Clean It Up
UK Window Cleaning Forum => Window Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: Johnny B on January 16, 2012, 06:24:23 pm
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I would like to run this by you guys to see what you think.
While canvassing today, I was given a tip that a local nursing home was looking for a cheaper window cleaner. Apparently the current guy has cleaned them for years, but the nursing home's management are seeking to cut costs. They will still need their windows cleaned regularly though, but not at the price they currently pay.
I have no idea what the current guy charges, neither do I wish to know. Would you believe it to be (un)ethical if I approach the nursing home, and give them my price? If my price happens to be accepted, then it would follow that I must be cheaper. If on the other hand they rejected my price, I would not be dropping my price to get the job.
I would be interested in what you guys would do in a similar situation. Thanks.
John
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I think you would just have to ask them directly, up front what their paying and then assess it on your own merits. If the customer is looking its their choice, but then you wouldn't want them taking the pee. Had a class example today - but I cant post it on here.
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I would quote my normal rate and see what happens - business is business. But I wouldn't undercut on purpose just to get the job!
The nursing home are seeking to cut costs? I bet their not cutting their rates though!
Andy
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find out price and if you can beat it then do it
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With you Santa, just assess on your own pricing structure. If you dont know what they are being charged hard one to call. If you ask OP - you have a guideline. Could be way out or in line with what you do......
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I would like to run this by you guys to see what you think.
While canvassing today, I was given a tip that a local nursing home was looking for a cheaper window cleaner. Apparently the current guy has cleaned them for years, but the nursing home's management are seeking to cut costs. They will still need their windows cleaned regularly though, but not at the price they currently pay.
I have no idea what the current guy charges, neither do I wish to know. Would you believe it to be (un)ethical if I approach the nursing home, and give them my price? If my price happens to be accepted, then it would follow that I must be cheaper. If on the other hand they rejected my price, I would not be dropping my price to get the job.
I would be interested in what you guys would do in a similar situation. Thanks.
John
Personally, I would quote your price, but I wouldn't spend to much time on it.
Firstly business is always trying to cut costs as every penny saved is more in management's pockets. Nursing homes are no different. The chances are that if you are a little cheaper they will use your quote to screw the price down of the existing cleaner.
If you are a lot cheaper then they could be tempted to get additional quotes as they could still feel you must be charging top rate with your quote.
They will always be looking at the minimum wage per hour and asking if there is a possibility of employing an occasional to clean them as and when.
One of the local nursing homes just made the housekeepers responsibile for external window cleaning as well - they found out when their employment terms and conditions changed to include this as well - no additional pay either. Take it or find other employment.
Meanwhile management became more and more top heavy with family members in executive jobs with fancy titles and new cars.
I've lost a bit of commercial going inhouse of late (expecting another) so really focusing on residential rather.
Spruce
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Deliberate undercutting is not good for the industry. Prices spiral downwards causing corners to be cut. Over time the image of window cleaners will suffer, as well as the pockets.
Just go in at a price you are happy with. That way you are not undercutting.
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The chances are you will not get the job even if you are cheaper, they have used this guy for years, so they must be happy with him and his cleaning, they are just looking at ways to cut costs.
What they are likely to do is get some quotes in and hopefully for them they find someone cheaper, they can then go to their current cleaner with this quote and ask him to either beat or match it.
If its a good job and he doesn't want to lose it then he will drop his price.
But all jobs are quotable and if you know what the other cleaners are charging, then thats a bonus.
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Seen that several times, yes give us a price - back to the original supplier, it really is saddening. Best ones, are no cleaner or not happy with the current service. Mainly genuine.
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I think you would just have to ask them directly, up front what their paying and then assess it on your own merits. If the customer is looking its their choice, but then you wouldn't want them taking the pee. Had a class example today - but I cant post it on here.
We would ask what the budget is, or what am I up against? Of course that opens up the possibility of the truth not being told.
Spruce
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Normally on the phone, (just what I experience) they are quite happy to give prices...but then you smell a rat because its going to be a "can you beat the price" call. But its such a hard call, until you turn up at the building
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I wouldn't get involved :)
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If you know what the guy is charging and you just dont want to say on here and you undercut him to get the job, what comes around go's around. Put your price in and its go to be your price.
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I don't like asking what previous cleaner charged. if I find out, I try and charge more, on principle.
if you go cheap just to get it, your working for less. and who knows in 6 months some other wannabe will come along far too cheap again, and you will loose it any!
my advice, quote a realistic normal price. nothing worse than going cheap to get a job, then finding out you could have and should have charged twice the price! quote enough so that you will be happy doing it and can do a good job still.
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I don't like asking what previous cleaner charged. if u find out, I try and charge more.
if you go cheap just to get it, your working for less. and who knows in 6 months some other wannabe will come along far too cheap again, and you will loose it any!
my advice, quote a realistic normal price. nothing worse than going cheap to get a job, then finding out you could have and should have charged twice the price! quote enough so that you will be happy doing it and can do a good job still.
Bang on
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I'm with AS on this one - who's to say nursing home won't stab you in the back as soon as a cheaper quote drops on the mat?
They are almost certainly just using you to gain cheaper price off existing cleaner anyway - it would be a lot different if they'd already sacked him off tho
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or have you thought, maybe they want a cheaper quote to use against the current w/c, i have had that thrown at me a few times,
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Why wouldnt you ask about previous prices?
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catherine if you wanted a quote from a company, would you tell them what your best quote was, most will not tell you,
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Most do jouk when your making several calls a day its not a myth - its simple. You go in as a chance as with any business and make the most of it. I can make 25 calls an hour, yes some are oppulent with information some are not, its luck of the draw. I do high volume calling you come across all sorts not one or two calls 100 a day . You cant apply that theory when you make so many calls. Every situation is different some do and some dont. Its about gleaming as much information as you can on the call and move on and do the best for the client..... so yea I do ask for prices if you dont know you have no guideline
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I don't like asking what previous cleaner charged. if u find out, I try and charge more.
if you go cheap just to get it, your working for less. and who knows in 6 months some other wannabe will come along far too cheap again, and you will loose it any!
my advice, quote a realistic normal price. nothing worse than going cheap to get a job, then finding out you could have and should have charged twice the price! quote enough so that you will be happy doing it and can do a good job still.
good advice. well put.
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You are the guy with the bottle to move to ireland and start from scratch Johnny. you of all people would know the answer to your own question. ;)
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I would try my hardest to find out the cheapest price and see if it is worth my while.
If not i walk
business is business :)
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catherine, have you ever thought that they are lying, if i was a big company and i had a tender out, and i already had cheap quotes, of course i would say, well the quote we have is a bit cheaper than that we may consider your quote if you can beat that price, it does go on
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Thanks for all your replies folks. I've read them all. They are really constructive and I appreciate them all.
My thoughts are that I feel for the guy who is cleaning the windows for the home at the moment. He has been doing the job for years, so has built up a reputation for loyalty with them, and because of his length of service to them, must be doing a grand job.
Sadly their loyalty to him seems dependent on whether he would be prepared to take a pay cut or lose the job altogether as soon as they find someone cheaper, which they will have no hesitation in visiting upon the next windy to come along, and the next ...
I will pass this one up and concentrate on seeking out and finding my own customers, and hope the current guy can hold on to this job for as long as he can.
John
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I had similar happen once. They told me the then current price (I didn't ask). I couldn't believe how cheaply they were getting it done. I just gave my "amazed" look and asked "You are only being charged £xx and you want it even cheaper?" "I would be charging nearly double that." I meant it too. I then suggested that they look after their window cleaner better and give him a bit more money in case they lost him.
I wasn't taking the p either.
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Tenders are different Jouk its massive amount of paperwork folded up in documentation, ISO0901, and all the accreditations not on local level stuff. Local level stuff is so much easier to deal with. Had a classic example today, and yes companies do try it on.
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I was asked to do the same thing this week, only I know the current w/c contractor and I know he is good, so I phoned him and told him, I added £40 to his price and put it in, even though he said he would rather lose it to me than someone else, but I sub some work from him, and he gave me a set of ladders to start up a few years ago, I did ask what was wrong with the current w/c and they said nothing, head office just wanted up to date quotes to see if they could save some money
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Thanks for all your replies folks. I've read them all. They are really constructive and I appreciate them all.
My thoughts are that I feel for the guy who is cleaning the windows for the home at the moment. He has been doing the job for years, so has built up a reputation for loyalty with them, and because of his length of service to them, must be doing a grand job.
Sadly their loyalty to him seems dependent on whether he would be prepared to take a pay cut or lose the job altogether as soon as they find someone cheaper, which they will have no hesitation in visiting upon the next windy to come along, and the next ...
I will pass this one up and concentrate on seeking out and finding my own customers, and hope the current guy can hold on to this job for as long as he can.
John
I see your picking up the Lingo ok ;D
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Thanks for all your replies folks. I've read them all. They are really constructive and I appreciate them all.
My thoughts are that I feel for the guy who is cleaning the windows for the home at the moment. He has been doing the job for years, so has built up a reputation for loyalty with them, and because of his length of service to them, must be doing a grand job.
Sadly their loyalty to him seems dependent on whether he would be prepared to take a pay cut or lose the job altogether as soon as they find someone cheaper, which they will have no
hesitation in visiting upon the next windy to come along, and the next ...
I will pass this one up and concentrate on seeking out and finding my own customers, and hope the current guy can hold on to this job for as long as he can.
John
I see your picking up the Lingo ok ;D
To be sure I am that sir! ;D
John
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I sometimes cannot believe what I read at times, every year all of us have to renew our vechicle insurance and every year we go though several companies getting quotes, and with most of these they ask if we have already been quoted, they will then come back with a cheaper quote.
The same happens when we book holidays, do the weekly shop or when we need new equipment for the business.
If you are talking about a domestic customers who is looking to save a few quid, yes you won't undercut the other cleaner, but will you turn down the chance to get a commercial contract that could be worth thousands over a couple of quid.
If your answer is yes, then I hope you show the same level of loyalty to your present companies you shop at.
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PURE, yes thus is true, but we do not sell just a product, we sell effectively ourselves, though be it for a short time
that is the service we do which involves time out of our life's in a sense, though be it for our responsibility to provide and work in society, where as these other things are a product
though after that i do agree with what you say on some level, we talk about 'this is what i want to get in monies'
but then when it comes to buying we crunch numbers
we want the most money but the least to pay out, as do we all
blimey i need more coffee
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Carl
It dosen't matter if you are offering a service or product, you are running a business, and pricing is all part of it, if the other cleaner was a personal friend then I would not undercut, but a competitor why not.
I know that I will not go below what I am happy to do the job for, but if I have to lower my price a little to earn a lot, well its a no brainer.
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fare do's Pure, think i should have just gone out to work rather than posting, give me time to think about my comments at work!! ;D ;D lol
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"Thanks for all your replies folks. I've read them all. They are really constructive and I appreciate them all.
My thoughts are that I feel for the guy who is cleaning the windows for the home at the moment. He has been doing the job for years, so has built up a reputation for loyalty with them, and because of his length of service to them, must be doing a grand job.
Sadly their loyalty to him seems dependent on whether he would be prepared to take a pay cut or lose the job altogether as soon as they find someone cheaper, which they will have no hesitation in visiting upon the next windy to come along, and the next ...
I will pass this one up and concentrate on seeking out and finding my own customers, and hope the current guy can hold on to this job for as long as he can.
John "
Good for you Johnny
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Carl
It dosen't matter if you are offering a service or product, you are running a business, and pricing is all part of it, if the other cleaner was a personal friend then I would not undercut, but a competitor why not.
I know that I will not go below what I am happy to do the job for, but if I have to lower my price a little to earn a lot, well its a no brainer.
yes I agree, the post I put up was my brother ;D so not be taking to serious, anyone else and I would have certainly took a look an seen if I could better the price, but the chances are, I wouldn't, but if I could, I would without a shadow of a doubt, it is business at the end of the day
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I sometimes cannot believe what I read at times, every year all of us have to renew our vechicle insurance and every year we go though several companies getting quotes, and with most of these they ask if we have already been quoted, they will then come back with a cheaper quote.
The same happens when we book holidays, do the weekly shop or when we need new equipment for the business"
Very true, everyone wants a bargain but the stark reality of window cleaning is that its very low skilled and wfp has made it potentially available as a start up business to anyone, and we're heading for a scenerio where we're all driving sign written vans with uniforms and the only difference between us is price. Without the "code" or respect for each other etc it can only lead to prices being driven down, its a very slippery slope. Wfp is without a doubt the best thing thats happened to the window cleaning industry, and combined with the "business is business" idealogy, it will undoubtly be the the worse thing thats happened to window cleaning.
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window cleaning is the same as any other business and it should be treated as such, for instance there are many different window cleaners, you have, Trad, wfp, domestic, commercial, shops only, cradle, abseiling.
Now all of these offer different services to their customers, some phone the night before, some don't, some collect the money at the end of the week and some don't, some clean the frames and sills, others charge extra for doing this.
Because of this and other things, all window cleaners are different, it is illegal to run "cartels" and price fixing window cleaning could fall into this catagory.
I offer a service but to my customers I sell my business to them first and foremost, price is a factor but to some its not the be all and end all.
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"Because of this and other things, all window cleaners are different, it is illegal to run "cartels" and price fixing window cleaning could fall into this catagory."
How could not undercutting other wc's possibly constitute a Cartel ??? . Plenty of good lads round these parts just not prepared to tread on other windys toes, price doesnt come into it, if custy has a wc, you just dont quote, yet we all charge slightly differently.
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"Because of this and other things, all window cleaners are different, it is illegal to run "cartels" and price fixing window cleaning could fall into this catagory."
How could not undercutting other wc's possibly constitute a Cartel ??? . Plenty of good lads round these parts just not prepared to tread on other windys toes, price doesnt come into it, if custy has a wc, you just dont quote, yet we all charge slightly differently.
so the customer does not have the choice to move to another cleaner then, because you all work as a team and will not quote them because they already have a cleaner, fixing prices or conditions on where a customer can get a service is just like running a cartel and a very strange way to run a business.
But thats upto you, until the day a newbie moves into the area and starts to target everybodys customers.
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At no time have i or to my knowledge any other local windy got together to "fix conditions" as you put it, its an individual decision based on common sense, which a great many windys see the logic in, no way could it be costrued as running a cartel. You sell the same product as every other wc, ie you clean,its not rocket science hence as an indusry we're all very vulnerable to people coming in and driving prices down. Its already happened round here, eight years ago when i started, commercial was the "holy Grail" , it paid very well and everyone wanted a piece of the action. Now i would go as far to say that residential is more lucrative (locally speaking)as commercial has been unindated with cheap prices. We're now seeing a change in the focus of undercutting, residential being the target and its inevitable that it'll go the same way. You say its a strange way to run a business, what i find strange is why anyone with business sense would want to saddle themselves with customers whose clear motivation is to get the job done cheaply. Any wc round is only as good as the quality of its custys, no quality or loyalty in people who would happily ditch a windy because someone else is a little bit cheaper. Theres always some idiot just round the corner who'll do it for less than you. Nothing me or anyone can do about it so not sure why im even bothering to respond, I'll just make hay while i still can.
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did I mention domestic, if you look at my answer you will see that I was responding to commercial contracts which are normally higher in value than the domestic sector, so if someone said to me, if you drop your price by £50 and the contract is yours, I will look and see if its worth it, if the contract was only £100 and he wanted it to come down by £50 the answer would be no, but if it was say £300, then depending on the work involve the chances are I would agree.
With domestic, I don't barter.
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"With domestic, I don't barter"
Fair enough, but plenty on here would frown on undercutting on commercial, it just drives the price down, i appreciate that for some reason there seems to be different principals applied to commercial than residential but as ive already mentioned, its had a very detremental effect round here, no doubt some are still on a good thing but generally the good old days are gone and difficult to see how commercial prices will ever get back to what they were. Undercuttings a bit of a sore subject at the mo as following on from our "friends" from Boston out and out undercutting we have another local bloke following suit. Anyways, rant over, i wish you well.
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Nick
you will find that a lot of the commercial contracts that are being targeted now is because of the impact of wfp.
With trad it was harder and always took longer, along comes wfp and the same job can be done in a third of the time, but the best part was you still got the old rate of pay, which is excellent.
But alas these days are now coming to an end, and in some ways this is ok but when you lose a contract you have had for years, that is a good payer, maybe you need to look at them closer.
I have only had one guy who targeted my domestic, this was a few years back and he was blantly going to them and saying he would clean them cheaper than me, luckly I never lost any, you do have more customer loyalty with domestic than commercial.
anyway I called him up and said if he carried on doing this, I would target all of his customer and offer to clean them for FREE.
He checked me out, and when i say i will do something, then I do it.
He stopped his ways, mind you I haven't seen him in years, maybe he tried it on someone else and is now propping up a motorway bridge. ::)
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It cracks me up how many people bang on about signwritten vans, logo'd polo shirts etc I have been doing this since day 1 over 10 years ago.