Are you saying that people pay for 2 hours and get 2 cleaners, i.e. they pay 4 x £12 per hour? Or are you saying that they get 2 cleaners for 1 hour i.e. 2 x £12? If it is that they are getting 2 cleaners for 2 hours then i am not surprised that they are not willing to pay for more. I know that the time taken to do the cleaning will vary from house to house, even the same task in different houses will vary in time, but it is about setting a time limit per house and making sure that your staff complete all the cleaning tasks in that time. Whereever you work there are targets that have to be met, if your girls worked in a call centre they would be expected to handle X amount of calls per hour, in a factory they would be expected to pack or assemble X amounts of goods in an hour, the list goes on and cleaning is no different. It is about finding out what cleaning the client wants and charging accordingly wothout doing extra work. They may have a 6 bedroom house but few will want every room cleaning. If you are sending staff in with instructions to clean the house top to bottom, room by room, they will be at it forever. Your client is the best person to tell you what they want, it is then down to you to pick the best staff you have for the job in question and makes sure they can turn it around in the time. When you are also providing transport -even if just the costs- and equipment then that comes out of the hourly rate, thus if you are charging £12 per hour and your staff do 4 hours cleaning between them you charge £48 but then have to take out all your costs as well as paying staff. This is another reason why companies dont charge an hourly rate as they have to pay for the staff to commute between addresses. How do you run your service exactly at the moment?
