Clean It Up
UK Window Cleaning Forum => Window Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: nathankaye on April 14, 2016, 08:14:35 pm
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Dont mind competition, as ive often seen them come and go. Yet these have one or two in my rounds and leaflet dropped giving a free first clean. Which by the way is a great idea.
But yes its a national company and so im expecting dirt cheap prices. Competition as im sure we all think is fine n healthy, but i really begrudge dirty tactics of cheaper than cheap prices.
So wondering if anyone else has come across them and whats the general consensus?
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Thats nothing. One company is offering the first 3 cleans free.
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I wouldn't worry, even as a free clean many decent customers will not change, ( of course that's assuming you provide a good quality clean and customer service )
Are they on this forum? I recognise a few of the images,
Let them go and do first cleans for free, unless they can tie up a continued service then they will bankrupt in a few months..
Is the first clean free, but you have to pay for it then get a refund after completing say 10 cleans ?
Darran
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How to value your service, give free cleans.
If you don't valve your service, nobody else will.
They will pick up messers that guess what......
Don't worry keep doing what your doing
Tony
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It doesnt say, but worded well. "We would like to impress you and convert u into a regular customer.."
I am curious if any of em are on here.
Most of my customers havs been with me from day 1, so not overly worried.
When i first converted to wfp, one customer had seen a chap in the estate use wfp. Hes been in same area for yrs as well, but she was curious about it especially as she had windows at the time i couldnt do ie above conservatory. So i feel more for trad cleaners as ones who are curious might just try it. Lol, they may even mistake me for em,,
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I noticed them on yell.com today , they are bloody top listing all over the country
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It's just some bloke in his bedroom who if he gets an enquiry will start phoning local windies begging them to be part of his network of barely employed windies. No need to panic,
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It's just some bloke in his bedroom who if he gets an enquiry will start phoning local windies begging them to be part of his network of barely employed windies. No need to panic,
Concerned if hes in his parents home in his bedroom with a 50" tv spying onhis worker in my area.....
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ITS THE SAME AS BUYING A ROUND FROM SOMEONE, USUALLY VALUED AT 3-5 CLEANS
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I just don't get cleaning windows for free.
This is your job. Get paid.
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As I always say..... " Any idiot can sell something cheap!".
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Had one yesterday on my round.
May have lost one to them already ???
They are based in Leeds , so us northern window cleaners will be targeted.
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Hey Small
I'm not far from you at all. They are basically renting their work out. I wouldn't worry too much ,if you do a good job and are reliable you shouldn't lose many customers. The ones you do lose will drop them when somebody cheaper comes along.
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Yep based in leeeds, not far from me.
a lot of my customers, friends and family have had the free clean leaflets.
I had an interview for a job with them a couple of years back, guy interviewing told me the owner has plans to go national with window cleaning so not surprising to see them on that path, seen loads of vans across the north, the area they cover is huge up here but i expect they will be nationwide soon.
First clean free is a damn good tactic if you can afford to pull it off which they obviously can, this isnt some dumb noob trying to pick up work its a large company who are succesfully growing with this tactic.
Should the average one man band be worried? of course not
As for their prices they are considered expensive around here, heard of the doing 4 bed detatcheds for £20 (this is yorkshire guys are doing these for under a tenner all day long up here)
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My main problem with new customers is cancel after 1, 2 or 3rd clean. Any excuse. Offer free first clean NOOOOO they would be in the hundreds
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My main problem with new customers is cancel after 1, 2 or 3rd clean. Any excuse. Offer free first clean NOOOOO they would be in the hundreds
Perhaps they have a contract?
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Perhaps. It's not really cleaning windows for free then though. I'll clean your windows if you sign up to a years contract.
I still think using the word free is a bad move, especially in this game. You make it seem worthless. There are people who charge double for first cleans. Justsayin.
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Perhaps. It's not really cleaning windows for free then though. I'll clean your windows if you sign up to a years contract.
I still think using the word free is a bad move, especially in this game. You make it seem worthless. There are people who charge double for first cleans. Justsayin.
If they have the right to cancel within 7 days of the first clean it's free.
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Yeah but then you're back to duncan's original problem.
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Freebies and special offers work for a lot of businesses but they don't work for window cleaning, I put it down to the amount
of window cleaners that come and go making customers very reluctant to move when they finally get a shiner they can rely on.
This company is going to pick up every messer in the country looking for a free yearly one off followed by all the useless
customer types who will jump ship every time a cheaper price comes along.
Good luck to them.(http://www.cleanitup.co.uk/smf/1460791685_grin[1].gif)
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Yep based in leeeds, not far from me.
a lot of my customers, friends and family have had the free clean leaflets.
I had an interview for a job with them a couple of years back, guy interviewing told me the owner has plans to go national with window cleaning so not surprising to see them on that path, seen loads of vans across the north, the area they cover is huge up here but i expect they will be nationwide soon.
First clean free is a damn good tactic if you can afford to pull it off which they obviously can, this isnt some dumb noob trying to pick up work its a large company who are succesfully growing with this tactic.
Should the average one man band be worried? of course not
As for their prices they are considered expensive around here, heard of the doing 4 bed detatcheds for £20 (this is yorkshire guys are doing these for under a tenner all day long up here)
Whilst I know nothing of this company and whether they are successful or not.
The strategy of offering any service for free to try to gain new business or oust competition is a hindbrain tactic and shows no business acumen or evolution whatsoever.
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Yep based in leeeds, not far from me.
a lot of my customers, friends and family have had the free clean leaflets.
I had an interview for a job with them a couple of years back, guy interviewing told me the owner has plans to go national with window cleaning so not surprising to see them on that path, seen loads of vans across the north, the area they cover is huge up here but i expect they will be nationwide soon.
First clean free is a damn good tactic if you can afford to pull it off which they obviously can, this isnt some dumb noob trying to pick up work its a large company who are succesfully growing with this tactic.
Should the average one man band be worried? of course not
As for their prices they are considered expensive around here, heard of the doing 4 bed detatcheds for £20 (this is yorkshire guys are doing these for under a tenner all day long up here)
Whilst I know nothing of this company and whether they are successful or not.
The strategy of offering any service for free to try to gain new business or oust competition is a hindbrain tactic and shows no business acumen or evolution whatsoever.
Plenty of companies offer freebies in the hope of winning your long term custom and it can work very well, five years ago I
got a £120 voucher from Sky and a years half price subscription and have been with them ever since.
Personally I cant see the incentive of one free clean making many dump a reliable shiner there just isn't enough incentive
to take the chance, its the same with undercutting other than the small amount of sole trading £500 an hour guys on here
there isnt enough wriggle room to tempt custom away.
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Whilst I understand the point you are making SeanK, Sky tv is more of a niche market product and they can more or less influence their market prices to accommodate the special offers.
But back to window cleaning, I don't believe ANYONE has been successful in trying to go national with domestics and has made it work.
And lowering the financial value of the service is just going to lead to a race to the bottom.
I refer to my comment made earlier "Any idiot can sell something cheap!".......and I stand by it. ;D
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Whilst I understand the point you are making SeanK, Sky tv is more of a niche market product and they can more or less influence their market prices to accommodate the special offers.
But back to window cleaning, I don't believe ANYONE has been successful in trying to go national with domestics and has made it work.
And lowering the financial value of the service is just going to lead to a race to the bottom.
I refer to my comment made earlier "Any idiot can sell something cheap!".......and I stand by it. ;D
Tell that to the guys who started Poundstretcher, (http://www.cleanitup.co.uk/smf/1460802192_grin[1].gif)
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Yep based in leeeds, not far from me.
a lot of my customers, friends and family have had the free clean leaflets.
I had an interview for a job with them a couple of years back, guy interviewing told me the owner has plans to go national with window cleaning so not surprising to see them on that path, seen loads of vans across the north, the area they cover is huge up here but i expect they will be nationwide soon.
First clean free is a damn good tactic if you can afford to pull it off which they obviously can, this isnt some dumb noob trying to pick up work its a large company who are succesfully growing with this tactic.
Should the average one man band be worried? of course not
As for their prices they are considered expensive around here, heard of the doing 4 bed detatcheds for £20 (this is yorkshire guys are doing these for under a tenner all day long up here)
Whilst I know nothing of this company and whether they are successful or not.
The strategy of offering any service for free to try to gain new business or oust competition is a hindbrain tactic and shows no business acumen or evolution whatsoever.
Plenty of companies offer freebies in the hope of winning your long term custom and it can work very well, five years ago I
got a £120 voucher from Sky and a years half price subscription and have been with them ever since.
Personally I cant see the incentive of one free clean making many dump a reliable shiner there just isn't enough incentive
to take the chance, its the same with undercutting other than the small amount of sole trading £500 an hour guys on here
there isnt enough wriggle room to tempt custom away.
So did I but, every year at renewal I cancel. Then then offer me all sorts of deals to stay. Only once in 10 years have I lost the service and used free view but within 3 months I've had another "deal"
if they can do it cheap to start, I ain't paying much or anymore. 😀
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When I started I learnt very quickly that free cleans are not the way to go but reduced rate worked well. I now know the absolute way to build a round is quality of work and service. At the start I thought give it six months ill have a round and earn thousands a month but as we all know the good customers are a rare breed. Free cleans will bring the bad ones out in droves and the good ones won't even bother.
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National domestic will never happen, simply not enough in it to cover all the overheads etc...
Besides 25 million homes in the uk, say half would use a windy, if you say an average round is 300 homes you would need over 40,000 employees to service the uk.
Darran
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Yep based in leeeds, not far from me.
a lot of my customers, friends and family have had the free clean leaflets.
I had an interview for a job with them a couple of years back, guy interviewing told me the owner has plans to go national with window cleaning so not surprising to see them on that path, seen loads of vans across the north, the area they cover is huge up here but i expect they will be nationwide soon.
First clean free is a damn good tactic if you can afford to pull it off which they obviously can, this isnt some dumb noob trying to pick up work its a large company who are succesfully growing with this tactic.
Should the average one man band be worried? of course not
As for their prices they are considered expensive around here, heard of the doing 4 bed detatcheds for £20 (this is yorkshire guys are doing these for under a tenner all day long up here)
Whilst I know nothing of this company and whether they are successful or not.
The strategy of offering any service for free to try to gain new business or oust competition is a hindbrain tactic and shows no business acumen or evolution whatsoever.
Plenty of companies offer freebies in the hope of winning your long term custom and it can work very well, five years ago I
got a £120 voucher from Sky and a years half price subscription and have been with them ever since.
Personally I cant see the incentive of one free clean making many dump a reliable shiner there just isn't enough incentive
to take the chance, its the same with undercutting other than the small amount of sole trading £500 an hour guys on here
there isnt enough wriggle room to tempt custom away.
So did I but, every year at renewal I cancel. Then then offer me all sorts of deals to stay. Only once in 10 years have I lost the service and used free view but within 3 months I've had another "deal"
if they can do it cheap to start, I ain't paying much or anymore. 😀
Exactly but at the end of the day getting you on the cheap is better than not getting you at all, they still get enough to make it
worthwhile. I do the same by the way.
But as I said in my original post there isn't enough in window cleaning for that sort of business plan to work, your not going
to get a sensible customer for a one off free clean.
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National domestic will never happen, simply not enough in it to cover all the overheads etc...
Besides 25 million homes in the uk, say half would use a windy, if you say an average round is 300 homes you would need over 40,000 employees to service the uk.
Darran
Not to mention the amount of 50inch flats screens that would be needed to keep track of them.(http://www.cleanitup.co.uk/smf/1460809635_shocked[1].gif)
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;D
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So big they're using that picture of the most famous conservatory roof in the world on their website. The one that appears on 50% of window cleaner's websites. Can't even manage one of their own:
http://www.ukwindowclean.com/free-clean-offer.html
And their gallery features three people.
They may well be taking a long-term view and covering outlying areas at a loss, of course, with the aim of growing into the areas they claim to cover.
Vin
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Yep based in leeeds, not far from me.
a lot of my customers, friends and family have had the free clean leaflets.
I had an interview for a job with them a couple of years back, guy interviewing told me the owner has plans to go national with window cleaning so not surprising to see them on that path, seen loads of vans across the north, the area they cover is huge up here but i expect they will be nationwide soon.
First clean free is a damn good tactic if you can afford to pull it off which they obviously can, this isnt some dumb noob trying to pick up work its a large company who are succesfully growing with this tactic.
Should the average one man band be worried? of course not
As for their prices they are considered expensive around here, heard of the doing 4 bed detatcheds for £20 (this is yorkshire guys are doing these for under a tenner all day long up here)
Whilst I know nothing of this company and whether they are successful or not.
The strategy of offering any service for free to try to gain new business or oust competition is a hindbrain tactic and shows no business acumen or evolution whatsoever.
but they have dozens of vans on the road, so obviously they have some level of acumen.
perhaps theyve done there figures and research and worked out they can offer free cleans and take the obvious hit of messers nd still be worth it long term?
i dont know the answer either, but the proof is usually in the pudding and there pudding seems to pretty big to me
And shame on you guys for saying its not possible to go nationwide or that it cant be done.
anything is possible, especially in window cleaning, its not difficult to go national, its extremely hard butnot difficult, its very simple if you can build one round you can build 5, if you can employ 10 people you can employ 100,00. if you can cover your city you cover your county, etc etc, easy peasy
I agree with that mostly. The only thing to bear in mind is those idiots on Dragon's Den that had about a 15% margin.
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Iv just been told by a good source ...... The owner of this business is lee pryors .... Looks like he was telling the truth after all 😱
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I have from time to time seen many of the deals and don`t really understand the misguide market behind freebees. The principal of having a goal behind a promotion just does not stand up with freebies. Anyone taking up the challenge of this type market has not guaranteed of future business. All they do guarantee is a disturbed market when they fail and the startup leaves the industry.
I think the reason why we have so many trying this method of marketing is because it`s the first venture for so many starting up in any business. And so little do any research before committing to go into business because they believe they have very little to loose if they fail.
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It's just some bloke in his bedroom who if he gets an enquiry will start phoning local windies begging them to be part of his network of barely employed windies. No need to panic,
Concerned if hes in his parents home in his bedroom with a 50" tv spying onhis worker in my area.....
I had to laugh! ;D