An old fish and chip shop reopened in our town last year after a rebuild which took several years. It has new owners, a new name, a new building but at the same place.
The new owners decided that the best way to draw custom was to do a "buy 1 get 1 free" offer. There were queues out the door all day for a week the offer was on. The other chippies were quiet that week. Despite the fact that the wait and cooked product wasn't worth the discount, that fish shop is busy most days today. The offer has worked for them, even with a price increase since.
I would imagine that this w/cer reasoned that most who accepted his gutter and window clean didn't have a window cleaner and so was a potential customer. I'm sure that if this was so, most potential customers they cleaned wouldn't expect in their heart the next clean would also cost £4.00.
Yes, there would be some who would take advantage of this offer with no thought of a long term agreement, but then the window cleaners need to accept that as well.
However, it would appear that he is sneakily using his website as a discount gauge , which I think is a little underhanded. I wouldn't ask him to quote or do the job as I wouldn't trust him in other business aspects - but that's me. If I smell something slightly underhanded I walk away.
IMPO window cleaning is a business that you can get into a profit situation very quickly and we tend to view every business as we do ours. But some businesses take years before they turn a profit and some, like the motor trade, have to tread the fine line of reducing prices, especially on large fleet deals, to gain short term market gains to keep production lines busy and competitive.
Some may feel, even in our business, that they need to give these type of deals to attract new customers.
I don't agree with it, but that doesn't mean I must write off their marketing ideas without consideration.
Their are a couple of guys who clean the showhouse windows faithfully every week on the understanding that each house sold has the window cleaners brochure in it as a builder's recommended window cleaner. I wouldn't do it, but they have. They have been building houses slowly on that site for the last 3 years. The window cleaners used to clean the show house windows for nothing, but don't know if the deal has changed or not with the downturn of the house building market in our area.
The window cleaners get very aggitated and protective when anyone canvasses and homeowners seem to have the idea that these cleaners are part of the house deal that they have with the builders - if you use any other cleaners your house warranty becomes invalid.
