Sign existing customers up to go cardless on the door?

Williams_Window_Cleaning · Jan 1, 2020

Hi,

I've recently found out about gocardless and I've posted a few letters to some of my bad players about signing up (even offering a £1 discount off their next clean) but so far no signups. I'm seriously considering changing all my customers to gocardless as to be quite frank they're quite bad payers.

I'm considering going round with my phone and signing them all up to gocardless there and then on the door.

What are your thoughts on this?

Has anyone tried it?

Any suggestions from people are most welcome.

Thanks in advance guys!

Iron Giant · Jan 2, 2020

This isn't something I have done as I have always had a payments page on my website, were they can sign up and read through info about GC, you do have an option from the GC dashboard to send them a sign up link via an email

P4dstar · Jan 2, 2020

Although you can sign them up yourself by following the sign up link I believe the GC T&C's tell you not to. If you feel the need to move completely to GC then just tell everyone. When you tell them you can offer to sign them up there and then if they like or send them a link. If it's an offer to help them I'm sure that would be a loophole to the T&C's.

I found the most important thing is to make sure everyone new is on GC, with the exception of 90 year old Mavis who doesn't have a computer and is always always home. Just tell them during the quote ''We collect via direct debit using a company called GoCardless''. No GC no clean. I have had a couple of occasions where people have refused DD. I take these on a case by case basis. One hadn't been cleaned in years, on a council estate, bit rough looking etc. I played hard ball with this, she signed up and then cancelled after the first clean. Another example was a luxury 5 bed detached property in a nice village, she told me she had been the victim of fraud before and didn't want to give out her details unnecessarily. So far she has paid fine, cash or card on the first clean was my only stipulation.

Chris33 · Jan 2, 2020

Williams_Window_Cleaning said:
Hi,

I've recently found out about gocardless and I've posted a few letters to some of my bad players about signing up (even offering a £1 discount off their next clean) but so far no signups. I'm seriously considering changing all my customers to gocardless as to be quite frank they're quite bad payers.

I'm considering going round with my phone and signing them all up to gocardless there and then on the door.

What are your thoughts on this?

Has anyone tried it?

Any suggestions from people are most welcome.

Thanks in advance guys!

Tried what you suggest with switching an existing customer base over from bank to gocardless. Probably kept at most half of the round. If you go to their doors and sign up directly you'll keep more than I did, and also it's an opportunity to explain this fully to them.

So In my case,I quickly learned that i was going to take a big loss, and so decided to switch everyone over 4 months.

Month 1 I switched week 1 work sheet. After the clean was done, i put the ticket through their doors which explained gocardless was all we now took etc. Who signed up signed up..who I lost, I got this last payment off them and realised I had 3/4 weeks to fill their place before the area was due again

I done this for the full 4 weeks run (month two I tackled week 2 run etc and so on) . Also spent a fair bit on advertising on fb that summer, so lots of my add on money went right back into advertising costs to replace lost window work.

Worth it though. I was sick of being dictated to regarding when I would be paid now that's not an issue at all

Pjj · Jan 2, 2020

Are you aware of the increase in prices that co cardless have/are introducing ?.. I personally wouldn’t want to go down that route .

Williams_Window_Cleaning · Jan 2, 2020

Pjj said:
Are you aware of the increase in prices that co cardless have/are introducing ?.. I personally wouldn’t want to go down that route .

Isn't it 1% plus 20p?

So a £10 house would costs 30p right? I am horrendous at maths ?

Chris33 · Jan 2, 2020

Pjj said:
Are you aware of the increase in prices that co cardless have/are introducing ?.. I personally wouldn’t want to go down that route .

It's a biz expense though, we can claim this back surely? Either way its pennies really compared to the time to collect it in. Leaves me fresh for other things I would much rather do

Williams_Window_Cleaning · Jan 2, 2020

P4dstar said:
Although you can sign them up yourself by following the sign up link I believe the GC T&C's tell you not to. If you feel the need to move completely to GC then just tell everyone. When you tell them you can offer to sign them up there and then if they like or send them a link. If it's an offer to help them I'm sure that would be a loophole to the T&C's.

I found the most important thing is to make sure everyone new is on GC, with the exception of 90 year old Mavis who doesn't have a computer and is always always home. Just tell them during the quote ''We collect via direct debit using a company called GoCardless''. No GC no clean. I have had a couple of occasions where people have refused DD. I take these on a case by case basis. One hadn't been cleaned in years, on a council estate, bit rough looking etc. I played hard ball with this, she signed up and then cancelled after the first clean. Another example was a luxury 5 bed detached property in a nice village, she told me she had been the victim of fraud before and didn't want to give out her details unnecessarily. So far she has paid fine, cash or card on the first clean was my only stipulation.

Yeah I'm being selective with who i put on it. Theres a few old people who stuff cash in my hand as i walk Up the drive that's not a problem. It's the professional young couples who are never in and never pay until 3 cleans when I'm banging on the door at 7pm

Pjj · Jan 2, 2020

Chris33 said:
It's a biz expense though, we can claim this back surely? Either way its pennies really compared to the time to collect it in. Leaves me fresh for other things I would much rather do

The price increase is costing a friend of mine £300 per month more in costs ,and he’s looking tk change provider but Ime sure all will follow suite , we only offer cash, cheques, and BACS payments all free in my opinion why waist money buy paying unnessasary costs , we have over 2500 customers and don’t have issues getting money in , it’s down to educating customers BEFORE taking them on and dumping the dross

Williams_Window_Cleaning said:
Isn't it 1% plus 20p?

So a £10 house would costs 30p right? I am horrendous at maths ?

To be honest Ime not totaly sure but it’s costing a friend £300 per month more in costs ,and Ime sure they will continue to increase there prices , I feel like they are holding small buisness tk ransom and I won’t play there game

Wind o kleen · Jan 2, 2020

Pjj said:
The price increase is costing a friend of mine £300 per month more in costs ,and he’s looking tk change provider but Ime sure all will follow suite , we only offer cash, cheques, and BACS payments all free in my opinion why waist money buy paying unnessasary costs , we have over 2500 customers and don’t have issues getting money in , it’s down to educating customers BEFORE taking them on and dumping the dross

Your friend is only robbing him self , GoCardless do few plans , get him to email them regarding this and he will be surprised how much money he will save

Pjj · Jan 2, 2020

Wind o kleen said:
Your friend is only robbing him self , GoCardless do few plans , get him to email them regarding this and he will be surprised how much money he will save

He has already done that and they said that his turnover doesn’t warrant any discount , they have said that they are happy to transfer all his stuff to another provider ,so not very helpful either .

Wind o kleen · Jan 2, 2020

Pjj said:
He has already done that and they said that his turnover doesn’t warrant any discount , they have said that they are happy to transfer all his stuff to another provider ,so not very helpful either .

Surely if he’s paying £300 fees amonth he’s making big money , obviously not enough in ther eyes

Pjj · Jan 2, 2020

Wind o kleen said:
Surely if he’s paying £300 fees amonth he’s making big money , obviously not enough in ther eyes

No the price increase costs him is an extra £300 per month not the total he pays , they weren’t prepared to offer and discount ,Ime glad this happened when it did as I was seriously going to look at using it , but won’t now .

Dave B · Jan 2, 2020

P4dstar said:
Although you can sign them up yourself by following the sign up link I believe the GC T&C's tell you not to. If you feel the need to move completely to GC then just tell everyone. When you tell them you can offer to sign them up there and then if they like or send them a link. If it's an offer to help them I'm sure that would be a loophole to the T&C's.

I found the most important thing is to make sure everyone new is on GC, with the exception of 90 year old Mavis who doesn't have a computer and is always always home. Just tell them during the quote ''We collect via direct debit using a company called GoCardless''. No GC no clean. I have had a couple of occasions where people have refused DD. I take these on a case by case basis. One hadn't been cleaned in years, on a council estate, bit rough looking etc. I played hard ball with this, she signed up and then cancelled after the first clean. Another example was a luxury 5 bed detached property in a nice village, she told me she had been the victim of fraud before and didn't want to give out her details unnecessarily. So far she has paid fine, cash or card on the first clean was my only stipulation.

You can sign up at the door on your phone and nowt wrong as a mate asked them that question.

As long as they fill in the details you are doing nothing wrong.

I personally don't want to pay the higher charges and only have bad payers on it now.

If you want to switch just post a letter to each customer when you do the next clean saying due to reduced admin etc that is the way the business is going and don't give them a choice in the matter.

You are entitled to ask for payment in whichever way you want the same as any other tradesman like plumbers etc.

Williams_Window_Cleaning · Jan 2, 2020

Dave B said:
You can sign up at the door on your phone and nowt wrong as a mate asked them that question.

As long as they fill in the details you are doing nothing wrong.

I personally don't want to pay the higher charges and only have bad payers on it now.

If you want to switch just post a letter to each customer when you do the next clean saying due to reduced admin etc that is the way the business is going and don't give them a choice in the matter.

You are entitled to ask for payment in whichever way you want the same as any other tradesman like plumbers etc.

For me personally I'd rather pay to use direct debits than the stress of customers not paying and chasing them up.

The only problem is my dads been a window cleaner for years and reckons that by switching to gocardless I'll lose most of my customers. Now I reckon hes just being paranoid but he made the point that people can live without window cleaning so if they're more likely to cancel it than go onto direct debits.

Chris33 · Jan 2, 2020

Pjj said:
The price increase is costing a friend of mine £300 per month more in costs ,and he’s looking tk change provider but Ime sure all will follow suite , we only offer cash, cheques, and BACS payments all free in my opinion why waist money buy paying unnessasary costs , we have over 2500 customers and don’t have issues getting money in , it’s down to educating customers BEFORE taking them on and dumping the dross

To be honest Ime not totaly sure but it’s costing a friend £300 per month more in costs ,and Ime sure they will continue to increase there prices , I feel like they are holding small buisness tk ransom and I won’t play there game

You think I've no educated them before? Course I did. It is still extremely hard to get those payments in with bank regularly. Your the ohly man I know with a round that size that has no issues with payment that's for sure

Pjj · Jan 2, 2020

Chris33 said:
You think I've no educated them before? Course I did. It is still extremely hard to get those payments in with bank regularly. Your the ohly man I know with a round that size that has no issues with payment that's for sure

No round is trouble free but educating the customer before you take them on stressing payment terms ,and sticking to those terms will prevent payment issues , if not they are dumped and replaced with customers that do pay on time , I have been in buisness over 35 years and it’s a constant refining process evan now but we don’t have issues with payment , it’s a pain having to check BACS payments all the time to cross of the lists but only takes me an hour per month , we don’t go collecting it’s pay on the day , cheque in the post or BACS only

Iron Giant · Jan 2, 2020

Thanks to GC and this been my second week off for first time in I don't know how many years my current debt list consist's of 10 jobs it would have been 6 if I had seen some of the usual cash payers before xmas, my debt list is usually 80-100+ jobs continually, I v'e not had to check my bank account once in around 2 weeks apart from just moving money around.

Pjj · Jan 2, 2020

Iron Giant said:
Thanks to GC and this been my second week off for first time in I don't know how many years my current debt list consist's of 10 jobs it would have been 6 if I had seen some of the usual cash payers before xmas, my debt list is usually 80-100+ jobs continually, I v'e not had to check my bank account once in around 2 weeks apart from just moving money around.

What does it cost you per month in charges per £ 1000 ?

Iron Giant · Jan 2, 2020

Pjj said:
What does it cost you per month in charges per £ 1000 ?

As of February it's going cost me around £90 each month, I will gain some new jobs in no time throughout the coming weeks which will easily cover and dwarf the increased costs

Pjj · Jan 2, 2020

Iron Giant said:
As of February it's going cost me around £90 each month, I will gain some new jobs in no time throughout the coming weeks which will easily cover and dwarf the increased costs

So have I got this right £90 for every £1000 you are receiving ??

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