Clean It Up
UK Window Cleaning Forum => Window Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: RO-Sheen on March 29, 2007, 11:13:22 am
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Do you guys raise the price every april to come in line with the rate of inflation and if so do you write to your commercial customers first or do you just add it onto the old price and put a footnote on your invoice explaing the price increase?
Thanks in advance
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Nah! Every time a customer says "I can't remember what I owe you?" I up it by a £ ;D....I jest!
I don't do much in the way of commercial but I reckon you'd have to tell them in advance of doing the work. Also the current rate of inflation is 3% ish, so if you're charging £5 to do a shop front what do you then charge them...£5.15 ? Seems better to keep to the £5 for a few years then jack it up to £6.
Simon
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I think its up to yourself when you put the price up . just put mine up the last
time was four years ago. A lot of window cleaners in my area so dont want to loose work through price. All my customers ( houses) happy with £1 increse.
Did get quite a few saying thought it was time you put them up. So all happy cant grumble.
EDD.
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I try to put the price up in line with inflation but stick to the nearest 50p. I just put all mine up a £1 as I hadn't done a rise in years, lost 4 so far cause of rise. There's no point being the cheapest window cleaner in the area you end up with a lot of dross.
I would definitely tell commercials a month before.
Simon
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We find that March/April is not a good time to increase on domestics, due to the budget etc etc. Remember window cleaning is very low on the priority list for many people and with the recent hikes in mortgage rates, if you increase prices that may just be the customers "straw" to break the camels back so to speak. Saying that there is never a good time to increase in the eyes of some customers! ;) We had a massive hike on customer prices last year due to vat registering, yes we put the whole 17.5% on them, but in return we did guarantee not to look at any more price increases to them for at least 18 months. To offset this though we did increase our pricing structure when quoting new customers. Has worked ok for us. Commercial, we only work on contract terms and we contract a price for 18 months at a time or more if it is a "good" price. Whoever agreed to you doing the commercial work is the person to talk to on price increases with them. You know your own customers and you probably already know deep down how they would react to a price increase, some wouldn't mind an extra £5 and some would cancel for 15p extra!!!
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Price increase every year in Feb.
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mine are all going up at least £1 next month ,
if anyone has a price increase letter i can get ideas from please send them to me .
thanks in advance , lloyd
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Increase your prices before your customers receive their new council tax and water bill increases!
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I notify them the month before now, (domestic) they often object if you don't warn them in advance, 10% this year cos I left it last year.
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I don't have a set date for price increases, but I constantly keep tabs on prices, I use a stopwatch to time every job that I do, and work out what each job averages as an hourly rate, any job which is falling behind the others gets a price increase to bring it in line with my better paying work.
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i do the same Groundhog, stopwatch and calculator, make sure they're all paying what they should be.
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i have a lot of jobs where the price is the same as 18 yrs ago when i started i do a lot of work and always broke now i know why ??? ??? ???
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Domestic - I raise mine in 50p/£1 increments. Generally in Spring and on the collection slip I put through the door I print a paragraph that says it will take effect the following month.
Also, if there is a hike in fuel prices or even bank charges - like last year I might use that as a reason.
I also have what I call my E.I.T. (Extra Irritation Tax ;D) I am a bit judicious - I don't milk the best jobs - but I use price increases to make mediocre jobs worthwhile and to weed out poor jobs/irritating factors.
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I have a few commercial jobs that I've had for about 7 years and I've never put the price up.
7 years ago they were really good prices, now they are still good prices but nothing special.
I'm thinking to start putting them up each year but I don't really know how much to put them up by. Should I just put it up rthe inflation rate for this year or for all 7 years?
They are good loyal customers and I don't really want to rock the boat on the other hand I'll have to put them up someday.
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I have a few commercial jobs that I've had for about 7 years and I've never put the price up.
7 years ago they were really good prices, now they are still good prices but nothing special.
I'm thinking to start putting them up each year but I don't really know how much to put them up by. Should I just put it up rthe inflation rate for this year or for all 7 years?
They are good loyal customers and I don't really want to rock the boat on the other hand I'll have to put them up someday.
I'd say that I've not increased prices in the last seven years and that due to inflation and investment in wfp (if true) for H&S reasons I propose a modest increase of 10%.
That will be fair enough and shouldn't rock the boat.