[suffolkclean]

I am thinking about going into Office Cleaning and would like any advice you can give me.

When quoting does the customer generally tell you how often they want a clean and for how many hours? or do you have to work out what it will take to do?

Generally what is the hourly rate you can charge for cleaning only - does anyone charge £15 per hour?
Do you actually tell the customer its £15 per hour or do you quote as a weekly rate?

Any advice on the first stage of things would be great.
Barbara

[darrenbale]

Customers generally tell you what they want and how often. As for the amount of time it will take, experience will help you judge that.  We have a customer that we charge £16 hour. our rates vary from £12 to £20 per hour dependant on number of hours per week and amount of work required.

[suffolkclean]

Thanks for that !

[darrenbale]

no problem. let me know how you get on.

[ultracare]

Could depend on how many hours are involved in the contract? The more hours, the more competative you can be with your pricing i.e If you pay your staff £6 per hour, charge £10, 100 hour a week contract, Nice Profit! Dont forget you will have to work in a Minimum of 20 days holiday pay for each operative per year. Will you supply materials/equipment? Would staff require training? Plus Your time as most clients would require monthly audits.

[Gerry Styles]

You should agree in wtiting with the client:

1.  What areas are to be cleaned.
2.  The frequency of cleaning (on what days are the areas to be cleaned. i.e toilets daily, desks weekly.
3.  Who is suppling consumables - toilet rolls soap, paper hand towels etc (charge these as extra + 10%)
4.  Budget for £15 -£18 per hour - add charge for holiday pay and include hrs x 2 for bank holiday working.
5.  add 1% each for uniform and training per staff member.
6.  Decide what margin of profit you want to make for overheads, travel etc ( I work on 18%)

[suffolkclean]

When you give the quote do you quote it as say a weekly cost for cleaning as I don't want to give an hourly rate, or do you give them an hourly rate?

[Spiceman]

Hi Barbara,
We always quote weekly rates and (bracket calendar monthly invoice charge).
Smaller less frequent contracts command a much higher hourly rate, they can take a lot of your time though. A number of contractors would not even consider quoting for a contract that wasn't daily.
It is my experience that the cheap undercutters are either leading with a cheap price and then come in with substantial additional costs and add ons or just give a crap service and come day go day.
Good luck,
John