Clean It Up
UK Floor Cleaning Forum => Carpet Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: boshravie on September 24, 2007, 06:41:59 pm
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Hi guys
I am just wondering how many of you do carpet cleaning in hotels?
Is it a good prospect?
What about pricing, for example how much do you charge per rooms?
This is on a monthly bases, so its regular.
Many thanks for your reply.
Regards
Bosh
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Just checked out of a Motel in Bradford as company arrived to clean carpets,
They had Textherm system
Did not get price per room but found out they charge £80 per matteres but I think that is if a drunk has messed it .
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My hotel work is very infrequent, not from choice, the managers have a budget and the housekeepers struggle to get any extra cleaning done.
Monthly contract sounds a very attractive prospect !
WOW
Imagine using a Tex' on a mattress ;D ;D
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I have a couple of hotels i do regularily, I charge £1.60 psm and do an average of 15 rooms per month (around £3-400 per month) I also look after one of the owners own home and his 5 rental props so I do free little extras for him if he has a bad spillage etc to keep him sweet. ( The owners dont want furniture moved and the carpets are polyprop so I dont mind dropping to £1.60 psm)
ollie
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i clean the rooms in a hotel, just an average place not particularly 'posh', i charge £20 per room regardless of size, some take a few minutes some 10 minutes but that is provided they want me to do at least 10 rooms, if it's less rooms i charge more. i use a truck-mount and i like to have a helper with me to pre-spray, that way it is so much quicker, i also don't move beds but i do pull the bedside cabinets aside to clean behind them.
colin
ps i also clean peed-on mattresses in a conference centre and i charge £75 + vat, £88.12
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Rob
Should have made it clear it was HWE on mattress client gets charged an extra night aswell as the cleaning bill.
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Well cbt
I think your charges for rooms are great for £20.00, but do they call you exactly every month?
The one we do, we only charge £12.00 per room (only traffic area) most of them are around 24 square meter plus they have a large conference room which we have charged £150.00 and any extra hall way or corridors we charge from £60.00 to £100.00
So is that to cheep?
Regards
Bosh
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bosh, no it's not a regular clean, probably 3/4 or so times a year, also clean the restaurant carpet and hallways at various times of the year, i will say that i would possibly charge less if it was very regular, ie monthly. are your prices too cheap? i think it's what you earn by the hour that matters, even if you are only charging 20p per sq mtr as long as your earning the hourly rate you want, so be it,
colin
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Thanks colin
Yes you are right, its just difficult to work it out by hour, for example yesterday we went there and spouse to do 10 rooms, but their lift broke down so we end up logging all the equipment up and down, but I see what you mean by how much I like to earn per hour.
And that is £100.00 per hour if I could have ;D
Many thanks for your advice
Regards,
Bosh
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Amazed a hotel would pay £88 for a mattress clean....................they can replace then for that !
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Amazed a hotel would pay £88 for a mattress clean....................they can replace then for that !
when was the last time you bought a mattress (that will last)
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your right pete, these are really good quality mattresses, it's all i can do to drag them off the bed to work on them they are so heavy
:o colin
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We have a hotel that we do 20 rooms bimonthly and the hallways twice a year.
Dene
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hi guys
so how much would you charge for rooms like this in a 5 star hotel, 3-4 times per year.
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If they buy poor quality furniture and curtains, they will probably pay minimum prices
rob m
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Bought a mattress last week Silentnight, not a cheapie, but still only £110. Hotels get large discounts as they buy in volume.
rob m
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am about to do a massive mailing campaign for Hotels as my area is rife with them. Can anyone offer tips for content as this is new to me.
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Go in and speak to the housekeeper, there is really no alternative and she will give you a trial, unless happy with existiong provider.
They don't all provide regular work !!!!!!!!!!!!
rob m
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That'll take me weeks. Live in margate. Billions of em
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You can only do one at a time!
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Well it doesn’t look like that many of you do hotel carpet cleaning !
And if you do, you don’t like to let out the secret of pricing these jobs!
Am I right?
Regards
Bosh
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i clean a hotel the rooms vary in size i charge between £25 and£45 per room but they must have a minimum of three rooms per visit and there is also plenty of hallways plus leather furniture so i do ok :) :)
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Whaaaaaaaa bennymon that’s a great price you charging, where about do you live?
Is it a 5 star hotel?
Goooooooooooooood for . I am thinking of targeting good 5 star hotels too, where they can appreciate a good carpet cleaners.
Regards
Bosh
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hi bosh its in surrey the cheapest room is £165 per night . not good value ive stayed in the luxor las vegas the room was double the size and only about £40 per night. i once quoted a travel lodge £23 per room it was to much for them and they got one of there staff to do it with a karcher. :) :)
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pete,
Ive just finished mailing a load of hotels and i have picked 3 up out of thirty letters.
I could email you a copy of the letter ive sent but i dont confess to being a marketing guru its just a short to the point letter.
ollie
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hi ollie could you email it to me abmcleaning@fsmail.net cheers :) :)
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Mmmm Surry, yes I believe is the posh area. bennymon :)
But to be trueful to you most hotel wont pay more than £20.00per room for carpet cleaning and thats max. but the thing is good repeat business for when you have quiet times, plus I am hoping to get extras like the conference room plus ect…..out of it.
Regards
Bosh
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Bennymon
Another thing I was going to ask you is that,do these hotel pay you on time ,, I mean within 14 days or is it the case of you having to chase them for your money?
Regards
Bosh
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Hi guys
well I have just had a call from the same hotel, which we cleaned the rooms for last week, asking if we can come and do an emergency job removing some blood stains plus do one or two more rooms, well I have written to them prior the contract that if we do any emergency work, it would be extra, so I am just wondering how much would you charge for an emergency cleaning?
I am going to say £70.00 for a call out.
What you think?
Regards
Bosh
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that sounds about right and they usually pay me within a week. but i think ive got lucky with this one :) :)
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Hi bennymon
I thought so too, yes and I have to be series with them about the payment.
Thanks ever so much.
Regards
Bosh
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A big part of my turnover is from cleaning hotels. I've only gone out and marketed once which consisted of me phoning and meeting the housekeeper who had fallen out with her previous supplier, sheer luck, and matching his prices. Higher end Housekeepers in my experience don't take any notice of sales letters and prefer to use someone recommended.
I've eight on my books at the moment, seven of which are from recommendations, I've found that as long as you don't upset the Exec Housekeeper and do a good job for a reasonable price they will recommend you and fight to keep the budget that you tell them they need!
As for pricing i average out about £12.50 per room. Various charges for callouts. I clean budget to rediculous ( £29pppn to £700pppn ) but keep the prices the same apart from travel costs.
This means that when the housekeepers get together, which they do, you don't run the risk of anyone feeling ripped off. They treat budgets like it's their own and I've learned to respect that though it took me a while.
I offer a guarenteed 6hr response time if a room gets trashed and to get the room back in use the same day which some times is a mission but it's a good thing to offer.
p.s i always get a disclaimer signed when cleaning blood saying that i recommend immediate replacement of the carpet and cannot guarentee complete removal.
Hope this helps
Chris Taylor
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Hi Chris
Well many thanks for this reply , i greatly appreciate your help.
I see that you are not far from my price per room, which I charge £12.00 per room, but I am so sorry I don’t understand by what you say about £29 pppn? To £700pppn?
What you mean by that?
Another thing is that the house keeper called me yesterday and said we have had a blood accident on one of the rooms, so when I attend this morning she changed her mind and said sorry but the maintance man cleaned it up last night(maybe because she know how much we charge for emergency call out and she like to save money) and then she said: but I can give you more room to do, in reply I said we can only do 3 rooms, because we were busy on other jobs and I have to come back another day for other rooms, and she agreed. So when we packed and ready to load our equipment to the van she said uuuhhh sorry can you do that room with the blood? Why I said? Ooohhh she said because the maintance man didn’t do a good job. I thought what an idiot why didn’t she check the room before. I had to decline to do it, because 1st I had other jobs to attend to plus, I am not here for her to jump when she say so. She should be more thoughtful.
Any way I am still getting use to this kind of jobs, because most of our jobs are private and we just go and do a excellent job as usual charge good money and get a lot of thanks for it too.
Regards
Bosh
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29pppn .... meaning 2 star to 5 star boutique hotels yet i charge the same price per mt near enough.
As for she says jump you say how high.If you want the contract she's your boss when you're in the hotel and she pays your invoices so I'd always jump. twice if they want me to!
Also if you do get the contract... from the beginning go on and on and on about how they shouldn't be trying to get rid of stains themselves and why. Everytime they ask you to do a stain ask if they've tried anything on it . If they have we all know the chances of success are limited once toilet cleaner has been scrubbed in with a wire brush.
Chris Taylor
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pete,
Ive just finished mailing a load of hotels and i have picked 3 up out of thirty letters.
I could email you a copy of the letter ive sent but i dont confess to being a marketing guru its just a short to the point letter.
ollie
Yes please Ollie
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HI
I used to do a hotel here, they were so impressed, they bought the system!
I did 5 demo's for another 5* hotel, (which they were chuffed to bits with) just for them to use someone else.
Regards
Martin 8)
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Hi chris
Well thanks for advice.
You see I always and always Curtis to all my customers and will do anything to please them.
The other thing I was going to ask you is that do your hotels pay you striate away or you have to Waite months for it?
Regards
Bosh
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Martin
Come a cross this (Using a powder cleaner such as "Host" is not required, it does not result in more effective cleaning.) then it started to waffle on about bonnet systems, ;D so I e-mailed them (Thank you for your e-mail inquiry. Please allow us a short time to get back to you. We answer each inquiry individually to service you better.
Len
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Hi
Len, sorry mate, was a bit confused with your post, what did you come across?
Would like to have a look at it.
Hope business is well?
Regards
Martin 8)
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Well I think I will have to give up on this hotel cleaning. ,,, they called me yesterday to price a large conference room on another hotel which they manage( they are part of chain hotels).
Any way went and measured all the areas, the carpets are in terrible state, and I told them they are better of change the carpet, because it will be very difficult to clean, their reply was, well its around £18000 to change it and at the moment they haven’t got the budget to change.
After measuring I priced £3.00 square meter which was a discount price, and it came to £779.85p.
They came back to say it was too expensive and they will get other quotes.
Makes me laugh,,, I could bring that carpet as good as new and save them lots of money and they still want it cheaper.
I think they are the only cheapskate hotel, if they are all like that, I will give up.
What you think guys? Am i right with my pricing or not?
Regards
Bosh
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so any thoughts guy?
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Hi Bosh
Just like ourselves, no two businesses are alike. By this I mean that, from the outside, one 200 bed 3* star hotel may look just the same as the next. Same sort of turnover, same sort of trading profitability. But one may have bigger loans to repay than the other so have less cash left in the pot. So their business philosophy may well be price led. That will run right through the chain of command from top to bottom.
As businessmen, we have a duty to ourselves to be profitable too, taking in all the variables from above. If our charges are fair and reasonable (albeit with a little flexibility) we need to put our businessman hat on and go out there and SELL the advantages of our service. If the prospect is not prepared to consider your advice and your offer(possibly amended) then you must walk on to the next job.
If you become embroiled in a purely price competing exercise, you will rarely win as there will always be someone cheaper. Sell a good service at a fair price.
An approach I learnt on one of these forums a few years ago has stuck in my mind.
CC: That will cost £200 Sir.
Custard: No thanks, Joe Bloggs will do it for £150, but if you'd like to match that price.....
CC: If I did match that price, who would you choose?
Custard: Why you of course!
CC: Why's that Sir?
Custard: Because you'd do a better job!
CC: I rest my case :)
Safe and happy cleaning :)
Ken
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Hi Ken
Yes You are sooooooooooo right about this and you know I have done some of the jobs for them very cheap, for past two months we have done some rooms and a large hall way, and they have seen how excellent our job was, in fact they were so surprise how we could bring their carpet up so clean.
But up to now I have been more than fair to them and if I have to keep doing it for cheep price, there would not be any profit for us.
Therefore I have to kiss good bye to this one.
Any way thanks so much for your advice, its always good to hear other advice.
Regards
Bosh
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A similar situation Ken, only 2 weeks ago.
I gave a local restaraunt a price of £350 to clean their carpets, incidently after I had just after I had been out with a few friends for a meal there.
His reply was thats alittle expensive I can get it done for £150 :o
My reply was," Your steaks cost around £12.00 a go , I can go down the road and get a steak for around a fiver" He smiled and said " Yes but mine our far better quality and better service etc."
Exactly, ;D I said . He didnt know what to say :)
Havnt heard wether I got the job yet though :P
Geoff.
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Exactly, I don’t understand these people mentality, even though I give them a broacher about my company and how we do things and explaining all the details of how I clean a carpet, they still don’t understand .
Basically I blame all the cheep carpet cleaners who have made general public to believe that carpet cleaning is just pure the water in the tank of a machine and go over the carpet or go down nearest D.I.Y shop and hire it and go over the carpet like a vacuum cleaner.
I think we all have a duty to educate the public about carpet cleaning. and I hope forum like these will educate some of those cheep and cheerful carpet cleaners to price properly and educate their customers.
Bosh
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HI
Guys, i think this is the issue, they see us as cleaners and that is just a carpet.
Most of them don't care about the training, products, time, effort, service etc. Thye just want the cheapest price they can.
They see themselves in a different light, they are a restrauntuer, highly esteemed etc.
Their thoughts are just that they wanted in cleaned, not what goes into it.
We obviously like to give the best service and are proud of our finished product, they don't give a monkeys.
Regards
Martin 8)
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Martin is correct and it's been stated many times, by many people. When someone / anyone want's a service carried out, they almost always ask the same question.
Can you give me a quotation for the following work...........................?
If you start to muddy the waters, you are petting barriers in your way, rather than giving your business an edge.
If the price is right, you will be offered the job.
In 90% of domestic work, the same rules apply.
As in every walk of life, if you want to be busy, you must be competetive otherwise you have presented a barrier between you and your prospect.
Does'nt mean you have to be cheap, but somewhere in the middle is the best place to be, if you want to be busy !
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Martin
I agree 100% with your view. Or not ???
So who's going to change their blinkered view?
Unless we do it ourselves, nobody will. We all run our own business', take pride in our abilities, standards, ethics etc. etc. and we put this to good use in our business'.
If non of us did anything to improve standards, we'd all be working down to a price and not up to a standard.
Double glazing is double glazing is double glazing. Until you ask for a quote when someone will tell you about their high security locks. Another will tell you about their special Solar Glass, another about a bigger air gap and some will offer it all. They employ professional salesmen to inform, educate and SELL their premium products. Just the same as us carpet cleaners ::)
As I said, nobody else will improve our standards for us. Or our profitability.
I like to think that I've done a pretty good job of educating my commercial and residential customers alike over the years. They will buy my value added service for the same reason they will buy a Dyson rather than a Goblin, or a BMW rather than a Lada. They are all designed for the same purpose, but some have value added features and perform a fair bit better than others.
Safe and happy cleaning :)
Ken
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Hi
I hear what you are saying, and I do agree.
but, the customer only regards us as cleaners, and that's a carpet. For most customers, that's as far as it goes.
How many price shoppers do we all get ady in & day out?
The BMW anology is not suitable in this case, if people are in the market for one (they can afford it) they will buy it, if not a lada is all it may have to be.
You have been doing this many years and have built up trust and reliability, but these days, it comes down to availability and price. Same for window cleaners, domestic, commercial, pubs, resturants, the lot.
Although I feel I give a great product, service, and good value, if they don't agree, i lose it to someone else. It's happened to us all.
I am guessing we all strive to improve our standards, but most people don't care, they just want it done ASAP and for the right price.
Regards
Martin 8)