Clean It Up
UK Floor Cleaning Forum => Carpet Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: Phillip Mold on December 13, 2011, 01:34:59 pm
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Had a call this morning from a potential custy wanting a clean before Christmas, had to explain fully booked but they have accepted a quote for the new year. Interesting they had bought a Groupon voucher "But the company have let us down".
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there is a lot of it about Phillip :P :P
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Had a call this morning from a potential custy wanting a clean before Christmas, had to explain fully booked but they have accepted a quote for the new year. Interesting they had bought a Groupon voucher "But the company have let us down".
Did you ask in what way had they been let down?
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They turned up.
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That aint nice Jim
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Anyone know how that guy in Scotland is doing after selling over 600 deals covering most the the South of Scotland?
Simon
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Anyone know how that guy in Scotland is doing after selling over 600 deals covering most the the South of Scotland?
Simon
Yes, he's carving a great career out at mcdonalds!!!!!!! ;D ;D ;D
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They turned up.
LOL ;D
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It still aint nice.
More than a few members of this forum have done groupon deals, and I don't believe any of them deserve the implication here.....
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Im really glad you think that groupon fails.
Ive done it about 6 months now, ok the money is crap i sold 400 deals, out of them 400 (280) are repeat customers for next year, and out of them 400 about 300 had a extra service from us. These are just rounded up figures, but it works for us so dont knock it until you try it, amazing my first post as well. and also ad least they pay as well.I would rather work then sit here.
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Hector you and Jason are no doubt the exceptions to the rule but I think alot of non-groupies feel this thing is going to impact in a negative way on ALL carpet cleaners and it is a legitimate subject for debate on a forum like this - Ive worked with Jason and I know he is sound...
BTW i notice there is a new offer going on near me in all SO and SP areas by a company calling itself combined cleaning - it APPEARS to me as if this is a group of smaller operators ganging together just to hoover up (geddit) alot of pre-xmas business - when you look at the website it has a 50 for MAINTENANCE clean two rooms offer which they have used as the basis for the groupon disc of 62% off - so they are getting half of 19 squid plus whatever they can upsell
what is really interesting is the FAQ on their site about the nature of the maintenance clean - I quote
· ''What is a maintenance clean?
· A clean that manufacturers recommend at least once a year to prevent the build up of ground in dirt and stop the appearance of traffic lanes. It will not remove visible staining or traffic lanes.
Well correct me if Im wrong but on every carpet job i've turned up to for the last ten years the owner has booked us specifically because they want us to remove visible staining (as opposed to invisible!) and traffic lanes - I suppose it gives them a getout if the customer kicks up later...
Also am I the only one who thinks the groupon school of copywriting is so 'out to lunch' that they could hardly be held to task for anything tangible in the offer as it is all so... how shall I put it... loose and in parts non-sensical - look at the copy for the combined offer:
''Discolouration can be a feature of carpets, books, and silent monochrome movies. Restore cinematic colour with today’s Groupon: £19 for a professional carpet clean for two rooms at Combined Cleaning Services.
Sprucing up carpets with speedy drying times, Combined Cleaning Services sweep up all manner of houses and fabrics in Southampton. The family run business turns their brushes and tools to reviving aging carpets, and also tackles stains on upholstery and rugs, as well as deodorising tell-tale pet smells from tail wagging homes. The fully insured team uses state-of-the-art equipment to deep clean furnishings and fluffy floors, with speedy drying times spanning up to four hours.
Homes can get two rooms measuring up to a combined 300 square foot expertly cleansed. Dust bunnies and fluffy residue will be sucked up and scrubbed out by the technician and their specialist cleaning machine over the course of approximately one hour. Most furniture can be moved beforehand on request, and clients can also enjoy a 25% discount on further cleaning services booked for the same day, meaning homes can feel pampered from floor to floor.''
I suppose at 19 quid some people can just put it down to experience but if they DO have a bad experience it affects the whole of our industry and not the people who have maybe already moved on to some other business that is easier to make money at...
anyways about thats my take on it...
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The thing i dont like about a lot of these groupon deals is the small print they have tucked away in there t & c's,
surely what the customer wants and us as the sevice provider is an honest price,
and a first class service. Then everyone is happy, groupon basically turns a
£10 million pound industry into £4.5 million pound industry .
Small print above is to be used as an example only, actual figures may vary, results based on polyamide carpets only, no gaurantee provided, see you in an hour. wick back next week will be out of gaurantee. anything left on carpet will be vacced around. ;D
Andrew
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Like I have already said Groupon customers are mainly not daft , they know a man and a van cannot visit and perform a service for £34 they expect to pay more , they expect it to be bare service for £34 , what htey want is no risk , and to see who they are employing first, then if they like the service they can and do come back.
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Im really glad you think that groupon fails.
Ive done it about 6 months now, ok the money is crap i sold 400 deals, out of them 400 (280) are repeat customers for next year, and out of them 400 about 300 had a extra service from us. These are just rounded up figures, but it works for us so dont knock it until you try it, amazing my first post as well. and also ad least they pay as well.I would rather work then sit here.
david this is by no means a personal attack just how can you say 280 out 0f 400 are repeat customers when you have not actually repeated any work for them . I am afraid a statistic like that is only true when it happens . Also are you charging full price next time or are you going to clean at a discounted rate. Correct me if i am wrong but sounds like your counting your chickens before they have hatched
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... And Richard knows all about chickens... He has 20ft high ones in a huge coup, and the public are not allowed to see them. ;) (Quote from Alan Partridge)
He also has 3 legged chickens... How do they taste? Dunno, no one's ever caught one!!! ;D
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Im really glad you think that groupon fails.
Ive done it about 6 months now, ok the money is crap i sold 400 deals, out of them 400 (280) are repeat customers for next year, and out of them 400 about 300 had a extra service from us. These are just rounded up figures, but it works for us so dont knock it until you try it, amazing my first post as well. and also ad least they pay as well.I would rather work then sit here.
I'm glad that it works well for you.......but don't count your chickens on the 280 that said they would come back next year....unless of course you will be offering them a similar deal:)
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... And Richard knows all about chickens... He has 20ft high ones in a huge coup, and the public are not allowed to see them. ;) (Quote from Alan Partridge)
He also has 3 legged chickens... How do they taste? Dunno, no one's ever caught one!!! ;D
excuse colin he has been snorting his spm he has been selling in 5 wraps in cornwall ( ps his words not mine )
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Like I have already said Groupon customers are mainly not daft , they know a man and a van cannot visit and perform a service for £34 they expect to pay more , they expect it to be bare service for £34 , what htey want is no risk , and to see who they are employing first, then if they like the service they can and do come back.
That is it odds with a lot of the stories going around about people's experiences of Groupon. A Meal Deal in a pub for instance, the guy said the majority turn up, get the cheap meal with no extras and go. It is the very fact that it is cheap that is the clincher for most so the idea that they are falling over themselves to pay more seems a little far fetched to me. Jason seems to think that although people have paid £34 for two rooms and a hall done, they don't really expect to pay that and full expect to pay more. If I buy a toaster the sales for £29.99, I don't expect to pay more for it when I get to the store, even though I know the stores is probably losing money on it. Following Jason's logic I should expect to pay an extra fiver for the box it is in.
Simon
Simon
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i dont see why anybody who has bought a groupon deal for carpet cleaning would expect a bare cleaning service they havnt bought a £34.00 clean they bought a £90.00 or £100.00 cleaning service reduced to £34.00. I also dont see how by buying a groupon deal is less risk than by using any other service you have found on the internet.
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All I was saying is that I did not like the implication by Jim that all cleaners who did groupon deals were splash and dash cowboys.....
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... And Richard knows all about chickens... He has 20ft high ones in a huge coup, and the public are not allowed to see them. ;) (Quote from Alan Partridge)
He also has 3 legged chickens... How do they taste? Dunno, no one's ever caught one!!! ;D
excuse colin he has been snorting his spm he has been selling in 5 wraps in cornwall ( ps his words not mine )
It's great stuff, if you wanna wrap, let me know..... ;D
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I read that Groupon were under investigation
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Steve - makes a VERY valid point and one that many people who have commented on here on many threads seem to forget - if you are buying a service for 100 that is discounted to 34 then that discount should be verifiable by some standards or other - trading standards maybe!
This is contentious and I am not pointing a finger at anyone in particular but with the very best will in the world the effort and skill and time that goes into a clean worth (not 100 quid) but 17 quid (i.e. 34) is BOUND to suffer by comparison with a genuine clean worth 100 - there is such a huge gap there in terms of supposed quoted price and actual payment.
We all know in our heart of hearts that we will pull out all the stops for a 250 or 300 pound job and throw in a few extras and generally see the customer right - the same cannot be said for a job with a very low ticket - yes you do the job right but you don't hang around and offer premium value - as the ticket price goes down there is a law of diminishing returns and most customers recognise this at that price - however when this natural law of things is cocked-up by groupon discounts it pre-supposes that something has to give and it is not the customer - in effect the cc has to out-perform his ticket price.
The deep discount loss leader model relies on a gain from economies of scale through producing extra units and I just don't think a service industry can replicate time and resell it at a discount when the fixed costs of servicing the visit are inelastic... I do give Jason's
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I saw Groupon as an investment , I am not working week on week for a wage ,and dont measure success by the week , but by what I sell the business for after 4 or 5 years. Groupon has given me a workable database . I fitted the joobs round my regular insurance work , when I would have been idle , so my costs were minimal.
As has been said it is not for everyone, but if you are sat doing nothing , you will make at least a decent wage getting out there , and then ongoing repeat referral work.
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Jason i have read on here you have sold cc business in the past . I can see their is a value to selling an esb franchise cc business but is their really any value on an independant company apart from the obvious machinery etc. I would say that most est independants customer list are almost worthless as customers repeat because they buy from who they know ( the individual ) .
for example i get my chemicals etc from restormate if john sold up i would shop around again .
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Yes................ but you don't tell the person buying the business that...
You show them a full client list, and amount for each job etc and let their greed make the decision..
Called business..
;D ;D
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Depends how you run the business i guess.
There are quit a few multi van operations (like Ian of Lionheart etc) that dispel the "buying from the the individual" myth.
I think a well run, established carpet cleaning company with a large client list and a few commercial contracts can fetch a tidy sum.
I bloody well hope so anyway!!!
Tony
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Depends how you run the business i guess.
There are quit a few multi van operations (like Ian of Lionheart etc) that dispel the "buying from the the individual" myth.
I think a well run, established carpet cleaning company with a large client list and a few commercial contracts can fetch a tidy sum.
I bloody well hope so anyway!!!
I bloody hope so too, its my pension !!!!
Tony
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so are you guys looking to sell on when you retire or as i was thinking of doing, getting someone to run the business for a good wage and keeping the trimmings.
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Its good to have options when the time comes ;)
Ideally investing the money generated in to property and shares and living off that before the traditional retirement age.
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so are you guys looking to sell on when you retire or as i was thinking of doing, getting someone to run the business for a good wage and keeping the trimmings.
That would depend on many things Derek, the year i turn 65, wife turns 60 and son turns
18
Would love it if he took it over, however you never know what they will want to do,
he is only 20 month old, mind you he has a mini Henry and a flat mop already :D
If he dont want business i may run it a few years longer before selling,
a lot will bepend on our health, you never know what is around the corner
Andrew
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We all know in our heart of hearts that we will pull out all the stops for a 250 or 300 pound job and throw in a few extras and generally see the customer right - the same cannot be said for a job with a very low ticket - yes you do the job right but you don't hang around and offer premium value - as the ticket price goes down there is a law of diminishing returns and most customers recognise this at that price - however when this natural law of things is cocked-up by groupon discounts it pre-supposes that something has to give and it is not the customer - in effect the cc has to out-perform his ticket price.
This paragraph has to be the statement of the year and sums up in a few lines what the rest of us have written about this lot.
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I would say that most est independants customer list are almost worthless as customers repeat because they buy from who they know ( the individual ) .
They've got to be even more worthless if a sizable amount of names on the database have groupon attached to them.
If you just want a list of names and address then 192.com is quite good ;D
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I will be living off the kids when I get older they are free loading off me now so it'll pay back, infact thinking about it Derek will be walking (or being wheeled around) like royalty with all of his kids :o
Shaun
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guys
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Thanks Neil - the Vaclav Havel is in the post!