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Booked for tomorrow, now postponed until next month?

Tango

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Dirt. Planet Dirt.
Like it says in the title really..

I don't remember them saying regular monthly / 6 weekly either. So now i'm supposed to return on 22nd of July instead.. Is it worth bothering or is this just a messer that i'm burning text message credit on for no good reason who needs to be binned?

At a slight loss to work out whats going on as she said she'd be out, dog wouldn't be there, go in clean, lock gate on way out for the dog when she gets home with it... then today when my text's go out she replies saying issues at work and come on 22nd of next month instead! I'm normally a good judge of character and she was genuine enough when talking to her at the door but now i'm sensing a messer.

 
Like it says in the title really..

I don't remember them saying regular monthly / 6 weekly either. So now i'm supposed to return on 22nd of July instead.. Is it worth bothering or is this just a messer that i'm burning text message credit on for no good reason who needs to be binned?

At a slight loss to work out whats going on as she said she'd be out, dog wouldn't be there, go in clean, lock gate on way out for the dog when she gets home with it... then today when my text's go out she replies saying issues at work and come on 22nd of next month instead! I'm normally a good judge of character and she was genuine enough when talking to her at the door but now i'm sensing a messer.
Issues at work ? Maybe hasn’t been paid ?

lets say she didn’t bother texting you back you went around done the clean never been paid for it yet , I would be more ****** that I havnt been paid then not cleaning it at all 

 
Also if they don’t need texting don’t text them , obviously you have to on some jobs , thr jobs where you can easily get around to each window don’t bother,

gives them that chance to look at there windoes and think hmmmm they are still clean let’s cancel him till next month 

 
I don't accept cancellations without a valid reason and issues at work ain't a valid reason for me they need to elaborate a little otherwise they would be getting charged or hit with a higher charge next clean, you need this sorting out in your own head and how to deal with this sort of thing with an appropriate reply. 

 
Like it says in the title really..

I don't remember them saying regular monthly / 6 weekly either. So now i'm supposed to return on 22nd of July instead.. Is it worth bothering or is this just a messer that i'm burning text message credit on for no good reason who needs to be binned?

At a slight loss to work out whats going on as she said she'd be out, dog wouldn't be there, go in clean, lock gate on way out for the dog when she gets home with it... then today when my text's go out she replies saying issues at work and come on 22nd of next month instead! I'm normally a good judge of character and she was genuine enough when talking to her at the door but now i'm sensing a messer.


How long have you been doing the job? From the post it sounds as though you've just done the first clean. How dirty were the windows when you cleaned them?

Are you in the area on the 22 July?

As has been often stated, you have to clearly set your stall out at the beginning. ( First clean price, 4 weekly price or 8 weekly price with them choosing the period). If you did and the customer is moving the goal posts, then this isn't a job I would persue tbh. But then I would say that as I don't need the work and so see things differently to someone who does.

In our early window cleaning days when we needed the work I would probably have seen what happens on the 22nd July. But I would text closer to the date to confirm. If you get another excuse then you have your answer.

 
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Funny, I had exactly the same thing yesterday as well:

“hi max the windows don’t look like they need doing at the moment, can we do next month instead?”

I explained on this occasion I can fit her in with a neighbour (it actually helps me) then explained that I could look at fitting her in with an 8 week service but that does cost slightly more... no reply. I guess I’ll text her with the rest of that day and see what comes up.

To be fair I think I over priced that job completely so wouldn’t surprise me if she’s found someone cheaper or if not I’d happily move her to 8 weekly at the same price, time will tell I guess. 

 
Don't let your customers dictate to you what date and/or times to go round and clean. Do it when it's convenient for you and fits in with your other work. By all means, be flexible if you're able to and it doesn't put you out.

These type of customers are dropped straight-away from my round - they're not worth the hassle.

Also, as @Wind o kleen said above - only text the ones that need texting i.e. their gates will be locked. Texting everyone gives them the chance to say "can we leave it this time?". Get in, do the job, bill them, await payment and then move on to the next customer.

 
We don’t txt any customers  never have never will , don’t have the time for it there are plenty of jobs out there that don’t need to txt if access is going to be a problem we don’t take the job on been there done that . We also don’t tolerate cancellation on the day unless they are decorating or building works going on , my windows don’t look dirty would get the response that’s beacause we clean them regularly , I would then remind them of our verbal contract of regular work every 4 weeks , if they still don’t want them doing instant dump and never go back end off , I agree with iron giant about billing them but have never done that as the likelihood of them paying is nill 

 
We don’t txt any customers  never have never will , don’t have the time for it there are plenty of jobs out there that don’t need to txt if access is going to be a problem we don’t take the job on been there done that . We also don’t tolerate cancellation on the day unless they are decorating or building works going on , my windows don’t look dirty would get the response that’s beacause we clean them regularly , I would then remind them of our verbal contract of regular work every 4 weeks , if they still don’t want them doing instant dump and never go back end off , I agree with iron giant about billing them but have never done that as the likelihood of them paying is nill 


Or as an old customer (now deceased) said to me once; "young man (she lied), I pay you to keep my windows clean, not clean them when they are dirty." I have never forgotten that reminder.

 
We've all been here don't worry about it but you need a system for new work.

When I quote I give a 4 weekly price and an 8 weekly price.

I then find out about access, if they need to be in then that's a no go. If access is poor i.e no where to park or long walk/drive round the back that's Alos a no go for me. If it's a text for a locked gate no problem.

I also tell them if anytime we turn up and can't get in it's front only and billed accordingly (at least 50%)

Payment via Bacs or go cardless.

Then once the rules are set you simply carry out your end of the bargain. If any problems arise just remind them of the agreement and if it's an issue them drop them and get looking for a replacement.

I dump all the time, every week I'm dropping someone for one reason or another. Just keep replacing and looking for better work everytime you drop one and eventually you end up with a 95% decent round. A perfect round does not exist....just when you think you are close someone turns into a messer.

 
I text customers the night before and to be honest a few always do forget to unlock there gates, so we get over the gates with our ladders, On some jobs we are unable to get over so we just end up doing the fronts & sides only

 
I text the night before. Occasionally get an excuse, if it happens again its - thank you for your business goodbye. 

The main reason I text is it's a reminder for customer to make payment for the window clean.

 
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I text the night before. Occasionally get an excuse, if it happens again its - thank you for your business goodbye. 

The main reason I text is it's a reminder for customer to make payment for the window clean.


I have to send reminder texts more and more often these days to have padlocked gates 'opened'. I really get a cancellation. I honestly think we have it a little easier in the North East as our pricing is a little more bareable for our customer's than say it is in the South West.

I often wonder if I lived in the south and was a customer of a cleaner named Vin, how many times a year would I try to find an excuse for not having my windows cleaned when I was under a bit of financial pressure paying the bills?

http://www.perfect-windows.co.uk/pwpricing.html

BTW I get along well with Vin. He gave me a lot of mental support back in 2008 when the credit crunch hit home in the October. My son had resigned his job to join the business in the September of that year. I had more than enough work for myself but way short for two of us. We had 2 major employers on Teesside; what was ICI and British Steel. British Steel shut down operations and the knock on effect put a large number of employees out of work. It was a tough time and I was very stressed having to pay a second salary when I expected to loose about 30% of the work we had due to redundancies.

Thankfully Vin had a dogmatic approach to the economic situation and those occassional chats helped me through my perceived worries. Thankfully we were able to canvass like made for new work and in the end we only lost 3 customers during that time due to the recession. One came back to us 6 months later, the second left the area and I was happy not to take the third one back on again as they were a pain from the start.

 
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What I don't get about down south pricing is they want £15-20 for a 3 bed semi then an extra £6 for a conservatory which may have as much glass as the rest of the house ? 

 
What I don't get about down south pricing is they want £15-20 for a 3 bed semi then an extra £6 for a conservatory which may have as much glass as the rest of the house ? 


I would be interested to know how windies price conservatory cleans. We are the same, in that we price a conservtory clean as an add on for 'pennies'. When we bought a round in the early days before we got established the previous trad cleaners would clean a 3 bed semi for £6.50 and if it had a conservatory it was £8.00 or £8.50 if it had a large one.

It didn't take me long to realise what you have noted - sometimes a conservatory has more glass than the rest of the house, uses more water and takes longer to clean than the rest of the house does.

I tried to price a new clean in those days with that in mind. If the clean was £8 then I would quote £15 for the full clean including the conservatory. I never got any of those quotes because the customer perceived the price to be too high. I have found that people want to invest in a conservatory but when its up, want it clean but don't want to pay to have it cleaned. 

Some trad cleaners gave us a row of 5 three story detached houses (ground, first and top floor) in the front and 2 levels at the back as these houses are built on a slope. They charged £15 for the full house. There was one that had a large conservatory on the back that holds a full snooker table with a good space around each side. They charged an extra £3 for the conservatory. Granted we do an extra window above the conservatory they couldn't get to and we don't clean the french doors leading into the conservatory, but it highlights what the trend (or norm?) is.

£15 was a good price and we kept it. We had another cleaner come in and quote £8. A couple of my customers showed me his leaflet with a quote written on it. He later moved into one of these houses that was rented. A few months later he sold his round and went back into a paid job in industry. He asked me if I would clean his windows and I quoted the same as all the others, He was visibly shocked at my price of £15. He told me he would only charge £8 for that job. I told him I already knew that and asked him if that was the reason why he gave window cleaning up. He didn't answer. I cleaned them once as he cancelled after that. This same cleaner took a number of customer cleans away from us due to the low prices he was charging.

He's gone and left the industry. As I once heard, you can remove the skunk from the room, but the stench remains for a long time afterwards. He's proved that to be true.

I ask myself if I have accepted the trend of pricing a conservatory clean low or have I just realised that if I go in too high I won't get the job from past experience? We also have a 'wave' of new cleaners cleaning windows with old knackered vans and cheap equipment coming into the window cleaning game quoting stupidly low prices which is erroding our new cleaning pricing structure. As I said many times, we aren't getting many jobs quoting £10 for a 3 bed semi without conservatory. £9 seems to be the limit.

You can see the instant you quote a price which a customer thinks it too high. His body language reacts before he can get his composure back under control. I know I don't want the job at this point but do often ask what they perceive is a fair price they had in mind. Its usually between £5 and £8. My reply is that "I'm sorry I can't do it for that as my running costs to park outside your property before I pay myself to do the job is £3.97. If I do the job at £6 I'm not even earning the minumim wage. Thank you for your time. Have a good day" as I walk away.

One smart Alec responded that I needed to reduce my running costs. ?

 
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I would be interested to know how windies price conservatory cleans. We are the same, in that we price a conservtory clean as an add on for 'pennies'. When we bought a round in the early days before we got established the previous trad cleaners would clean a 3 bed semi for £6.50 and if it had a conservatory it was £8.00 or £8.50 if it had a large one.

It didn't take me long to realise what you have noted - sometimes a conservatory has more glass than the rest of the house, uses more water and takes longer to clean than the rest of the house does.

I tried to price a new clean in those days with that in mind. If the clean was £8 then I would quote £15 for the full clean including the conservatory. I never got any of those quotes because the customer perceived the price to be too high. I have found that people want to invest in a conservatory but when its up, want it clean but don't want to pay to have it cleaned. 

Some trad cleaners gave us a row of 5 three story detached houses (ground, first and top floor) in the front and 2 levels at the back as these houses are built on a slope. They charged £15 for the full house. There was one that had a large conservatory on the back that holds a full snooker table with a good space around each side. They charged an extra £3 for the conservatory. Granted we do an extra window above the conservatory they couldn't get to and we don't clean the french doors leading into the conservatory, but it highlights what the trend (or norm?) is.

£15 was a good price and we kept it. We had another cleaner come in and quote £8. A couple of my customers showed me his leaflet with a quote written on it. He later moved into one of these houses that was rented. A few months later he sold his round and went back into a paid job in industry. He asked me if I would clean his windows and I quoted the same as all the others, He was visibly shocked at my price of £15. He told me he would only charge £8 for that job. I told him I already knew that and asked him if that was the reason why he gave window cleaning up. He didn't answer. I cleaned them once as he cancelled after that. This same cleaner took a number of customer cleans away from us due to the low prices he was charging.

He's gone and left the industry. As I once heard, you can remove the skunk from the room, but the stench remains for a long time afterwards. He's proved that to be true.

I ask myself if I have accepted the trend of pricing a conservatory clean low or have I just realised that if I go in too high I won't get the job from past experience? We also have a 'wave' of new cleaners cleaning windows with old knackered vans and cheap equipment coming into the window cleaning game quoting stupidly low prices which is erroding our new cleaning pricing structure. As I said many times, we aren't getting many jobs quoting £10 for a 3 bed semi without conservatory. £9 seems to be the limit. 

You can see the instant you quote a price which a customer thinks it too high. His body language reacts before he can get his composure back under control. I know I don't want the job at this point but do often ask what they perceive is a fair price they had in mind. Its usually between £5 and £8. My reply is that "I'm sorry I can't do it for that as my running costs to park outside your property before I pay myself to do the job is £3.97. If I do the job at £6 I'm not even earning the minumim wage. Thank you for your time. Have a good day" as I walk away.

One smart Alec responded that I needed to reduce my running costs. ?
Down south u can charge more and get away with it because the cost of living up south is a lot higher. Window cleaning is a total different ball game up South, the more South u go the more expensive it gets.

An average price for a hair cut in Teesside is £7-8 and that is the same price for a window clean i believe. You will get people charging £5.00 to clean a 3 bedroom house but u will also get people charging £10.00 but i believe £7-8 is the average price for a 3 bed semi in Teesside

If u go down south an average price for a haircut will be £20.00 + and its the same for a window clean down there i believe

And there is a lot of window cleaners starting up with clapped out vans like u said.... but when it gets cold again there van will run out of MOT and then they will not be able to hack it in the cold weather so they will dissapear, seen it a few times now ? People think it is easy coming in to this trade but as soon as they realize how tough it is they give up
 

 
Also, as @Wind o kleen said above - only text the ones that need texting i.e. their gates will be locked. 


That sums up all my custys lol - I live in a town with a large population, lots of new builds and ever smaller properties with more people per square metre. Naturally many are going to feel uneasy leaving their back gate unlocked..

What I don't get about down south pricing is they want £15-20 for a 3 bed semi then an extra £6 for a conservatory which may have as much glass as the rest of the house ? 


I live down south and can't say i've heard of that myself. Sure i'll do windows cheap but like a job today, i quoted £15 for the windows, then another £25 for the conservatory. Then 2 more windows above it was another tenner cos they were gonna be a pain requiring a ladder and i threw in the conny gutter for nothing. Took me just over 3 hours but still worked out about £15p/h which to be fair, ain't exactly bad compared to most normal unskilled jobs.

 
That sums up all my custys lol - I live in a town with a large population, lots of new builds and ever smaller properties with more people per square metre. Naturally many are going to feel uneasy leaving their back gate unlocked..

I live down south and can't say i've heard of that myself. Sure i'll do windows cheap but like a job today, i quoted £15 for the windows, then another £25 for the conservatory. Then 2 more windows above it was another tenner cos they were gonna be a pain requiring a ladder and i threw in the conny gutter for nothing. Took me just over 3 hours but still worked out about £15p/h which to be fair, ain't exactly bad compared to most normal unskilled jobs.
Yes far better than most normal jobs but they get 28 days paid holiday every year and sick pay and don't have the overheads we have, so your £15ph is most likely less than minimum wage 

 

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