Clean It Up
UK Floor Cleaning Forum => Carpet Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: Colin finney on January 16, 2009, 06:09:27 pm
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I got a carpet cleaning leaflet thru our door this morning as always the prices were rock bottom. A 3 piece suite was just £45. We charge £100 for a standard suite and it takes us round two hours, how much do you guys charge?
Col
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Am starting to charge £50 per seat from today 8) 8)
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I have seen flyers for 3 pc suite cleaning from £30, I normaly charge £120-£175 but, I'm thinking of dropping the price a bit, say £80-£150 just to stay in the game... :'( Some suites can take me up to 3hrs, but normaly it's about 2. Still £40-£50 per/hr better than nothing.
Graeme
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NOT selling suites James, just cleaning !!!!!!!!!!!!!
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I charge 90 to 100 to do a suite and takes me 2 and half hours to 3 hours :)
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I charge £30 - £35 per seat, average 3pce £175
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I charge £95.00 for a 3 pc suite taking 2 1/2 to 3 hours on average.
Mark
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Just put mine up from 20 to £25 per seat. If I was flat out all the time I would charge more but not quite there yet.
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Average is £100 (£20 per seat) I tend to charge more for grubby cottons though.
Simon
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£80 - £100. Not big money but dont think I would get many if charge went up.
Mike
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£20 per seat for me for 2009. Will assess how well the price is welcomed in my area and possibly up again in 2010.
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Standard suite £161 inc. VAT, £225 inc VAT with protector. Normally takes me a half day give or take, subject to which way the wind's blowing :)
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erm just come up from £70 for standard suite to £25/£30 per seat :)
aint lost a regular just client yet . its what your ok with and the expense of the subject your working upon I think IMO
Ricky
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Generally charge £28 - £35 per seating area.....so standard 3x1x1 is between £140 - 175. Sometimes go down to £120. Depending on material & level of soiling a 3x1x1 will take between 1 1/2hrs - 2 1/2hrs.
Richie.
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Surely part of the equation is what the suite is worth.
Some might get away with £200 but how can you justify this if they could get a brand new one for £350.
My starting price now is £85, and let's face it how much effort is really needed to clean the backs & sides. 2 hours should be more than enough time to do a standard suite clean.
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I told a custy that I normally charge £30 a bum, but have dropped it to £20 a bum.... His reply was...
"Sorry, I just want my 3 piece suite cleaned.... have I got the right number?"
I then realised that it must have sounded like I was a rent boy's pimp!!!
Oh well, he was too far out of town anyway! :D :D :D
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Robert M ...I ment cleaning :P :P if your going for the top end of the market as i am it will take me at least 4 hours to clean a suite and dry it to make sure its up to the STANDARD I want :P :P credit crunch what credit crunch
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I told a custy that I normally charge £30 a bum, but have dropped it to £20 a bum.... His reply was...
"Sorry, I just want my 3 piece suite cleaned.... have I got the right number?"
I then realised that it must have sounded like I was a rent boy's pimp!!!
Oh well, he was too far out of town anyway! :D :D :D
ROFLMAO!! ;D
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James123, 4 hours to clean a suite what are you doing man, cleaning it by hand or something. £200? is rediculous pricing in my mind and can't be justified or is there some bragging going on here. ;D
Col
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£50 a seat for an average 3 pce is £250
If you can get it good on you, I haven't tried but it doesn't mean it can't be done but you really would need to justify it and also you may need to change your customer base to suit.
Sometimes these boards can hinder aswell as help regarding prices as you can get negative feed back if you are too honest.
Personally I think my price at £135 is as high as I want it at the moment as I can sell protector with it and still make a decent profit and also a good conversion rate (not 100%) but I'm not chasing work all of the time as I've been doing it for 20+ years so I sometimes don't put prices up for the sake of an easy life.
Shaun
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I charge 20 pounds/seating unit, but did a sub contracting job the other day and the company charged 184 (inc VAT ) for a 6 seater corner unit . Do you guys charge extra for cleaning scatter cushions or is that all included ?
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I always do the scatter cushions for them if they have them dont take a few more mins :)
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Colin
Think you mis spelt a word " bragging " did you not mean " dreaming "?
James
I've been looking after your top end types for many years. including ...................Footballers, Football Managers, Singers, TV and Stage people and even a mega wealthy family, who own a very large Security business around the Glasgow area, etc.
They don't chuck their money around, but will often refer you, to their friends and family. Provided you do a good job and win their trust.
Every suite, to my mind has to be priced separately.....................it might be a small 5 seater with fixed cushions, or it could a massive 2 x 12ft monsters plus a matching 3 str, obviously in a pretty big room, or other combinations.
For the former I would charge in the region of £75 and be finished in less than 90 minutes, but the latter, is one of the few, that's taken me close to 4 hours, but charged accordingly.
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Can't believe anyone would pay £100 plus fo a 3 piece cleaning.
Just put mine up from £55 to £70 at start of year and am now losing every other enquiry.
Did one Thurs and it came up lovely 1hr 45mins did sides but not back.
4 hours??
John
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Depends where you live, competition, level of service. I can well understand some charging less than £100 under the right circumstances.
Standard price is around £160. I will do draylon around a ton and cotton mingers pushing £200, but I actually don't want them unless the customer would be a good long term bet.
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Colin
If you had 2000 customers last year your pricing stucture must be right unless you want to loose some customers
Perhaps you could increase your prices by 20% and see how you get on.
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150+ vat standard 3pce not that expensive if it happens to take 4hrs under £40 p/h.
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Can I just say, nice try to the loser who just sent me an email posing as a customer wanting their 'flatweave' suite cleaned. Do you think I'm a fking idiot like you. ::)
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This is always a hot topic but think of it this way.
A 3 piece is a 3-1-1 but the style could be so big thats it has 1/3 more fabric than a traditional suite. Some suites has lots of arm details which takes time to clean. Some are reversable some arnt. Some are dirty and need lots of agitation some only need a prespray and extract etc etc.
Therefore you cant have a fixed price. Are all suites £500 no they arnt.
As mentioned if you customers buy suites from Argos for £500 then your going to have trouble asking £150 to clean it but if its worth £5000 then its a different story.
I charge £100+ depending on the above factors. Id say I book 50% of new suite business from YPages but then I hate cleaning them so I dont worry.
Mark
PS. I dont believe anyone can clean a suite professionally for £40.
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Can I just say, nice try to the loser who just sent me an email posing as a customer wanting their 'flatweave' suite cleaned. Do you think I'm a fking idiot like you. ::)
To the voice of Michael Winner........Calm down dear ;D
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This is always a hot topic but think of it this way.
Are all suites £500 no they arnt.
As mentioned if you customers buy suites from Argos for £500 then your going to have trouble asking £150 to clean it but if its worth £5000 then its a different story.
I dont believe anyone can clean a suite professionally for £40.
Well said mark.....why would you take 2 to 4 hours to clea a suite for 40 to £70
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Can I just say, nice try to the loser who just sent me an email posing as a customer wanting their 'flatweave' suite cleaned. Do you think I'm a fking idiot like you. ::)
To the voice of Michael Winner........Calm down dear ;D
;D
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Can't you always trace email sources ?
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yeah mike
what was the return email address?
derek
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Hotmail account ::)
Even a geniune email, they don't get a price and I never do a suite without inspecting so waste of time really.
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Caint you trace hotmail etc ???
There going to be a pain like the silent calls in the 90s till they brought out number display :)
I canot get my mail from my web site as am locked out so dont get any wind ups :o
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£280 for a 3 piece with base & back cushions.
I obviously dont get everyjob but I get more than 1 in 3 which makes in profitable than charging £100.
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There Are Hundreds Of Paths Up The Mountain
There are hundreds of paths up the mountain,
all leading in the same direction,
so it doesn't matter which path you take.
The only one wasting time is the one
who runs around and around the mountain,
telling everyone that his or her path is wrong.
8)
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£280 for a 3 piece with base & back cushions.
I obviously dont get everyjob but I get more than 1 in 3 which makes in profitable than charging £100.
You get more than 1 in 3 so is that 2 in 3.
At that price you wouldn't get 1 in 20.
Wind up.
John
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he could mean 31 out of 90, thats more than 1 in 3.
or is that me being cocky. ;D
derek
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Between 1 & 2.
It doesent have to be a wind up just because you dont charge that much.
I am not knocking what you do or charge thats up to you, just saying what I'm doing.
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The claim of £280 per suite and winning 2 out of every 3 quoted, is one of the most pretentious posts I 've read on any board. Someone is surely deluding themselves. If not, they are certainly conning their customers.
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Robert you may be right but why do you always say people who charge high prices are conning their customers. They aren't, if their customer wants to pay a high price that is their choice.
Its like food, you can buy bangers and mash in a cafe for 3 quid, in a restaurant it might be 20. At the end of the day its still some sausages, tattie and gravy on a plate.
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I didnt say two out of three
I said between 1 and 2, there is a big difference. I think that most people understand but I will explain it as robert cant seem to grasp it.
Between 1 & 2 means for every 100 quotes I should convert between 33 & 66. (Get it Rob?)
My clients are also very happy and return to me.
Dont knock high pricing just because you want to work for the min wage.
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The claim of £280 per suite and winning 2 out of every 3 quoted, is one of the most pretentious posts I 've read on any board. Someone is surely deluding themselves. If not, they are certainly conning their customers.
Here we go again Rob. Do you know where this guy lives? Who is customers are? Do you know whether his custys spend a grand a week on Champagne? No you don't do you, all you know is what you can do with your customers and that's all.
As to pretentious, well that's your view, I'm more interested in HOW he does it. Also you like this idea that those who charge considerably more than you are conmen. How does that work then, is he doing something illegal by charging more than you feel easy with?
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Here we go again Rob. Do you know where this guy lives? Who is customers are? Do you know whether his custys spend a grand a week on Champagne? No you don't do you, all you know is what you can do with your customers and that's all.
He comes from Oxford.
Runs 2 x steamway truckmounts.
Charges .79p per foot carpets.
Uses fast track
http://www.huntscleaning.com/
regards
Chris
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I good website too.
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OK...............he's not who I though he was !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Incidentally Mike, my LOWER charge is about FIFTEEN TIMES the minimum wage.
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A decent website :)
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I'm going to do some video testimonials for my site. I will do really tight head shot so you can't see the gun. ;D
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Mike ;D
Have not seen your site yet mike ???
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Reently rocked mine over the £100 threshold. I have decided this year not to increase prices just for the sake of it, but to charge more for those jobs that do take extra time, like suites and HSL's and those jobs when setting up and down takes longer.
Dave.
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Mike ;D
Have not seen your site yet mike ???
Mark Roberts did a great job, but I'm not happy with the copy and content I gave him. Probably leave it and do a separate one myself and which wins.
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I think some CCs need to wake up. "Cant get them prices for cleaning this and that!?" Just because You cant or you dont think its right or whatever, there are lots of CCs out there, not only Hunts cleaning, doing just that, getting high prices for their services. Most of them dont visit these forums as they prefer to communicate with other like minded operators. Personaly if I was just starting in this business, I would follow their route rather than any other, as it is, my regular customers of many years will only stand a reasonable price increase, so I cant make the leap, wish I could.
Dave.
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I was of the inderstanding the reason very few contribute is they have to sign an oath of silience
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Ian
They are probably taught early on (and sounds a bit cult like), that it's a well known phenomina that you become like the people you interact with. Birds of a feather and all that. So keep away from the bottom feeders.
Harsh but true. Same goes for negative people, just sap your emotional energy.
Also if you say you get £280 for cleaning a suite on a regular basis and someone on here says that's not possible, you are either a liar or a conman, why would you carry on reading that, you would just laugh and go off and clean another suite. ;D
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Ian,
No theres no oath of silence, just a natural reluctance to share the real information with other that have not paid for the privaledge. Of course some content has leaked out, and theres no secret to a lot of it, its how its used that makes the difference. If you are like me and have built up your business with reasonable pricing, even if you have the tools to achieve high prices it is very difficult to make that change. Some have done it and done incredibly well, but it means a complete change of attitude and mindset. Maybe if I had discovered it ten or fifteen years earlier I would have gone the whole hog, as I truly believe there are lots of customers in every area that are willing to pay the higher price, in fact they are right now only dealing with those CC's that, do charge, the higher price.
Dave.
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My bad habit is quoting over the phone I know I could command a greater price for those bad jobs and the ones where they want multiples of rooms cleaning best thing about a TM is that if you get it wrong you don't always lose out.
Shaun
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Yeah I know what you mean Shaun. I too have the awful habit of phone quoting when I know that I can get 30% more if I go and quote. Trouble is like you ive been doing this so long, most of the time I cant be bothered and take the chance with a phone quote. Quoting on site at the higher price I almost always get the job, so the question is - is it worth the extra to go out and quote or is it worth 30% less to phone quote. If work does become tight, I'll be going out to quote, but at the moment I'll carry on doing what I'm doing.
Dave.
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Surely there are other benefits to quoting in person.
You not only see what they want cleaning but also other things they didn't realise needed cleaning. ;)
You know where the job is, access, whether there's 10 dogs, additional problematic stains etc
And sometimes you meet someone and you think 'no thanks' better on the quote than when you turn up for the job.
I think you established guys should take it easy and just phone quote, especially anyone round my way. :)
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You are absolutely right of course Mike. I actually enjoy on site quoting when I do go out, and I do quite a bit. However when you are getting 5 or more calls a day (Not at present) the temptation to resort to phone quoting becomes overwhelming and before I know it its done ??? and I still didnt get the job (4 out of 5 anyway). Thats it youve convinced me I'm back on site quoting from now on, and if it doesnt work, its all your fault! ::)
Dave.
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I get enquiries from all over the place I don't want to be going all over quoting, Mike Hallidays role model is the best but not always possible as he has little competition where he is and also good newspaper coverage mine is poor or I could take the expensive option by Royal Mail.
Anything in a 5 mile radius from now on gets quoted in home after that I will have to rely on my silvery tongue :P
Shaun
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I have to say it's impressive that after all these years you guys still do some quoting at all. I'd be thinking I could only do so much more work anyway so give them a price on the and like it or lump it.
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You never have enough work, alot of cleaners will work on the way you said but I prefer work all year round and lots of it, even old customers can become price shoppers as there circumstances change or another cleaner gets recommended that may be cheaper.
If you are putting your prices up every year (which everyone should) then you may need to go out and re sell yourself as alot of customers think you should charge the same as you did last year and teh year before that and that also it's a chance to pick up new customers.
Shaun
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The problem is if you charge top dollar to start with a 5/10% hike each year quickly makes your price silly.
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I agree Mark I do try and put prices up on larger jobs that I will have discounted for volume, simple single carpets you have to be careful on and also upholstery has a bit of a taboo limit on it IMO, I wish I could get and feel comfortable with £280!!
Shaun
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There's not as many Yorkshire folk in Oxfordshire
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True it's like the County of the Damned, money may come in but will never leave!
Shaun
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Mike
Might start going out to quote on site too :)
Did go to one inthe city center of manchester on monday to see the building manager and that was the first on site quote for a few months.
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It's not that. If I didn't I'd have to get the tea on. ;D
Did 3 quotes this eve 2 sofas, one woman wanted me to just do the carcass, the other was two bloody huge things covered with dust sheets and loads of stuff on top of them. The room they were in had hardly any lighting cos they had stripped the place out to refurb.
Should have stayed at home and watched the 6 O'clock news. On second thoughts perhaps not.
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Mike ;D
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Just doing a bit of maths here. Lets say you charge £140 for a 3+1+1 suite and it takes you 2 hours. Earnings per hour £70.
Now the suggestion is that you can get 30% more by going to quote. That's £42 more. So providing that going to the quote, doing it and getting back on track to what you were doing takes no more than just over 35 minutes then it'll be worth it/break even time-wise. If not or ,in this example, you clean the suite more quickly, then you're working more time for less per hour albeit more income overall. (The busy fool syndrome?)
The problem comes when you run out of time to do this and/or you still don't get the job.
This is not meant as a definitive example as everybodies rates/travel time/circumstances/time available and work/life balance will be different.
Personally I'm quite happy quoting over the phone (lack of time, caring for a disabled wife, running a house etc) for the "bog standard"unless I know the job is going to be a little out of the ordinary and then a visit to quote will be the order of the day. Occasionally I get a "minger" which means my hourly average rate will be down but this is an exception and reminds me of how well it normally works.
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You'd have to put your price up if you went out to quote.
By the time you've finished you can call it an hour.
Would any body honestly go out and quote for a single, bog standard room.
Or a 3 piece for that matter.
John
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I think it depends on your closure rate on the phone, if you get 5/10 then at £140 providing that it doesn't take weeks to get 10 calls I would phone quote if you get 2/10 I would definately go out to quote.
Shaun
PS I think the Manchester and area cleaners on average get better prices than at the t'other side o'pennines, most here charge £70 for a suite based on YP.
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Dont think you would get the 140 mark without going to quote here either ???
I get the 95 and 100 a suite on the phone but have to sell the higher price.
Roger
Did you see that carpet cleaning shop has closed the one on opp the rising sun in hazel grove ???
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Clinton
Is that "North of England Carpet Cleaners"? If so I can remember when a lot of their trade was uplifting carpets to take away and clean then return and re-install.
I know my Mum and Dad used that service when I was a kid.
Guess what Mum and Dad do now? ;D ;D
Shaun
I think we are now taking the discussion to deeper levels of interest and detail that are often missed on the forum.
Perhaps you are right about a price difference across the Pennines, but the principles we are exploring are still valid.
BTW I wasn't claiming to price suites at £140 but was taking a stab at a consensus view from some earlier posts. My price is c£100-£110, but I convert probably 70-90% on the phone.
The bottom line is whatever price you aim at if you have time on your hands then quoting on site will improve your sales skills as well as your conversion rate.
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Roger ;D
Was not sure of the name think you could be right and it changed owners as he owes a sum of money to a prochem dealer from droylesden and derek caint get hold of him to get the money :(
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Careful how you word your comment Clinton, you should add allegedly, as you never know who's reading these posts and you might be guilty of slanderous comment, or similar.
r m
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I'd just like to chuck a couple more thoughts into the equation :)
You're not quoting for just this job, you're quoting for a long-standing relationship with that customer that will hopefully bring in many times more money than the initial job you do for them.
First thing to consider is Customer Lifetime Value. We all know that if we "do a good job" we get to go back again and get recommendations into the bargain. You only have to sell yourself ONCE whilst sat on the customer's sofa convincing them to use your services. After that, you sell yourself through your actions whilst working for them.
In my experiences, it's rare that a repeat customer will want me to come out and quote (in terms of "selling myself") again to them. Most will just book in, or accept an estimate over the phone along with the reassurance from me that whatever the price they'll get the same value for money as the first time they used me. Definitely after the 2nd job for a customer there's no issue; phone call, book job, do job, send bill, receive cheque. I could hug some customers, they're so easy to work for :)
Then there's recommendations. Again, in my experiences and generally speaking they're very easy to convert! The job is as good as in the bag before they've even phoned. The existing satisfied customer has already done the selling before I've even spoken to the new customer! I find that this is truer the higher up the customer scale you go. Bargain hunters will always be that - less loyal by nature. So, if you're working at lower prices you end up working for less loyal customers, again generally speaking.
Here's the crunch - The higher paying customers feel they are making a more significant and worthwhile spend when they fork out a decent amount of money, so they will tend to be of the opinion that they are sharing something a lot more special than Mr Cheapo, and therefore will be more inclined to want to recommend (AKA boast about) you to their friends. I get a lot more recommends from my high-paying customers than the ones who only have their lounge done once every 2 years or something like that.
Me, I jump at the chance to go out and quote; I'll do my utmost to get my backside sat down on a customer's sofa and tell them exactly what I can do for them and how much they'll benefit from using my services. You simply can't sell over the phone, you can only price-match. Even if I've literally just rolled up at home and get a phone call, I'll willingly drive straight back out to a customer 5 miles away if it sounds like a decent opportunity.
I take it even further than this. When I can be bothered I actually arrange a home quote with a price shopper. No offence intended to anyone here, but yesterday was a classic example. I take a call and it's a number I recognise as not being a particularly nice area... the customer sounds common as hell, she even lets a couple of expletives out whilst talking to her. My suite cleaning is up to 3 times the price of some of the numpties who work for sheckles round here. To cut a short story long, I arrive at her house, tell her exactly what she's going to get from me and what she's not going to get for 40 quid and a bag of chips and guess what.... she cancels the other guy and I nearly choke in disbelief! :)
I think the bottom line is that a lot of people are afraid of SELLING. We don't all know how, only a very few are natural born salesmen, the rest of us have to "Uhm" and "Err" our way through face-to-face contact with potential customers. I think if we all tackle our biggest fear head-on and find out it isn't so painful, we all might suddenly find our lives improving a little bit. What fear? Rejection of course. Get over it you big girlies, so what if they say no!
End of sermon :D
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a good post as ever Jim.
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Jim
Brilliant!
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a good post as ever Jim.
Nah, some of my posts are complete toss ;D
(but thanks :) )
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Jim
Good post :)
Thats a good sale you got there,think its going to be more common that the 40 pound merchants come along now as many more peole are starting up in c cleaning as the same with window cleaners.
Am also thinking even with some web sites am still getting a lot of price shopers so guess even some established guys in our area are cutting prices as with a web site it gives us one up from a in your area for a week guy ???
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More food for thought as ever , Jim
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jim
my best convert to date was a women who had had her suite cleaned for £35 and i quoted £120, the look on her face was hilarious when i said my price, and she immediately said i'm not paying that, after discussing why she doesn't want the £35 quid guy back, (wet for 3 days, not that much cleaner and nought to dirty in sixty seconds) and offering to clean a (man made fibre) rug while i'm there for free, i eventually got the job, all though it did take 2 months of her dithering and a second on site quote, hard work but payed off, took 2 an half hours and 2 visits, good enough for a newbie.
derek
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Small Dralon 3 Piece suite today, £120.. took 1.5 hours, gave me £10.. tip. Second job 3 seater Sofa & 1 Chair £110.. took 1.5 hours, also got a £10.. tip. Clearly I'm not charging enough!
Dave.
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Yes Dave, that is a strong indicator ;D
Do you get that all the time though, could just be a coincidence.
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No Mike its probably just a flash in the pan. Nice though ;D Just goes to show though doesnt it, for years Ive known that I could get more for suite cleaning, but going over that £100 threshold has been a mental obstacle for me. I have charged more than that for big suites but not generaly. Any way these were the first two Ive quoted on since deciding I am just going to do it, and upped my price. Now I am over that hurdle I feel theres nothing to prevent any further increase as and when the need arises. (both phone quotes, by the way ;).
Dave.
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Yep, I guess it's like the 4minute mile barrier. Stood for ages then when it went the best time tumbled.
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Like you Dave. A big sense of relief once I'd got through the barrier. I now wonder what the problem was all about.
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200 is the next target :)