[Mike Halliday]

is there anyone here who is quoting suites @ £140+ over the phone?

what sort of response are you getting?

[Shaun_Ashmore]

New customers approx 33-50% book obviously recommends and old customers are different I try and position myself for carpet cleaning and can allow not to have a high take up on upholstery.

Shaun

[Jim_77]

I try to get in-home quotes for suites as they are much harder to sell over the phone than carpets, in my experience.  Quite often end up adding on protector that way too, as well as carpet cleaning into the bargain with a volume discount on the total price - been trying to push that sort of thing a bit more lately.

Conversion rate not good when forced to price over the phone, maybe 1 in 4 at best, but they are normally the casual price-shopping enquiries anyway.  I don't lose many suite enquiries that I actually want to do, put it that way.

[Simon Gerrard]

We quote over the phone all of the time, but most of the time we are dealing with previous customers. I'd far rather clean carpet than clean suites as there's more money per hour in it so as long as our conversion rate is high for carpet cleaning whether or not we get every suite we quote for is not something that concerns me.

Simon

[bennymon]

im with you on that one simon

[Doug Holloway]

Hi Guys

I too am fairly relaxed about this.

Had three suite enquiries today, got two at the higher end.

Another time I will get none, c'est la vie!

Cheers

Doug

[mark_roberts]

I wish I was getting £140+ over the phone put it that way.

Problem with suites is not the price we charge to do a great job its that many cleaners only charge £60-£80 so the customer who even though is quality concoius sees the gap in price as too high.

Also some customers cant even see the dirt on their suite until its pointed out to them.

Mark

[Anthony Hull]

Quoted and booked £120 for a 3 piece suite and footstool over the phone this morning.. not too shabby.

[Mike Halliday]

I've  a suite to clean every morning for the next 2 weeks all at around £140-£150 its only because of what Simon said that I've gone to that price, I'm so busy on the carpet side it was losing me money to clean suites.

at £140ish it is still slightly less than carpets but it still worth doing them.

but their is no chance i would get the job if i gave the price over the phone.

[chrisjohn]

is there anyone here who is quoting suites @ £140+ over the phone?

what sort of response are you getting?

If I did quote £140 ish over the phone,I would hardly get any jobs.Most Sofas I quote over the phone are between £80 and £100.I reckon I get 9 out 10 of them.My opinion is, might as well do 9 out of 10 sofas and coin in £800,rather than high price and maybe do 2 or three and rake in £400.Works for me anyway,but good on yer Mike if you can get the higher price of £140ish.

Chris

[JandS]

Bit like yourself Chris I'm quoting £75 - £85 but
that's over the phone, reckon to get 7 or 8 out
of 10.
Think a lot of pricing comes down to geography
regarding suites.
People in more rural areas are prepared for the
higher prices due to distance to travel etc.
On an average 3 job day I will probably travel
no more than 15 miles in a round trip so fuel
are low.

John

[PaulKing]

we are more than 140 and over the phone, same as simon mostly regulars. 1 day over five days would  mean you'll have  turned over £700-750 to start with next week before lunch?, none to shabby is it!

[wynne jones]

If I'm not fully booked I will go round, if I'm chocker I will quote over the phone and I'm not fussed either way. What I don't want is to end up cleaning a minger for not much money on a day where I could have booked up with carpet.

[Andrew Briscoe]

I hate doing suites, yet there are some i like,
i charge £114  for 5 seat units.
I might start charging £140 as most suites i clean are in high end properties.
It can be back breaking work doing some of them, and i can earn more cleaning carpets in the same time schedule

Andrew

[Billy Russell]

i hated doing upholstery! but then i bought the drimaster 2, quite enjoy doing them now!

i must admit though i was charging £90 to £110 + Vat, but after doing this minger today i've decided to start at £140+vat,because like others have said the time it takes to do, i could earn so much more doing carpets!!!!

[Doctor Carpet (Ret'd)]

The flipping obvious observation that seems to have been missed so far is that there are different levels of "coldness" to an enquiry that comes in over the phone.

The enquiry could be somebody making multiple enquiries following a Google Search or going through all the CCs advertising in YP

It could be a repeat client from some years ago checking to see what the price has gone up to

It could be a referral from a neighbour of a client of yours who has recently had their suite cleaned and has shared the price

It could be a recommendation from an "introducer" eg a carpet shop, a property maintenance company or other such introducer

Each of those will have different issues to address and your ability to tailor your replies to their enquiry will have much more influence on whether they book in or simply buy on price.

As has been stated on the forum so many other times, your ability to sell with confidence at a higher price than you are used to selling at will make all the difference.

Sure I'm only selling at £110-£120 but with VAT still means that the client has to shell out between £132 and £144 but I won't be sharing with you how I do that. But as Doug has already said, if you're busy and confident you go with the flow of some you book in, some you won't and you'll possibly only find out once you've done the job that you were pushing against an open door when you were "selling" your pricing, or instead if it was your natural, amazing, ability to convert a truly "cold" call into a booking.

Rog

[Andrew Briscoe]

i hated doing upholstery! but then i bought the drimaster 2, quite enjoy doing them now!

i must admit though i was charging £90 to £110 + Vat, but after doing this minger today i've decided to start at £140+vat,because like others have said the time it takes to do, i could earn so much more doing carpets!!!!

Glad your getting on with it Billy, i prefer my new Sapphire and my trusted cfr 

Andrew

[markpowell]

£100 over the phone for 5 seats, takes about an hour for 2 of us.
Get nearlly everyone as i advertise my prices on all ads
Mark

[chrisjohn]

Could also be an economic factor in all of this.Its quite interesting that the 3 people on this thread who quoted the three cheapest prices are Me(Leeds),J&S(Batley) and Mark Powell(Halifax).All West Yorkshire.Not saying that all CC's in West Yorks offer cheaper prices,or that the stereotype of Yorkies are a bit tight fisted,just fact.I would LOVE to charge £140 and above for a sofa clean,but im sure J&S and Mark would probably back me up and say this is not achievable on a regular basis.And as Mark says,he gets nearly all jobs when he quotes £100,which is similar to me.

Chris

[peter maybury]

A lot of the time if you have the objections in your head you will have trouble selling the deal. Yes a lot of people do expect upholstery to cost less than carpet cleaning. You need to price condition them before you give them a price. It takes on average 25- 30 sq mtrs of fabric to cover a suite this is the area of a lot of lounge diners. You are using a tool that is only a few inches wide to cover the same area as using a 12" or so wide tool on a carpet. It takes a lot longer to do! , engage people in conversation and explain why before you give them a price and I am sure you will find things a lot easier. I have no problem selling upholstery cleaning mainly because I do not see it as so expensive a service myself.
In another breath I am not charging £140 to clean a suite but price myself at about £95. But we are the real paupers in S. Wales.

Peter
www.carpetcleanercardiff.com