Clean It Up
UK Window Cleaning Forum => Window Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: KS Cleaning on June 02, 2025, 02:37:10 pm
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Just had a cancellation from a long standing customer. “ After the recent price increase I have decided to cancel the service. Reviewing the cost vs the effort equated to an effective cost of over £100 per hour which I do not see as good value for money. I hope you understand. Thanks for your service over the years”.
£26:00 4 weekly customer. He’s obviously timed me on his doorbell……..not worthy of a reply!
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They can transmit sound without anyone pushing the button too! A mate of mine is a postie and he was walking up a drive with parcels and letters swearing "you need to be a circus fecking juggler to do this job" ;D she put it on fartbook.
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I quite often find myself muttering to myself, or start singing when I've got my music on then realise Im being watched.
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Not being funny, but if you were getting £100 pH, why did you put the price up?
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Not being funny, but if you were getting £100 pH, why did you put the price up?
I’m not sure he is. The customer has put 2 and 2 together and made 100 as I see it
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Not being funny, but if you were getting £100 pH, why did you put the price up?
It was £24:00…. Went up to £26:00 in March. I’ve cleaned it at £26:00 three times without a problem. Now due to having a new ring doorbell he has tried and failed to work out my hourly rate!
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Not being funny, but if you were getting £100 pH, why did you put the price up?
It was £24:00…. Went up to £26:00 in March. I’ve cleaned it at £26:00 three times without a problem. Now due to having a new ring doorbell he has tried and failed to work out my hourly rate!
Then I would at least put him right about the hourly rate, no doubt he will be mentioning £100 ph to others, won't do you any favours.
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Not being funny, but if you were getting £100 pH, why did you put the price up?
It was £24:00…. Went up to £26:00 in March. I’ve cleaned it at £26:00 three times without a problem. Now due to having a new ring doorbell he has tried and failed to work out my hourly rate!
Then I would at least put him right about the hourly rate, no doubt he will be mentioning £100 ph to others, won't do you any favours.
Nope, as soon as I go on a stopwatch with anybody it’s goodbye and good riddance! I clean his father in laws house too, it’s a bit underpriced….. I hope he does mention my hourly rate to him😁
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Not being funny, but if you were getting £100 pH, why did you put the price up?
It was £24:00…. Went up to £26:00 in March. I’ve cleaned it at £26:00 three times without a problem. Now due to having a new ring doorbell he has tried and failed to work out my hourly rate!
Then I would at least put him right about the hourly rate, no doubt he will be mentioning £100 ph to others, won't do you any favours.
Nope, as soon as I go on a stopwatch with anybody it’s goodbye and good riddance! I clean his father in laws house too, it’s a bit underpriced….. I hope he does mention my hourly rate to him😁
This is the way to handle it. Utterly ignore the text and good riddance. The Muppet doesn't understand the maths of being self employed.
Let the resentful stew in their own misery.
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A window cleaner works harder in 1 hour than a council worker does all day, simply because they are paid by the job and not the hour. Councils workers get sick pay, holiday pay and pension included for going as slow as possible, that's the difference. If it's raining the council worker still gets paid, even if they sit in their van all day and the window cleaner is looked down upon for attempting to make a living!
Ignore those who time you, it's not worth getting worked up about.
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and very soon his windows will need cleaning .... he will contact a new cleaner . possibly only to find the same price or higher.
these types are extremely annoying
when and if they call you back . put them on an 8 weekly and raise the price to £32 ;D
or just tell them you are way to busy ;D
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I’ve always said ‘you’re not paying for my time, you’re paying for clean windows’.
Time is irrelevant. It’s whether your windows are clean or not that matters.
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I quite agree with all the sentiments made on here, customer is not worth having but nevertheless i couldn't let someone get away with making false statements , about me. Its potentially damaging, and factually incorrect,especially in this day and age of social media. I had a big fall out with a silly cow who id been cleaning for years who had a go at me about only ever cleaning hers when it was raining, a complete and utter lie, but she was deadly serious and a huge gossip. . Customers dont have to agree with me but i wont let them get away with things that just arn't true. Its just the way i am.
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How many people would spend all day cleaning windows for double the minimum wage at least out in all weathers all year round, very few. It's a very physically demanding job and can be demoralising by some finicky customers, need a tough mentality to cope with the comments made by some.
If this job paid peanuts I'd rather sign on and let the state provide for me, making a decent living is the ONLY reason I do this job, incentive to work and earn a decent wage being self employed with all the hassle of being self employed. Performance related pay, is the reason I turn up for work like clockwork! Have never worked an hourly rate even when I was welding and fabricating sub contract.
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I quite agree with all the sentiments made on here, customer is not worth having but nevertheless i couldn't let someone get away with making false statements , about me. Its potentially damaging, and factually incorrect,especially in this day and age of social media. I had a big fall out with a silly cow who id been cleaning for years who had a go at me about only ever cleaning hers when it was raining, a complete and utter lie, but she was deadly serious and a huge gossip. . Customers dont have to agree with me but i wont let them get away with things that just arn't true. Its just the way i am.
I can’t be bothered wasting my time with him to be honest. I much prefer to leave him stewing over the fact that a mere window cleaner is making a decent living…..apparently 😆
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How many people would spend all day cleaning windows for double the minimum wage at least out in all weathers all year round, very few. It's a very physically demanding job and can be demoralising by some finicky customers, need a tough mentality to cope with the comments made by some.
If this job paid peanuts I'd rather sign on and let the state provide for me, making a decent living is the ONLY reason I do this job, incentive to work and earn a decent wage being self employed with all the hassle of being self employed. Performance related pay, is the reason I turn up for work like clockwork! Have never worked an hourly rate even when I was welding and fabricating sub contract.
Performance related pay…….I like that, well said 👏 👏
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You can buy a wifi blocker on Ebay if you are not happy being filmed. As I have always said, there is no loyalty in window cleaning. I don't have all my eggs in one basket so even if I lost half my customers I would still be working most of the week.
I'm afraid to say that this is just the start of customers looking at ways to cut costs. Since Nat Insurance rise, companies are looking at ways to cut costs because workers wages is their biggest cost. Customers only need a nudge to cancel our work so I like to raise the cleans I don't want. I see it as a win win situation because if they cancel I'm a happy camper and if they don't I get more money to do the clean.
Everyone be very careful, because the moment a customer puts a timed video of us on the net then we may see a domino effect and could lose a whole street. I got 4 new customers in a street when the other Trad guy retired. Did it for 4 months and then they all cancelled because someone said wfp will damage their glass units and a new Trad guy took over.
My mum is retired and she has a Trad guy cleaning her windows for a fiver a month. One day I went in to see her and she told me she timed the window cleaner cleaning across the road from her. She has no hobbies and looks out the window when someone passes by. I realised up here, we have plenty of OAP's with plenty of free time on their hands.
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Just had a cancellation from a long standing customer. “ After the recent price increase I have decided to cancel the service. Reviewing the cost vs the effort equated to an effective cost of over £100 per hour which I do not see as good value for money. I hope you understand. Thanks for your service over the years”.
£26:00 4 weekly customer. He’s obviously timed me on his doorbell……..not worthy of a reply!
It'd be tempting to reply asking him how long he wants you to take.
Vin
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Try to employ a solicitor at 850 an hour barrister at 1600 an hour or the exec at price Waterhouse on 4500 an hour
Found this out when Paul Simon went bust owning me and hundreds of Others-loads of money
Most working people are shockingly under paid most are earning just about pre credit crunch wages
Yet we are told we’re ripping folk off
Got a nice new van it’s 35k
Keep getting told I am charging too much yet they work for xyz and never have to invest in even a ball point pen
Sometimes I want to go through all the costs but what’s the point ?
Let em guess how much we earn only we know what we all make on here !!!
google suggests we all earn 23k on average and 18k as an employee !!
Let em think that !
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Dear Customer,
Your message has left me feeling most chastised, and as a result, I am now taking twice as long to clean your windows as I used to.
Please send me the £52.
Thank you.
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The good thing about a windy cleaner's job is to know the very best of Ai can't do it. Many of these professional jobs could be replaced by Ai but they would need to clean their own windows to cut costs.
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There are a lot of overheads that our customers might not be aware of.
I use the acronymn 'iHIPVADA' to try to remember some of them:
i - insurance
Holiday
Illness
Pension
Vehicle Costs
Accountancy Fees
Depreciation on Vehicles
Administration costs
If you employ, you also have to cover employers National Insurance and then there are also costs like clothing for bad weather and the costs of the phone / computer / computer software / round management systems and it it all adds up.
Voice tonality is important if you want to keep the customer and I would preface this list with something to 'soften' what you are about to say, like 'Just so you know.....'
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Heard yesterday that my pal's estate is having problems with window cleaners. They were charging £8 for a detached house where I'm £15. Now they charge £11 and went over to wfp and everyone complained. Now they are back to Trad for £11 and don't clean the sills. I used to watch them clean his by walking over the tiles to clean the small window and walk back to the ladder. Looks like they are just catching up with real prices but with Trad, it marks and damages the gutters, fascia and sometimes the tiles. I think they are hoping I step in but not for £11.
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Heard yesterday that my pal's estate is having problems with window cleaners. They were charging £8 for a detached house where I'm £15. Now they charge £11 and went over to wfp and everyone complained. Now they are back to Trad for £11 and don't clean the sills. I used to watch them clean his by walking over the tiles to clean the small window and walk back to the ladder. Looks like they are just catching up with real prices but with Trad, it marks and damages the gutters, fascia and sometimes the tiles. I think they are hoping I step in but not for £11.
Scottish, how is this relevant to Ring Doorbells?
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Heard yesterday that my pal's estate is having problems with window cleaners. They were charging £8 for a detached house where I'm £15. Now they charge £11 and went over to wfp and everyone complained. Now they are back to Trad for £11 and don't clean the sills. I used to watch them clean his by walking over the tiles to clean the small window and walk back to the ladder. Looks like they are just catching up with real prices but with Trad, it marks and damages the gutters, fascia and sometimes the tiles. I think they are hoping I step in but not for £11.
Scottish, how is this relevant to Ring Doorbells?
Because customers can now watch us. Say something gets damaged and the windy says I didn't do it. They checks theirs or a neighbours doorbell across the road to see how it happened. Another reason Trad is on the way out. If you damage anything when working then its better to tell the customer. I have a camera that records even sound 24hrs a day round my backdoor.
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An alternative viewpoint regards Ring type camera/doorbells is that they can also work in our favour. You can sometimes pick up work because of them. This has happened to me.
Before taking on a new window cleaner, potential customers will often watch us first to see how we work. I've had numerous comments to that effect over the years from customers when they've taken me on.
We currently have a customer who was out when we were working on their neighbour's property, but saw us via their Ring camera and called out to us through the device to engage our services. I had another last week who called out through a Ring camera to say thankyou when I'd finished.
We also have three cases where relatives, looking out for older family members (our customers) who have become less mobile have communicated with us via the doorbell with regards to payment, offering to pay by bank transfer for them. We would have lost those customers otherwise.
However, I have to say that I have had some strange experiences with these doorbell cameras as well. Like the guy who came rushing home because he was paranoid that someone was messing around with a drone on his property only to find it was me cleaning his windows. When I asked him what made him think that, he produced his phone and showed me the video from his doorbell. I never would have believed it if I hadn't seen it, but due to the angle he'd got his camera set at in his porch all it could see was the brush floating from horizontal to vertical in his garden. If he'd watched it for another few minutes he'd have seen me walk right in front of the camera and wouldn't have to have been in a panic. But, hey ho, that's Ring doorbells for you. They don't always see everything.
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My own personal camera doorbell is a Eufy, and whilst it has come in useful catching the odd delivery driver before he departs , more often than not its a very frustrating experience. It can take upto 45 seconds from the doorbell being rung to me being able to see and speak to whoevers there, which i understand is down to the internet, yet i dont really have any problems these days with the internet so cant understand why its sometimes so bad.. As a deterrent, its great, but another annoying thing is that certain delivery firms (Evri particularly) think if you've got a camera bell. its alright to dump the parcel on your doormat in full view of everybody, even though i have a parcel box. Drives me round the bend.