 every 8 weeks and I don't actually do every 16 weeks but for her I will.

She was very abrupt and I think was pretty angry, she just said 'cancel my window clean then Chris'.

I did offer to discuss it with her in person but she wasn't interested. The next day I spoke with her neighbour also a customer who also didn't understand my point of view. She just said if you had agreed to just do it next time at the same price then she wouldn't have cancelled. I was thinking there is no point in trying to explain it.

The thing is... I'm not interested in a job that's going to bring in £100 per year. I worked out I would need 600 customers to bring in £60k per year if everyone did that... I'm not interested in managing that many for such little money.

I'm sick and tired of being flexible, coming back to do cleans when customers are away, building work delaying cleans... I'm super flexible but I have to draw the line. If I had accepted it then her neighbour would also have said please can you leave mine as well Chris and just do it next time, so I guarantee it would have had 2 skipped cleans in one go.

I'm now taking a hard line on skipped cleans like this, it's not often but I chucked one last year who eventually came back in touch asking me to do them this year for £40 and I just said it would now be £60 and it's payment up front every month via direct debit. He didn't agree to it, tried to get me to do it for the old rate but I just said it's 'take it or leave it, that's what I'm happy to clean for...' he left it and I wasn't one bit bothered in the slightest because he was always a pita.

Maybe she lost her winter fuel allowance and is cutting back a bit. I've been expecting some of my older customers to stretch the time between cleans because of this but fortunately none have yet.

 

[dazmond]

Remember previously good customers can turn bad....Its even worse if they have been very successful people and then are struggling financially...their pride gets in the way....

I have one at the moment. I've been cleaning his windows for at least 20 years but unfortunately I'm going to have to dump as soon as I get my £66. It's like trying to get blood out of a stone!

 

[Chris34]

Remember previously good customers can turn bad....Its even worse if they have been very successful people and then are struggling financially...their pride gets in the way....

I have one at the moment. I've been cleaning his windows for at least 20 years but unfortunately I'm going to have to dump as soon as I get my £66. It's like trying to get blood out of a stone!

I've got one at the moment, not same type of customer (a rich one) but even so, they run their own business. Been skipping their 4 weekly cleans lately and previously were delaying paying up to 3 cleans which makes me nervous.

Basically they now owe £50 from August clean, September Skipped, then did October clean, now they've skipped November clean and said they'd pay via bank transfer which they've said 3 times now. They've done this in the past with payment and eventually they just pay but they've not skipped cleans before now. I'm playing it nice and just carrying on as if it's fine but as soon as they make payment then I shall not be contacting them again, don't need the stress of it.

 

[Chris34]

Maybe she lost her winter fuel allowance and is cutting back a bit. I've been expecting some of my older customers to stretch the time between cleans because of this but fortunately none have yet.

That maybe so but what was the excuse when she was every 4 weeks skipping cleans? It's a business I'm running not a charity. I do her daughters house and when she used to skip the 4 week cleans she used to say she couldn't understand why she would skip cleans because she isn't short of money...