[capn sparkle]

You guys arguing which is better - wfp or trad - lack an understanding of something quite important.

Customer's don't tend to purchase the trade, they pay for the tradesman.

Think about it.

My customers like me and TRUST me to do the best job possible. Not just the first time but every time...

Trad to full WFP 6 months ago not one complaint but dozens of recommendations to neighbours...

Custies are paying for me to clean their property - the tools I use to do that are down to me..

301 houses WFP
2 Trad (16th century cottages)

[Mick Kent]

Its not about whats better trad or wfp, its what the customer wants or how they view us. The fact that potential new customers now ask "how will you clean them, with the squirty pole or the propper way" to me is a little annoying as soon as we say wfp they instantly arnt interested and many dont have the time nor want to listen to us tell them how good it is. Its not every one but im hearing it more and more.

[Smudger]

It's perception,

Trad cleaning has been around for 100 plus years or so, WFP around 15 and in comparison hardly known about by joe public.

If a trad guy does a bad job, then you get some one else, if a WFP guy screws up, the system is blamed and leads to a mistrust of water fed pole NOT the crappy operator.

Also, when WFP goes t!ts up it really is awful and really looks bad, trad less so, the odd corner missed, a smear here, a mark there goes unnoticed.

Then you have the established almost Luddite brigade making wild claims that WFP ruins everything from glass, frames, wood and house render, not that WFP people don't counter this with claims against trad cleaners!

Then the customer really does like to think us windies work for peanuts, only earning pennies per hour, slaving away off ladders, and take hours to clean a house, not 20 minutes to earn that same £30 - what they fail to see is water fed pole eliminates wasted time moving ladders, climbing up/down etc..  WFP on the actual glass/frame is not much different.

Finally you get good and bad in both variants of cleaning

Darran

[8weekly]

It's perception,

Trad cleaning has been around for 100 plus years or so, WFP around 15 and in comparison hardly known about by joe public.

If a trad guy does a bad job, then you get some one else, if a WFP guy screws up, the system is blamed and leads to a mistrust of water fed pole NOT the crappy operator.

Also, when WFP goes t!ts up it really is awful and really looks bad, trad less so, the odd corner missed, a smear here, a mark there goes unnoticed.

Then you have the established almost Luddite brigade making wild claims that WFP ruins everything from glass, frames, wood and house render, not that WFP people don't counter this with claims against trad cleaners!

Then the customer really does like to think us windies work for peanuts, only earning pennies per hour, slaving away off ladders, and take hours to clean a house, not 20 minutes to earn that same £30 - what they fail to see is water fed pole eliminates wasted time moving ladders, climbing up/down etc..  WFP on the actual glass/frame is not much different.

Finally you get good and bad in both variants of cleaning

Darran

My dad cleaned windows in the 70s and used chamois & scrim. He only used a blade on shops. What therefore is traditional? I would say the squeegee is a relatively new innovation. What some people don't like is them being left wet or the perception of paying too  much for a fast job. I have lost count of the number of times I have heard "that was quick!".

[j timms]

Lol I got absolutely hounded last week for even suggesting trad is better than wfp on a lot of jobs. The fact is most customers and I say most and not all would prefer a good trad window cleaner to a good wfp cleaner. I think a huge problem is most who slate trad have never done trad properly or r blinkered by claims on here that wfp is superior. I operate using both but only use wfp where I think it does as good or better job than trad or on hard to reach windows. Wfp is another tool that can enhance your business but trad is an absolute must in my opinion to even consider yourself a window cleaner. The I only care about money claims r from people who have no pride in what they do and r why wfp gets a bad name. I have a friend who switched all his work back to trad from wfp who says his customers have never been happier. Also the only complaints I ever get r when using wfp. Twenty seven years window cleaning and I know deep down trad is better even though I wish is wasnt

[8weekly]

Lol I got absolutely hounded last week for even suggesting trad is better than wfp on a lot of jobs. The fact is most customers and I say most and not all would prefer a good trad window cleaner to a good wfp cleaner. I think a huge problem is most who slate trad have never done trad properly or r blinkered by claims on here that wfp is superior. I operate using both but only use wfp where I think it does as good or better job than trad or on hard to reach windows. Wfp is another tool that can enhance your business but trad is an absolute must in my opinion to even consider yourself a window cleaner. The I only care about money claims r from people who have no pride in what they do and r why wfp gets a bad name. I have a friend who switched all his work back to trad from wfp who says his customers have never been happier. Also the only complaints I ever get r when using wfp. Twenty seven years window cleaning and I know deep down trad is better even though I wish is wasnt

Not quite:

Converted 3 wfp jobs of mine back to trad today as never been happy with finish on them wfp. End result thirty minutes quicker and custy happier , win win in my eyes. Sometimes trad is just better and that's a fact.

You said trad was quicker, which is ridiculous.

[j timms]

Lol the reason trad is quicker sometimes is because rushing wfp is crap , hence people prefer trad . Also is does mention a better finish if your capable of reading it all and not just the bits that suit you.

[robbo333]

Its not about whats better trad or wfp, its what the customer wants or how they view us. The fact that potential new customers now ask "how will you clean them, with the squirty pole or the propper way" to me is a little annoying as soon as we say wfp they instantly arnt interested and many dont have the time nor want to listen to us tell them how good it is. Its not every one but im hearing it more and more.

Hi Mick that's a bit of a tough one. I can only imagine these people have had bad experiences of wfp or gossip from friends.
Round my way most people don't care how you clean them as long as the price is right and you do a good job etc, etc.
I've had a couple that didn't fancy the pole so I went into 'sales mode' and told them I can scrub the frames and get into all the little nooks and crannies that is difficult with a cloth. Especially the tiny gap between the bottom of the window and the sill.
Basically I tell them I do a top job and (like Daz) if they're not happy they don't pay. Never happened.
One more little thought (which may be of help):
Also, (and this may help) I give a little extra sales gimmick.
I say to the custies how good pure water is and "it's great for cleaning the insides and you'll do it in no time, also mirrors etc, no streaks etc, blah blah bit of bullsh*t.
Then I say that if the custy gets a plant sprayer £1.50 from Wilko and a microfibre cloth, I will GIVE THEM some pure water every time I clean so they can do the insides 'easily and with no fuss'.
Mick it works a treat and custies leave their sprayers out now and again and I just top them up.
Nice loyal custies. They f***iing love it!
You can pick sprayers up for pence (in bulk). Why not offer a free indoor cleaning kit to prove how good wfp is! Or some such idea as that?
Just a thought!
Good luck mate.

[no way Jose]

hey mick I suggest you should try going door to door selling fish.believe me! You can really make a lot of money

[8weekly]

Lol the reason trad is quicker sometimes is because rushing wfp is crap , hence people prefer trad . Also is does mention a better finish if your capable of reading it all and not just the bits that suit you.

Personally, I get a better finish with WFP. That doesn't mead trad is worse, just that I am better at WFP. Perhaps you just aren't very good at it? 

But does it matter which is best though? It is what makes more money.  Although I like to do a good job, it is secondary to what I earn. And as long as it is good enough that I gain more customers than I lose I am happy.

[j timms]

Who cares about whether trad or wfp is superior in the customer's eyes?  Seriously!  I use WFP and have a fairly large amount of work and have no problems retaining customers.

If you think the bottom line is what the customers think of their windows, then you've got a lot to learn. 

it worries me that your a moderator on here tosh when by the sounds of it u couldn't give a crap about your customers and only worry about how much money u earn . When I joined on here I thought it was about gaining advice on how to enhance my wfp techniques alongside my trad skills to provide best service possible. I now get the impression most on here only care about financial gains.

[PoleKing]

Who cares about whether trad or wfp is superior in the customer's eyes?  Seriously!  I use WFP and have a fairly large amount of work and have no problems retaining customers.

If you think the bottom line is what the customers think of their windows, then you've got a lot to learn. 

it worries me that your a moderator on here tosh when by the sounds of it u couldn't give a crap about your customers and only worry about how much money u earn . When I joined on here I thought it was about gaining advice on how to enhance my wfp techniques alongside my trad skills to provide best service possible. I now get the impression most on here only care about financial gains.

There's balance to be had. But ultimately, it's all about the money.
In my experience, the OCD cleaners will earn less than a splash & dasher.
But if the customers' happy the splas & dasher is in front.
In fact, if the splash & dasher is more personable the customer might prefer a worse job.

[j timms]

Lol the reason trad is quicker sometimes is because rushing wfp is crap , hence people prefer trad . Also is does mention a better finish if your capable of reading it all and not just the bits that suit you.

Personally, I get a better finish with WFP. That doesn't mead trad is worse, just that I am better at WFP. Perhaps you just aren't very good at it? 

But does it matter which is best though? It is what makes more money.  Although I like to do a good job, it is secondary to what I earn. And as long as it is good enough that I gain more customers than I lose I am happy.

I agree that where wfp is good it leaves a great finish . The fact is though a good trad window cleaner can leave a good finish on any window. Sadly wfp does not leave a good finish on all windows. I wouldn't be without my wfp system it has opened quite a few doors for me but I also have lots of very well priced trad that I would never convert to wfp. For example I had twenty bungalows today that r simply much easier to clean trad and quite a few houses with large flat roofs that would have entailed dragging hoses to when easier to just trad. Add to that lots of old wooden framed houses and the end result is the pole came out twice today for two skylights on one job and for some three storey windows on a large sixty pound house. The guy who worked for me today has been working for a wfp only guy two days a week and said it's almost embarrassing dragging hoses around bungalows when he could of trad cleaned em in half of time. Each for their own but to me wfp is another tool to enhance your business .

[Jonny 87]

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

[DG Cleaning]

If you want to dick around tradding houses in the belief that it's what you need to do and that all your custies are looking at you with a nice warm contented glow happy that your using dirty water to clean their windows then go for it.
I'd sooner be home much earlier with zero complaints knowing my windows are spot on

[tonycarr]

i think where trad is superior is on first time cleans. where PVC frames are concerned.

was trad for twenty years moved over to WFP around a year ago because of the ol knees. did a new customer only today and the frames were really bad, wasnt happy with the results with just pure water so sprayed some virosol on my brush and that got most of the muck off but there was still some staining especially on the sills which no way would have come off with brush, had to resort to virosol, non scratch scourers and elbow grease.

so again on 1st time cleans i do like to get up close n personal and clean the frames by hand where possible, after that WFP all the way.

tony

  

[Paul Coleman]

Guys, just a thought, but personally from my albeit limited experience as a customer (only tried 1 wfp then 1 trad guy) I was willing to pay more for trad.

Looking back I paid the wfp guy £20 and wasn't happy, but I'm happy to pay the trad guy £30 because he takes his time and does a better job. I'd probably pay £35, heck maybe £40 if he really really laid it on, got up in my loft (it's boarded with a staircase) and swivelled my veluxes to clean them properly.

If the customer's perception (right or wrong) is that trad is the "premium" service I think you could (probably already are?!) capitalise on that by having trad as a "premium" option alongside wfp.

Lol, but what do I know

I don't think it's so much about swish van vs clapped out estate, and more about feeling like you're not getting the "wham bam" treatment, which I most certainly got with the wfp guys I tried.

It would be a bit like your customer telling you to program in raw machine code (or assembler) because they don't like newer languages as the files use more disk space - and expecting you to only charge slightly more.

[Paul Coleman]

Its not about whats better trad or wfp, its what the customer wants or how they view us. The fact that potential new customers now ask "how will you clean them, with the squirty pole or the propper way" to me is a little annoying as soon as we say wfp they instantly arnt interested and many dont have the time nor want to listen to us tell them how good it is. Its not every one but im hearing it more and more.

The view I take Mick is that if they have so little concern for my safety, they're not the sort of person I would be wanting to work for anyway.

[j timms]

The name of the post kind of sums it up really . And would u buy anything just because the shop assistant preferred it. Probably not in most cases. And just to clear things up I do like wfp on lots of my jobs , but others are just easier and better trad. Personally I like being flexible and I'm not going to turn good work down just because they want it done trad.

[Smudger]

Each to their own but sounds like you lack confidence in WFP

Maybe I'd take no notice of some spotty youth in tesco when choosing a toaster,

But yes, when buying high end  electrical  items or digital cameras I go to a specialist retailer and seek advice.

Darran