Clean It Up
UK Window Cleaning Forum => Window Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: sunshine windows on March 28, 2014, 05:49:54 pm
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Does anyone regret building up a round of very compact work, as they feel worried they'll lose customers over the slightest price rise at times.
Just curious as I have a run of 4 houses, which at my current prices should be £15, £15, £20, £20
They are currently £12, £12, £13, £13 and I'm going to put them up but only to £13, £13, £15, £15 as I don't want to lose any of them. They already earn at least £50 per hour but have only have a £1 price increase each in around 8 years.
Most of my round is scattered all over the place with very well priced runs of a few houses at a time.
Just curious to know what the likes of Dazmond feel about losing a whole street because they all band together to find someone cheaper.
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aha but what your forgetting is we think about window cleaning 98% of the day where as a customers thinks about 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000098% of their day :) ... just go for it whats the worse that can happen
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If you can do them all in an hour and make £50 then I can't see the point in puting the price up a £1 each and risking losing them for the sake of £4 extra.
Put the prices up of your jobs that are not giving you a good hourly rate.
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i lost 2 customers out of around 250 i put up.most a quid or two.some a fiver though.
actually ive still got a few customers to see to tell em of next months rise.
im glad i done it though! ;D
bring on next month now! :D
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aha but what your forgetting is we think about window cleaning 98% of the day where as a customers thinks about 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000098% of their day :) ... just go for it whats the worse that can happen
looses all four :-\
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i lost 2 customers out of around 250 i put up.most a quid or two.some a fiver though.
actually ive still got a few customers to see to tell em of next months rise.
im glad i done it though! ;D
bring on next month now! :D
You should be OK but sometimes there's a delayed reaction. Just as we might avoid dumping a bad customer until we don't need them any more, they can avoid sacking the window cleaner until they find a replacement.
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If you do a decent job it's almost impossible to get sacked IMO I'm sure Daz will agree (Oh! he has already)
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my compact estate work is not 4 in a row.its 80 or 90 houses virtually all right next to each other taking around 4 days to clean followed by another 70+ accounts across the road on another estate.
most of them are cheaper than the OPs though.ranging from £7-£15.
2 customers cancelled but ive got a feeling they will take me back on over the next few months! ;)
ive already replaced the jobs with "walk ups" and recommendation jobs.
i cant lose in this game! ;D
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I realise you have large numbers all on the same estates Daz. This is what got me thinking, would you worry if an ex customer introduced a new cleaner to the area and he then started converting your customers.
Cheers
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I have a compact round and yes one of the downsides would be that someone could
come in a take a large amount of your work in one go.
It hasn't happened to me yet would I would never say never.
The thing is it wont happen over night so if I was to start loosing customers then I would head out and try to
get work elsewhere.
Even stand alone customers can be lost to other cleaners its just part of this game and if we where to
worry every time a new shiner came knocking we would all end up in early graves.
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I have been telling people to stay away from very compact work for ages that's exactly why they band up together one messer to us could be the other 5 best person end of the day she is a secret messer to trades men not to her friends and her friends will always stick with there friend and you loose the lot
Used to have very very compact work it was a nightmare having to keep the messers happy in order for them not to force the other good customers to cancel
I actually refuse to clean next door houses now unless they pay in advance 3 cleans or direct debit
Much prefer packing up drive round the corner have an easy life if one customers makes your life hell on non compact work you can walk away but on compact work you can't
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IVE DROPPED ANY MESSERS!!there is 3 other window cleaners on my estate work.they clean 2 or 3 houses each.i clean the rest! ;).they are 100% trad.
its been like that for years.most of the other guys give up after a while as they dont get any more customers.
this is only a half of my work.lots of my other work isnt estate stuff. ;)
course you can walk away from a messer on compact work!just carry on cleaning the rest and leave the odd one for the trad boys.thats what i do. :)
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[quote author=dazmond link=topic=184148.msg1572918#msg1572918 date=
course you can walk away from a messer on compact work!just carry on cleaning the rest and leave the odd one for the trad boys.thats what i do. :)
[/quote
Yea true but it can and will backfire as the trad boy might get the other 5 this is spoken from the horses mouth been there before they end up ganging up and taking her side not always but it does happen
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When I was in England most of my work was very compact, having been built up over a number of years.
Part of my run was two neighbouring villages, each of which I could park up and walk round each day for a month without moving the van.
I remember losing a handful of non-payers, and another to an undercutter in one of the villages. The rest were model customers, I maybe had one 'not today' once a year, and was happy to roll with that. The run was a dream, no hassles whatsoever.
That said, there were also other windys around, but we always had a chat and there was no rivalry at all whenever we saw each other about, apart from one guy with a smart Transit sized van, all whistles, bells and hoses, who turned his nose up at us lowly tradders!
No, it never worried me that I would lose any of my compact work. I never lost any that made any difference to me.
Now I am in Ireland I have some compact work which has taken 2 and a half years to build. There have been messers/non payers who have been dropped. I still do their neighbours and haven't had any difficulty keeping them. In my view, if you do a good job, are reliable, honest and offer good value for money, most customers will repay you with their loyalty.
John
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I have a few compact areas but always drop any messer - I do get a bit twitchy that I might get "messer's mates" drop me but my prices aren't stupid in compact land and I can only think of one time a neighbour has dropped me because I dropped her next door neighbour for a doorstep refusal.
No loss to me really.
In fact I dropped the parents of one guy who is a leading light in a compact area and he still has me do his. Mind you Mrs Captain America is back soon (search captain america on this site for the full story) so that might cause a drop or three!
I don't care and will not put up with messers.