[ecowasher]

hello all.

Working with a colleague on a new round.  i do trad,  he does pole.  Basically he bought the round,  and went at it initially as the new wc with a pole system (no trad/ladder work at all).

The initial response to this appears to be that the combination of both a new Window Cleaner AND a new method (pole), has been too much for them to stomach at once, resulting in the loss of a lot of new business. 

My initial thoughts on this are that maybe the round should be developed first of all using trad,  getting the customers on board and used to a new face,  then introduce the new method at a later stage.

Any ideas?  anyone experienced this?  anyone lost bsusiness due to customer 'polephobia' 

Grant.

[poleman]

Some will need time, give them a letter saying about the new regulations and the plus points of WFP many here on and other forums have changed over OK and I am sure you can 

Andy

[EasyClean]

When I converted from traditional to WFP I explained beforehand about converting to WFP, the benefits and also the WAHR. I also left each customer a letter explaining it all for them to peruse at their leisure.. Everyone was fine to start with but after 3-6months I lost about 15% of my work (nothing wrong with my work at all) ALL from the OAP's who didn't like change! I had the option to keep those customers if I were to change back to traditional as they requested but I decided that WFP was here to stay and I preferred this method for 2 main reasons: 1. It's a lot quicker & 2. It's safer! (Safety is paramount in this job). I started WFP about 5-6 years ago when hardly any customers knew about it, now the public are quite aware of it which makes life so much easier for newbie WFPoler's as they don't get tied down with negative remarks and stupid questions!

[jeff1]

I to will be changing over to wfp in the future, and have already been priming my customers, there initial response has been possative, the only thing I found them getting shocked at is the fact that we have to use pure water, once I explane the concepts regarding the pure water, I have had a lots of customers saying to me, does this mean the price will go up?
The honest and truthfull answer I give them is no,  when they ask why, I then go on to explane that I will be a little faster so will be able to take on more customers.

Since I have told my customers about the change over I have been back to them on a couple of occations, and there first words are, Were's the new system then, I even have an old age pensioner, who has asked if she could have a go
when its up and running. 

[Londoner]

I was pleasantly suprised at how easily customers have accepted WFP. I really did have my doubts.
The only problem is the time you spend showing it to everybody initially.
I swear some customers have never even noticed the change.

[ecowasher]

Thanks for all your findings.

I think that the issues at hand here was the TWO changes at once.  New wc (most hadnt seen a wc for a good 6 months),  and then also the new system.

We are taking the approach of building initial confidence in us as the new AND regular wc, via trad first,  then after a few months we will cut back over possibly after the level of education that you all suggest to be the way forward.

I must admit as well the initial results of the WFP for us were not as good as trad,  which i understand is a time and effort thing,  so i dont think that helped either.

Cheers for al your comments.

Grant.

[mark f]

i think that if you only do upstairs with it to start with then your not likely to get much in the way of complaint. Who really looks out of the bedroom window much. But if you start spraying everything then maybe your opening yourself up to more hassle??

[paul mather]

I am on my second week of WFP & have had good results, but not great results. I have printed up a little note to explain what I am doing & asking people to be patient. Went collecting for first time on all that WFP work & only 2 customers even mentioned it. For the rest of them it was obviously no concern.

I'm probably more concerned about it than they are. Not sure how customers would react if the situation was like yours, new round, new method, though.

[billozz]

i think the key point here is your colleague was new to the customers and as you say he came with a new system to clean the windows. we changed to wfp about 6 mnths ago and i am sure we would have lost a few if we hadnt been cleaning their windows for years and built up a lot of trust, because there are going to be spots and runs initially on some of the windows, the customer needs to know you well enough to know you mean what youre saying with regard to the windows improving after a couple of cleans