[tonyoliver]

I haven't put my prices up for a very, very long time.
  I cry when I see other cleaners tell me how much they get for the next door house  . I am a little bit price shy,
so its time to win the lotto or put up with the dirge for the foreseeable future.
how do you increase prices and when what's the best way and how do you tell them.
hints and tips for church mice on the board please.

[Clever Forum Name]

My dads round was the same. Two price rises in 13 years. I did a letter for him.

Lost one customer over 50p !!!!!!!

Most went up by £2.

Had a mega advantage as prices hasn't moved in years.

[tonyoliver]

two price rises in thirteen years  wow try 18  and some shops 20 no wonder I am always broke.
new jobs subsidise the old
as for pricing I tended to  price the new ones based on the old ones price..... result havoc.
in 2008 i was going to put up everything then I read the papers thinking what's a credit crunch. that was 2008 and still haven't done it yet its not just me though competition round here is very fiacre indeed and the general price  trend seems to be downward.so ideas would be great

[dazmond]

have a review of all prices every year in january

earmark ones to put up

tell em face to face,write a note on invoice/ticket or text/ring them in feb or march(depending if their 4 weekly/8 weekly)and put them up from april onwards.

if you dont put them up they ll have you cleaning them forever at the same prices.

bite the bullet mate.

ive never lost more than 2 or 3 customers when putting up hundreds of accounts at the same time.

[dazmond]

since 2008 ive put my prices up 3 TIMES tony!most of em anyway.

new customers are priced slightly higher or a lot higher depending on area/frequency,size of property etc

[Dave Willis]

Interesting subject. If your daily earnings say top £200 - would you still put your prices up?

[brianbarber]

Interesting subject. If your daily earnings say top £200 - would you still put your prices up?

Yes



Mr B

[Nick_Thompson]

I wish that I had a few more customers like the one old (wealthy) lady who insists on slapping a fiver on the price for cleaning her windows every two years; it started off as a £20 clean and is now up to £40.

I've explained on numerous occasions that there isn't a need to increase the price by £5 each time, but she isn't interested in my 'poor money management' as she calls it.

C'est la vie!

Nick

[trippyboy]

Interesting subject. If your daily earnings say top £200 - would you still put your prices up?

Deffo

[windowswashed]

Select your worst priced work and Increase that first and gauge the response. I always increase my worst priced work to make room for new work later

[Mist A Bit]

dont worry about the responce, just tell them. you might loose some but the increase of the others can compensate. i took a round off my dad who is old timer prices , im talking £5 where it should be £10. i doubled the price and told the customer that i had to bring the price up to a competitive rate, not expensive but competitive which is the basis for business survival.

[Bart Olin]

i buy small square green stickers and write NEW PRICE>    on them and stick these onto my slips.   raise the price a chunk of my round each spring

[Window Lickers]

Interesting subject. If your daily earnings say top £200 - would you still put your prices up?

If thats the case then you've priced them well from the word go I'd say. Not such a need to put them up if thats the case. The figure is actually subjective though, some are happy/chuffed/over the moon with £200 a day whereas others might be more in need of a healthier cash-flow. Each to their own, but if you're earning what you strive for then the actual level of increase can always be adjusted.

 

[jk999]

When you are putting up prices quite regular and they say nothing doesn't mean they are happy about it your only getting away with it untill  another window cleaner comes along and undercuts you I dont mean this in a nasty way so please dont take it wrong way . For example I was cleaning insides off a garage one day and a lady started to speak to me  banging on how her window cleaner keeps putting price up saying when he started 7 years ago it was 5.50 n now it 9.50 if it goes to a tenner im telling him not to bother anymore and that everyone on the estate feels the same . Some window cleaners tend to get a bit greedy and go to far

[Tony dunmall]

Interesting subject. If your daily earnings say top £200 - would you still put your prices up?

Interesting I don't think I would, Depends if you work rain and shine even on four days week, that's just shy grand a week, good income

[kempy]

New work I price high .

My current work I struggle to put up . After all it's only window cleaning - lol

I tend to just tweak a few houses now and again .

NOT EASY

[C o z y]

A lot of my custies move every couple of years (Army houses) so the way I do it is as I get new custies, I put the price rise onto them. So if a house is €15 and the custy moves away, the new tenant gets the new price of €16. It filters through over time.

The thing to remember is, with inflation, after 3 or 4 years, you're doing the job today for at least 8% to 10% less than you did when you started. Imagine if a firm you worked for paid you 8% less after a couple of years. !!  

If you lose a few from every hundred custies you'll be cleaning less for the same money, so that will free you up to get more custies at the new prices. Takes guts to increase prices, but some find it easier than others.

Doesn't matter much at the moment for me, if I didn't have winter customers for snow clearing, I'd have nothing to do since mid January.  

HTH

[slap bash]

Not increasing your price on a regular time is just not good business. If you don`t increase you are making it a obstacle for future increases. Customers get complacent when prices are static.
Even if its a very small increase that will not create any exodus of customers but you will be breaking the static cycle.
Now the realty of business with inflation rate of 3 % you are becoming poorer each year. I know it is less but remember its manipulated. One thing that pulls the wool over our eyes is we claim we earning more than last year.I hear you say.
Which might be so but doing more work to earn more is not the answer as you are putting up your costs with no increase in income.
   What you need to do is divide you customer by your turnover to get an average per customer and this figure we need to calculate your average income per customer. This you should do each year and and compare these amounts and you will see the reduction in you income.

[C o z y]

Well explained.

[northstar161]

This is what I write:

Dear ....................................,

Due to the consistent increase in overheads (eg. Insurance) we are forced to increase our prices from time to time.

Frequency: .............. weeks (depending on weather and workload.)

Price: £...............

We know that no one likes it when prices change, but rest assured we'll still be providing the same standard of service. You will continue to receive the high quality clean that you deserve and have grown to expect from Oliver James Window Cleaner.

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me.