Clean It Up
UK Window Cleaning Forum => Window Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: Dean payne on May 22, 2012, 08:52:06 am
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Just wondering how you deal with people who pay late, Its very annoying when you have to chase a payment when you have done a decent job and turned up on time, I am currently chasing a payment for £15.00 they said they would do it online, and ive sent 2-3 reminders now getting the feeling they are not going to pay.
Are thier people out thier what have us do the work and don't pay, as in they prob have someone 2-3 times per year book a new window cleaner each time and have no intention of paying?
How do you deal with late or bad payers? I guess drop them I mean even now if i get the payment off this one i wont clean thier windows again as they have proved that they are not good payers.
I'm still learning this business and now i am starting to get more business I am starting to get some of the problems you guys have prob all had who have been in the game years.
Very frustrating I can say, how people can be like this.
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chasing one for £750
one for £240
wish £15 was the worst one :)
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Just wondering how you deal with people who pay late, Its very annoying when you have to chase a payment when you have done a decent job and turned up on time, I am currently chasing a payment for £15.00 they said they would do it online, and ive sent 2-3 reminders now getting the feeling they are not going to pay.
Are thier people out thier what have us do the work and don't pay, as in they prob have someone 2-3 times per year book a new window cleaner each time and have no intention of paying?
How do you deal with late or bad payers? I guess drop them I mean even now if i get the payment off this one i wont clean thier windows again as they have proved that they are not good payers.
I'm still learning this business and now i am starting to get more business I am starting to get some of the problems you guys have prob all had who have been in the game years.
Very frustrating I can say, how people can be like this.
as your round grows the amount outstanding will always be there, it is with mine , maybe im not as good at getting the money as some , im always owed anywhere upto a grand on domestic and like today the same on commercial
It becomes a job in itself getting paid , its one of the downsides to this job , if all the money went in my account once a week life would be so good!!
ps i must say that i collect alot of mine so sometimes if i dont go out enough in evening then it's my fault , my cheque payers are a mixed bag some good , some slow, some very slow
so if had my whole round sending chqs i imagine it'd be no different as there are always some slow payers and i wouldnt go dropping handfulls of compact work because they are a week or 2slower than everyeone else to send a cheque
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i finally got a txt back from them, a snotty one saying they were going to make the payment, and that becouse i have reminded them 2 times that they no longer want the service well, if you pay on time I wont have to remind.... I don't want people like this on my round so they can go.
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you sound best rid
my late payers still pay without prompting so i dont mind, if everyone was like this though it would be impossible to run a business
im quite laid back i should probably be stricter with them :)
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i finally got a txt back from them, a snotty one saying they were going to make the payment, and that becouse i have reminded them 2 times that they no longer want the service well, if you pay on time I wont have to remind.... I don't want people like this on my round so they can go.
send one back saying you have spoken to all the other window cleaners in the area and they are now on the window cleaners black list for your town and wish them luck in getting a replacement :)
And then dump and replace with two-CIU golden rule no.1
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We had one exactly the same. Sent them a text saying that they had already been removed from our rounds due to being bad payers!
Best rid of em ;D
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I think if they know your coming and they are in, they have no excuse and should have payment ready, she said oh i do it online bla bla bla so I expect it done that day, as it takes just minutes. If a plumber done his work he would get payed after the work was done not oh i pay ya later bla bla bla, ok its a lill bit different if they are out, but if they are in and they tell me they are going to do payment online stright away I expect it as i take peoples word for it.
I guess I can expect plenty more people like this, going out lealfeting today so will replace this one easy.
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Don't let these people get to you,I think it's important to communicate your terms with new customers, when I am asked how do we pay I tell them we offer an online facility but payment must be within 7 days as helps keep our prices low, the late payers I put the prices up on to cover the administration, it takes time to sit and text or call,if they cancel because of this it is there loss,I never go to 2 cleans if they have not paid so don't quite understand windies who are owed more than one clean on domestic, my opinion only..! Hope this helps
Graham
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Stick this on all you payment slips and apply it.
I put it on all my payment slips invoices etc.
All window cleaning has a
NO QUIBBLE GUARENTEE
Call within 24 hours and the offending glass will be cleaned absolutely free
All payments exceeding 10 days of service will attract an admin charge of £2 and £2 every month there after.
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i have written of thousands in the past. I found it part and parcel with domestics.
It used to stress me out but in the end i would just put a strike through them. weren't worth the aggro
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Stick this on all you payment slips and apply it.
I put it on all my payment slips invoices etc.
All window cleaning has a
NO QUIBBLE GUARENTEE
Call within 24 hours and the offending glass will be cleaned absolutely free
All payments exceeding 10 days of service will attract an admin charge of £2 and £2 every month there after.
i was only thinking of implementing a term like this . but not sure how it would go down. girlfriend seems to think its not such a good idea . puts pressure on people
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every one likes to have nice clean windows but when it comes to being paid you are probably the least priority to customers. some forget, some cant be bothered, some wait till its an amount worth sending, some cant really afford to have it done, some are conning b*ggers its all part and parcel it wont change .....i bet every one on here is owed money.
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Deano you are right,theres a % of wasters who wait for a newbie then mess him about ,then wait however long it takes till another newbies flier drops thru their door
what road was it in?
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Andrew try not paying your utilities bill and they will be on your neck 27/7 asking your customer to pay there bill is normal. The 2 quid is a normal cost to chase them.Customer don`t respect businessmen who are soft on credit.This is a business not a play ground game.I am sorry if I sound hard but I have to pay my bills so must my customers.
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Ive manged to weed out all of my bad payers however still got the odd one the goes AWOL .. I find the best course of action is to turn up about 8.30am on a Saturday and get them out of bed.
Only you can decide when and if to drop ... some say keep em till round is full and I used to follow this mantra however looking back would be better to drop right away as once a slow payer always a slow payer.
I had to chase one recently ( a newish customer) for £14 from Jan and £14 from March had decided to drop as had to go to house twice to get money after she had promised to pay online back in March when she was 1 payment outstanding .. nice middle aged lady thought I could trust ... got money handed to me in a sealed envelope and thought great wont be coming back here .... opened envelope when back in van to find a note to cancel :o ... grrr she got me first ;D ;D
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One of the measures I apply to my business is debt list amount v round value.
Try to keep it to about 10% of round value but can creep to 15% or even 20% at peak times.
Another one to watch is age of debt and anything over 14 days I get annoyed at at 21 days they get a doorstep visit ... fortunately not too many of them these days ... repaeat offenders are dumped unless the will go onto standing order which helps the genuine busy forgetful people and further weeds out the non payers.
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The reason Im a window cleaner now is because our old windie dumped me for being a very slow payer ... if he offered me a standing order 2 years back .... well I would still be running a Toyota Dealer :o
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hey dude i agree totally with you.....its the way it is, i accept waiting isnt good /frustrating... thankfully 95 %of my custys are good if they dont pay its usually cause they have forgot and they pay double the next time. but some can mess you about. if they haven't paid in 3 months its knock on door time (in the evenings) ... it can be embarrassing for them...thats my rule of thumb 3 missed payments then face them