[Simon Gerrard]

Andrew,
Whenever prices and money are mentioned on a forum you can be fairly sure there's a fair bit of bragging going on too.

Simon

[Craigp]

To answer the original question, I would let it go for a regular customer, your make more on the next one for her.

I had simular a while ago, but I never said anything as she is a great customer.

I was in the same quandary though.

[Carpet Dawg]

You can view a carpet cleaners success by his prices.

As a general rule those charging the most are the most successful whilst those charging the least are the least successful.

eek, I'm off now.  

Sounds easy. I could start charging £100 a room tomorrow when customers start calling me. Would that automaticly make me succesful?

I see success as end of year profit.

[Shaun_Ashmore]

Too right!

But to get to the profit you have to have volume of paying customers or good job tickets preferably both, it's a real conundrum to get the scale right but you can only do what is right for you as we'll as being a bit brave, the most expensive cleaners aren't always the big money earners anyway, a cleaner from Bradford used to charge £1 a sq ft but soon ran out of work because he couldn't find enough paying customers.

Shaun

[Blacky]

I would politely explain to the customer that the payment she left of £60 was not enough. I'm sure she thought it wasnt enough when she left payment.
The reality is, you'll make about £14.90 in your pocket from that job.

Care to explain the maths on that one, I'm assuming you know Mike's running costs?

Bet he's running a 35% margin if he employs a worker and had to fuel a truck mount. The 35% he takes is then subject to tax and NI.

[Tony Stewart]

I take slightly different view on this. In this scenario the job was a bit wooly and the price was assumed to be enough at £60. I would put that down to a pricing mistake on the job. How many of us have made an error in calculating the job in either the time it takes or the stains that have to be removed etc etc. If the mistake is on my side I may be cross inside but I do it at the price that I have agreed...no if's no buts.

[Ian Gourlay]

If I call out a washing machine engineer he charges  x amount for first 20 minutes and then x amount for each 15 minutes. Locksmiths do the same
We do not liked to be watched or timed by customers so we come up with simple fomulas of how much its going to cost up front. I suspect because some guy in The US puts in in his sales letters we will tell you what it costs and will not charge you a penny more etc etc

Perhaps we should move to  the fomula used by other trades.
Customer does not know if they have speedy gongsarlees or a snail at time of calling them out
I believe domestic cleaners  charge by the hour

[Deep Cleaning Solutions]

I think we are going round in circles on this one.

Mike made a mistake ...... simples, i've done it and i'm sure a lot more have on here.

Learn from it and move on.

[JandS]

Yes how many times have we pulled up and
thought yes, I'll be done 30 minutes sooner
than I thought.

[Steve Gunn]

Had one today in Jesmond one of the students had vomited on Saturday at the top of the stairs explained my minimum charge was £45 fine booked it today.Took 20 minutes stain gone went to get paid and this young know it all started we are paying by the hour aren't we so you can do our bedrooms,needless to say I got my £45 and departed after explaining it took me 30 minutes to get there another 30 minutes to get home 20 minutes to clean carpet was he going to pay more because we were in the 2nd hour. But they had rang someone else who charge by the hour and they thought it was me : 

[Max Campbell]

the problem is if i don't get the balance from her she might  not call again as she will be embarrassed about the incident

   

If it were me, I'd phone, say £60 was fine, because that is what I charged before, but explain that next time it will probably be more. (having said that, £60 doesn't sound like enough for a minimum job)