[d s windowcleaning]

dos anyone do appointment only window cleaning ? im thinking of doing this for maybe 4 days per month . but only on big houses that ive got lined up the advantage being the cusstie will be there & you get paid . ive read a few post of people doing appointments but is it worth it in the long run . i can see the benifits of appointments but what happens if for what ever reason you miss the appointment youve booked . it aint going to look good . im only thinking about doing this as the houses ive got lined up are worth doing but i dont want to drop any work ive got to fit these in . i would just sooner say im calling on the date given and time given but if i was to say i will be there at 3.30 and its going to take say 1 1/2 hours to do its going to be getting dark soon so how do you overcome this . ive got the dreaded school run starting again after next week so i have to split my rounds to fit this in as well .

[Pure H20 Cleaning Services]

I have a few houses app only, not a problem if i can't make it i just text or phone to rearange anew time.

[Pat Purcell]

Almost all of our work here in the US is by appointment( although usually this is only 2 or at the most 3 appointments a day)
Because its tough to gauge how long each job will take exactly and how traffic will be etc. we give an approximate arrival time
Over the course of a day my appointments would be something like
7:00-7:30   Mrs Jones
10:00-11:00 Mrs Smith
1:00-2:30  Mrs Kelly
You need to stress that these are just arrival times and not work times as we did have problems at the start with Mrs Smith expecting us at 11:00 and thinking we would be done by 12:00 :

[Londoner]

Most of my work is "by appointment". This is not through choice but a recognition of the fact that if I just turned up on spec half of my customers would be out. Its no good saying just clean them anyway because there are very few houses with decent access and then you have to go back anyway to collect the money.

We have it down to a fine routine now and it takes very little effort. I print out a daily work sheet from George the night before. This has phone numbers on it.
My wife gives each one a ring to tell them I am coming tomorrow. We are on a phone tarriff that gives us free evening and weekend calls.

The customers are used to getting the calls so there is very little chat involved. "Hello Mrs Jones, Windows tomorrow?" then either yes or no and if no then  another date is arranged and they are crossed off tomorrows list. If yes they get a tick.

Often other things get wriiten on like "Dentist 10oclock" or "out all afternoon" and I work round it.
Frankly I would not be able to function without this anymore. It makes for much mure efficient use of my time.