Clean It Up
UK Window Cleaning Forum => Window Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: sullivan on March 19, 2010, 07:37:25 pm
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Hi all,
Here's the situation.
I cleaned a former colleagues windows and her friends for the first time 8 weeks ago (I used to work with her in a previous office job, so we know each other quite well)
I charged her £20 for her house, and £15 for her friends bungalow.
Her house is actually one huge house, which is converted into 2 flats... I cleaned the lot, took me about an hour. So I thought £20 was actually slightly under priced, although as I'm building my round and I don't have many customers, its better than nothing at all.
I then charged her friend £15 (who lives in the same street).
I'm due to head over there tomorrow for their second clean. I asked her and she confirmed that they want them done again, although her friends sister's window cleaner only charges £10, and as they have the same number of windows can I match it? If not, she'l get them done by the other windy. :-X
Chop em... or bite the bullet?
Ideally, I should up the price of the other to £25 and drop her friends to £10... ?
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ur price is ur price, & keep it at that. if u start doing lower prices u could soon
end up not enjoying the work :o n trust me u dont want that. im guessing u do
a good job ::) so get the price u deserve ;)
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Keep your prices high.
What do you want people to say about you?
A: My window cleaner is the best around here.
B: My window cleaner is the cheapest around here.
NO ONE is going to recommend you to their friends with sentence B. And recommendation is where much of your customer base is going to come from.
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im sorry mate but i personally think £15 for a bungalow is ridiculous!!my min charge for bungalows is a fiver.maybe £10 if your down south or ireland.
if your new to this game you should speed up on the big house and it will be easier to clean.
you would get seriously undercut if you was charging £15 for a bungalow in the northwest!they would prob laugh at you and tell you to get lost!!!! :P
regards
dazmond
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All depends if you are desperate for work. Personally, I would stick to my prices and only deviate on my prices if it leads to better opportunities.
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Well that's it really... I do my best every time.
I would end up feeling cheated if I were to match just because they have the ''same amount of windows''
Its really annoyed me, but, I guess this comes as part of the job eh!
Dazmond - as I said... the other place is underpriced, the £15 kinda compensates for the cheap price on the other job... and this isn't your average bungalow... its fairly big, and awkward to clean... So how you can quote without seeing it is beyond me ;D
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personally i would drop it but if you are desperate for customers tell her you will do it for £10 if she can get you another new customer in the street - this might take the sting out of it a bit
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I remember a few years ago I did a detached house with a conservatory, for which I charged the princely sum of £12 for the lot. I even wiped the conservatory gutters each time. It was ridiculously underpriced even then, but when I finally increased the price to £14 (still not enough but I thought I'd try to be fair and do it in stages) I was dropped in favour of a couple of lads who charged her £11!
I remember being very happy to have lost that one!
The moral is, it is better to lose a customer than to undercharge. You will replace such ones with those who will appreciate you and pay accordingly.
Best wishes,
John.
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Well that's it really... I do my best every time.
I would end up feeling cheated if I were to match just because they have the ''same amount of windows''
Its really annoyed me, but, I guess this comes as part of the job eh!
Dazmond - as I said... the other place is underpriced, the £15 kinda compensates for the cheap price on the other job... and this isn't your average bungalow... its fairly big, and awkward to clean... So how you can quote without seeing it is beyond me ;D
Why did you not say it was a big awkward bungalow in the 1st place ???
Also it`s a bit unfair to overprice one property to compensate yourself for underpricing yourself on your mates property. ::)
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Do you clean the whole window glass frames and sills? Does the other guy do the same?
Jay
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I don't know if the other guy does the same, but yea, I do, I clean everything.
Ian- Well not really, as shes a friend, I'm happy to do it at mates rates... Also as she recommended me to a friend, Its only fair IMO that she has a slight discount, thinking of it that way makes me feel better. This was the case until her friend has asked me to match the other window cleaner... Either way, £15 is a fair price for the job ;)
and also.. I wasn't asking anyone to judge my price... or tell me whether or not I was charging too much. So saying its big and awkward makes no difference at all, what I was asking was what do you do when you get undercut ;)
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you would get seriously undercut if you was charging £15 for a bungalow in the northwest!they would prob laugh at you and tell you to get lost!!!! :P
im in the northwest, i charge £15 for a bungalow that i do. and it gets cleaned every fortnight. the guy has been a happy customer since august ;D
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if its a stand alone awkward big bungalow then i would have priced it at 12quid dropping to £10 if i get 3 or more similar down the same street.we ve all made mistakes when pricing up certain jobs.im a bit better at pricing now.
charge what you want for your own circumstances,standard of living etc.i price fairly for both me and my customer i think!!
remember if you price too highly and drive a flash van your more likely to be undercut!it happens all the time!
CUT THROAT BUSINESS!! :P :P
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DONT BE SURPRISED IF YOU GET UNDERCUT RYAN!! :P :P
30QUID a month to have his bungalow cleaned?he ll keep ya till he realises he s payin you £300+ a year just for his windows cleaned.prob put you on a monthly or someother guy will come along and do em monthly for a tenner!! :P
thats what happens mate esp in the current climate
regards
dazmond
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If you really want the work why not say you will clean the doors too or inside of patio doors only takes a few mins and with that in ther eyes you are doing more for them then the other cleaner. I did the doors once on one of my custys houses and he reccomended me to 5 people because i do the doors aswell. Are you wfp or trad?
£15.00 a fortnight for a bunglow!!
Im lucky to get a tenna a month for an awrkward one.
Jay
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Yeah £30 a month is ridiculous, but hey, if that's what he's willing to pay, then that's what the job is worth
Do you clean his car whilst your there too :P
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I'm wfp, although I always carry trad incase someone wants inside done. She also has latticed windows, what are they like to clean for the trad guys?
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I'm wfp, although I always carry trad incase someone wants inside done. She also has latticed windows, what are they like to clean for the trad guys?
do you mean leaded,they arnt a problem
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There is a golden rule is business - if you start out cheap then you will always be cheap - so you will end up working for very little money and the custy will not value you or your service.
Unfortunatly you have only done 1 clean so the custy has not seen all the benefits of quality reliable work ( this is 1 reason i now charge extra for 1st clean )
just this week another "w/c" canvassed here with prices from 2.50 !! - i have not lost a single custy as i do a top job and always turn up on the day promised - people really appreciate this and if not then you will lose them to some guy looking to earn a few spare quid on the side.
As for price - Don't let anyone dictate your prices - you will know whats right or wrong for a place - size of windows access problems all affect price not just the number or windows in a house.
Darran
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All this talk that you will be undercut and driven out of business if you charge high, if that is the case why do the likes of M & S, Sainsburys, BT, British Airways, Rolls Royce, Harrods, Chem Dry and the other many thousands of sucessfull businesses survive and all of them show healthy profits.
Price is a important part of the product, but quality and many other factors are normally more important to your average customer.
I personally charge high, if a customers says they can get it cheaper elsewhere, then they are quite welcome to go there, you might lose some but at the end of the day you will end up with customers who are willing to pay high if the service that they are getting is in their opinion worthwhile.
I also never give discounts to friends, there are customers and it is a business you are running.
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All this talk that you will be undercut and driven out of business if you charge high, if that is the case why do the likes of M & S, Sainsburys, BT, British Airways, Rolls Royce, Harrods, Chem Dry and the other many thousands of sucessfull businesses survive and all of them show healthy profits.
Price is a important part of the product, but quality and many other factors are normally more important to your average customer.
I personally charge high, if a customers says they can get it cheaper elsewhere, then they are quite welcome to go there, you might lose some but at the end of the day you will end up with customers who are willing to pay high if the service that they are getting is in their opinion worthwhile.
I also never give discounts to friends, there are customers and it is a business you are running.
HERE HERE !!!
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All this talk that you will be undercut and driven out of business if you charge high, if that is the case why do the likes of M & S, Sainsburys, BT, British Airways, Rolls Royce, Harrods, Chem Dry and the other many thousands of sucessfull businesses survive and all of them show healthy profits.
Price is a important part of the product, but quality and many other factors are normally more important to your average customer.
I personally charge high, if a customers says they can get it cheaper elsewhere, then they are quite welcome to go there, you might lose some but at the end of the day you will end up with customers who are willing to pay high if the service that they are getting is in their opinion worthwhile.
I also never give discounts to friends, there are customers and it is a business you are running.
Exactly. Before you know it, everyone will want to be your friend and want a discount.
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i have plenty of bungalow that are £15 and more.
why cause they got more windows than some of the house i do.big convers on the back as well.
so i dont know how the hell you can say you cant charge that for a bunglow.
you want and come and do mine for less then feel free.we see how long you keep them.
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Cheers guys...
I'm gonna stick to what i'm doing ;)
Thanks for the helpful comments
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a guy i know lost 32 houses on a road to a guy who was charging half his price(£5)! ::) ::)(the first guy was chargin a tenner!)gutted!!
i have some very well priced work mixed with some very compact modestly priced stuff.its getting competitive though.lots of newbies and established WCs coming in from other areas leafleting and canvassing parts of my round etc.keeps us on our toes!i havent lost any yet by the way!!
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fingers crossed it will stay that way n all daz :)
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a guy i know lost 32 houses on a road to a guy who was charging half his price(£5)! ::) ::)(the first guy was chargin a tenner!)gutted!!
i have some very well priced work mixed with some very compact modestly priced stuff.its getting competitive though.lots of newbies and established WCs coming in from other areas leafleting and canvassing parts of my round etc.keeps us on our toes!i havent lost any yet by the way!!
well gutted ow did u get on wiv tescos lad
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stick to your price, if word gets around that they knocked you down they will all try it. STICK TO YOUR GUNS !!!
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tescos lammy?i think youve got the wrong guy!!i only go in there to buy my weekly food shop!oh i got a smart flatscreen tv from there a few weeks ago!! :P :P
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The important thing is to decide were you will position yourself in your market. The question to answer is. Am I going to be cheap and try for volume or am I going to be a value for money. Take a good look at the last statement. Will your costumer focus on what you do or what you charge. If you go for cheap, price will always be a hurdle as there is always some one prepared to cut your price. In the race to be the cheapest and at the bottom of the pile.
Of course if you go for value all you need to do increase your value to your costumer Give more value in work quality, but remember your customer does not always know what that is . So you need to educate her. Tell her what you are doing more and when Mr cheapo knocks on the door she will question him on what she has learned form you as to quality. His live will be made difficult by her knowledge to instil her, as people always want to show how cleaver they are. What ever you do more, tell her and make a big thing of it. So that the value increases in her mind to what you charge.
This is one of the reasons why there is so much conflicting views on this form some time we are all right for the market we are in. But yet so wrong for someone else’s market positions. I hope this could help put some light on the subject. Keep growing and learning to add value not just drop prices at the first sign of resistance to our offering.. There are times we just play into the custies hands of cheat. Good luck. Richard
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If she has said this to you after the first clean then to me she would be a problem customer at some othe point and then say one of her mates gets it done for £8.00 where does it end drop her if the other guy does it for 10 then let him more fish in the sea this job would be great if it wasnt for customers lol ;D
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All this talk that you will be undercut and driven out of business if you charge high, if that is the case why do the likes of M & S, Sainsburys, BT, British Airways, Rolls Royce, Harrods, Chem Dry and the other many thousands of sucessfull businesses survive and all of them show healthy profits.
Price is a important part of the product, but quality and many other factors are normally more important to your average customer.
I personally charge high, if a customers says they can get it cheaper elsewhere, then they are quite welcome to go there, you might lose some but at the end of the day you will end up with customers who are willing to pay high if the service that they are getting is in their opinion worthwhile.
I also never give discounts to friends, there are customers and it is a business you are running.
Exactly. Before you know it, everyone will want to be your friend and want a discount.
Oops!! I've got three friends who I do an occasional freebie for. They don't seek it and I don't offer it as a regular arrangement. It's just a couple of times a year and only if I have time spare. However, when I say friends, I do mean real, proper friends. Not superficial stuff. The sort of people who let me have a spare bed for the night after a hospital procedure when they didn't want me to go home on my own. The sort of people who gave me a lift for a 70 mile round trip to collect a repaired vehicle and wanted nothing for it. I don't mind an occasional freebie for friends like that.
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I have a bungalow I charge £25 for and another one that I charge £6 for. Both are priced about right for what they are. Some bungalows have lots of glass, awkward access and might take quite a while to clean. Some are a doddle. I do have a £10 minimum these days for new work but I have some cheaper than that from before I started the minimum charge. The £6 bungalow belongs to a lady in her 90s who gets very muddled these days - even to the point of putting salt in my coffee (not had one there since LOL). She's probably not going to be around much longer and I'm OK doing her bungalow for £6 as it doesn't take very long really.
Business with a bit of compassion thrown in too I think.
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The thing is not to worry too much now as to whether you're too cheap or too expensive. You're building your round and as you say money is money and in all fairness pricing isn't an exact science in window cleaning. Keep at the job for bit and 2 things seem to just naturally happen:
1) You price at what the market in your area will tolerate.
2) You tend to dump the stupidly underpriced stuff. And don't fret about dumping the underpriced customers as a newcomer will come along eventually and clean their windows at an underpriced rate, thus preserving the circle of life ;D
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Wizzard - what a great post ;D
Darran
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Thanks Smugger. I will always try to share my expertise with all my mates on here.
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In this situation, if I think my price is reasonable, I tell them "you can't put a price on quality"!!!
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If a custy says cheaper. I would says "so, you want a half job do you............” at half price?
Never let them think for themselves put the thoughts in there mind and create dough of the competition. But be matter of fact not nasty. These techniques must be practiced so they roll of your tongue. Always be confident and dont fluster,Look them straigt in the eye. Act like a winner and you will be one.
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If a custy says cheaper. I would says "so, you want a half job do you............” at half price?
Never let them think for themselves put the thoughts in there mind and create dough of the competition. But be matter of fact not nasty. These techniques must be practiced so they roll of your tongue. Always be confident and dont fluster,Look them straigt in the eye. Act like a winner and you will be one.
I am glad you decided to return Wizard, you have a great logic & way with words. :)
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If I ever get a potential customer haggling over the price, I tell them what they get for the price, ie frames, sills and doors (as well as the windows obviously).
9 times out of 10 the job is mine.
The last time I didn't get the job on price was when a chap said 'I don't want to pay that much', which was £20 for a 3 bed semi with a large conservatory. I said 'OK, I'll leave it with you' and thanked him for his enquiry. I hope he doesn't ask again because it seems to me that anyone who has this attitude will drop you the minute someone cheaper comes along.
John.
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Johnny its called adding value to your sale. The custy you got did not focus on value, only price. There are only two types of business, the type you want . The type you don’t. He was the latter type, reconmend an el cheapo who you know is hopeless we all need to refer these to other windys. Just make sure they are not up to the job. ;D ;D ;D
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I totally agree with you Wizard. Actually just a few minutes after meeting this 'customer who never was' I met a young chap putting flyers through doors, canvassing for window cleaning. He said that he hoped he wasn't encroaching on my patch. No problem I said. I don't believe in patches. I did, however point him in the direction of the 'customer'. Hopefully they were able to strike a deal! :)
John.
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DO NOT BUDGE !!!!
You have priced the job. That's it.
If a customer is trying to play 2 window cleaners off against each other there will only be one winner.
And it won't be a window cleaner.
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DO NOT BUDGE !!!!
You have priced the job. That's it.
If a customer is trying to play 2 window cleaners off against each other there will only be one winner.
And it won't be a window cleaner.
I must admit I was a bit naughty on this once. I was at a job talking to another window cleaner who I bumped into. He did a job about three houses away. Anyway, some guy came from the corner house and asked for a quote. When he realised we weren't working together he asked if we could each do a quote. No problem with that at all so far. However, he had asked me for a quote a few years before (I think he had forgotten) and I never heard from him. I may be wrong but I sensed that he might bwe a PITA customner so I didn't really want the job. So, after he went, I told the other cleaner what I felt and that I didn't want the job anyway so I worked it with him that he put in a really good price and I made mine a bit higher. I've no idea if he got the job or not but the windows were minging. They certainly hadn't been done since a long time before my original quote