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Alarm bells start to ring

Smurf

Well-known member
Messages
20,533
Had a woman phone me up and the conversation went something like this

Hello are you the window cleaner

Yes why

Can you give me a quote please because the last window cleaner dissapered.

Oh really why was that

I don't know but he done a great job

Who was that then

****window cleaning from groupon.

So how often did they clean your windows and when was the last time they where cleaned.

On the groupon deal I had them do the windows also clear the guttering and wash over the fascias. Then they wanted me to go on their monthly round but I said no point in doing them in the winter so has been about 4 months since last cleaned. When I try to get them to come out again the guy I speak to on the phone is not very helpful.

No problem I will call over and have a look on Sat when I'm in the area

OK thanks

Bye

After doing a bit of digging this was the groupon offer - Cleaning For Up to 15 Windows and Doors (£15), 15m of Guttering (£26) or Both (£35). So it turn out she had her windows, gutters & fascias cleaned once for £35 and the window cleaner got less than half of that with groupon fees which was about 15 squid. No wonder he got the hump when she said leave the monthly windows clean as it's winter.

What do you think?:rolleyes:

 
if you are just starting out groupon will give you a.experience b. a customer base and c. street presence

altho iv never got involved with groupon i bleve it has its place,if you are new to the trade

 
I did that same clean (w, g, f, d) on Saturday for near triple that price, I took my time and did the drains too and a before and after cam. Wouldn't like to it for much less, and it would be ruinous to do it for that price, not to mention devaluing the industry

 
The way I see it all groupon will do is gladly take over half of the gross cost of each voucher they sell for doing bugger all. Then it's up to the cleaner to fulfil their promise and work for next to nothing in hope they may get more work out of it.

The type of ppl that buy groupon vouchers I think are the type of ppl that will not want to pay much for future work anyway so I can see it being at total waste of time to even hope to make it pay long term

 
I guess if that guy gets 20 of those jobs, and quarter retain, the loss on initial income could be compared to advertising success rates/fees and future predicted earning potential.

Also, at least group on does actually say the 'normal price' would be much higher.

Personally I wouldn't like the idea of doing any work for that kind of low rate however I could rationalise it.

 
We did a Groupon deal two years ago Smurf when we were looking to expand a bit. We made the mistake of not caping it, Sold over 750 gutter cleans in 48 hours.

Funny thing is these voucher sites want you to charge pennies, then discount that to the end user, then take upto 60% for themselves as well. You are right smurf, a good deal for groupon and for their customers but not always for you.

I would not do it for window cleaning as I ain't going out for £3 or £4 per house.

On the gutters deal it was ok as it had 2 results. it allowed us to get a quick cash injection to go towards new equipment and also allowed us a shite load of upsell. Conservatory roofs starting at £50 window frame pvc restore starting at £15 per frame and so on.

We have quite a few repeats from it on an annual basis for gutters and we did also pick up about 150 regular windows jobs.

My advice is cap the quantities and also be very careful on area. For ours they said all NG postcodes, Well that includes towns such as Grantham. over an hour from my house.!

 
Green, can you select the fee structure and area yourself to make it appealing to new customers, a loss runner, but feasible all round as a business kick start when compared to other methods of growth?

 
Also, at least group on does actually say the 'normal price' would be much higher.

Personally I wouldn't like the idea of doing any work for that kind of low rate however I could rationalise it.
When we first dealt with them they asked us how much per house, I said it would depend on the house.

Then I said I guess we could do it at so much for x=meters. They said that's great. How much could I really charge for those meters.

The price wasnt high enough for them so they asked me to increase it so they could make the discount look more of a saving.

They ask for two previous invoices to customers in case anyone ever challenges the cost, I said I didn't have any for per-x=meters. They said that's ok, just make a couple up!..

Aint dealt with them since that first deal, not the kind of scruples I care for.

 
Jimroot, you can say 2 bed house = x 3 bed house =x and so on.

However one avenue we are currently exploring is a local area magazine.

The groupon thing was ok for us but I also feel that the time spent on those jobs in the long run could have been more productive if I had targeted door knocked during that period.

We have an area magazine here called NG4 (after our postal area) it goes to 10'000 homes per 2 months, A full page ad cost us £200 per issue, (you could run a quarter page for £65 per month) We chose full page as we got a fair bit to say.

Even going by worst case print ad responses, that's 100 fresh leads coming to us every 8 weeks, we get closer to 250 leads every 2 months.

The thing to remember though is we now cherry pick the jobs we want as we are fine tuning the business to a lifestyle company as opposed to ball to the wall to make end meet.

 
im planning a bit of this for next september to go live with it .. we do most houses for 20 quid these are normal houses of course so i was thinking of advertising it at 60 with 50% discount which in turn would give me 15 back yes ??? i would limit it to a radius of 15 mile of belfast cc

 
Is that windows only Peter?

Seems a lot for regular houses, and that mark up would look too high I'd imagine.

I've had a zero response from three local shop A5 adverts in two weeks.

 
no jim thatd be for a standard semi in guttering ... feck lol im not a mug sell discount on window cleaning ued get all the filth of the day lol the people who haven had a clean since .. ever lol

id like 1000 people to buy the guttering and id put expiry on the voucher sell in september valid to jan 2016

wat ya think jim

 
Well, maybe I'm expensive or its the West Midlands, but I'm charging a lot more. I dont think id survive doing £15 house Peter as I'd budget for three per day in the summer with fascia and windows too, but if you bang out 1000 quickies that could be a nice 15k... But say you do 5 a day, 6 days a week, thats 8 months work. Assuming they all claim, how would you fit them in within a reasonable time frame?

Nice idea in general though to get 6-8 months work from a one shot marketing exercise.

 
Maybe do it but up all your figures, or offer a £30 beautiful house package, gutter clear fasic scrub etc, was £75 now £30 with group on, try and do them in two hours a house or you can use gutter vac too for speed with safety. Wouldn't want to rush with ladders

 
Could try other marketing means first, the parish magazine one always seems a Popular one. I've got to try and up my game in the marketing stakes.

 
It's a tough one I guess. If you're the only guy in the area obviously doing a good job, I would have thought word of mouth would help, but it's only helped me a bit so far. A documentary on TV about damp and gutter clearing, followed by one About dodgy uninsured traders would be good for biz...

 

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