[the red carpet]

Hi all,
A quick question for you guys who have been at it a bit longer than me, as im coming to the end of my first year and wondering what to expect.

Providing i do a good job, at a fair price, leave all my customers happy, and keep regular contact with reminder cards ect.

What percentage of the customers i have gained in my first year could i expect to become regulars, ie once a year regular repeat customers?

Say i sent out 100 letters to previous customers saying its been a year since your last clean blah blah blah, how many should i expect to ring and book?

Cheers
Dan

[House Buddies]

Hi 30% to begin but I would send another remindaer in 6 months. I try and get all clients to give me their email so every now and then if I am quiet I will email a special offer to them.

[Mike Halliday]

I think 30% is very optimistic, if this was true and you did get this return after 4 years you would never have to advertise again.

I think 10% would be a closer figure, but don't forget the reccomends they might send your way.

Mike

[House Buddies]

yes 30% but 65% commercial work

[House Buddies]

High repeat rate, I have some clients on every 4 months who have kids - must be clean round here or dirty? depends how you look at it! but some clients forget who they have used so keep send reminders and set up a databas of when you cleaned, how much you charged and can you cross sell to them, if they had a suite cleaned offer them a discount on carpets, I have the domestic business as well and have access to 500+ clients who use us to clean there houses each week so we are already a trusted brand.

For me this business is about management and organisational skills get this right you are 50% there to being succesful.

I get tired of negative people saying they are quiet etc you have to get your mind right first (the way you approach) if you think I wont get much then you wont but if you think that you want £1000 a week if you earn £800 you are not to disapointed.

I took some advice on the board recently and put my price up from £65 a suite to £95 I still get the jobs, I also started selling fabric protector again, I went on a job yester day and sold it and came out with £190 for 3 hrs work!

[Mike Halliday]

So if Dan sent out 100 letters to past customers he should get 30 calling to schedule further work, sorry in an average carpet cleaning  business this is not going to happen, if this happens for your business House Buddies ( whats your first name?) then I congratulate you on your business' success.

Mike

[chemoclean]

We have a 37% repeat business rate. We don't encourage people to have their carpets cleaned every 6months as some have suggested on other thread, because we believe that this is just putting sales pressure on our customers - and they can sense this!

Instead we go with 12 - 18 month intervals for cleaning (as recommended by manufacturers - they have this written on most carpet samples when a custy buys the product therefore they are aware of timescales for cleaning). We send them a reminder with special offer, brochures on benefits of maintaining your carpets, etc. No sales calls, no emails - alot of people don't like this pressure. If you get your literature right (look, content, quality) it should work for you.

Thats how we have been in business 13 years and achieve these results time and time again, as well as obviously ensuring we complete work to a high standard.

Jim 

[Mike Halliday]

after 13yrs 37% is about right but Dan is talking about responce after 1 year.

Mike

[Ian Gourlay]

Is the question ,

What reponse would I get from a mail shot to past customers,

or if I keep in contact with past customers over a period of time what %would repeat during a two year period.

[angela carlton]

After one year, you would be fortunate to  get any repeat business, unless you are very special.

I've taken over an established business -  previously worked in it   - which runs on purely repeat business and the odd referrel.

But............that's after 20 plus years of trading !

Angie

 

[the red carpet]

I must be special then because im allready getting repeat work and iv only been going 9 months

Ian, the question is if i do a good job and send out reminder cards every couple months so they dont forget it was me that cleaned for them last time, when i do start sending out my yearly reminder letters in a few months what sort of response could i expect from these?

So far between 10-30% has been suggested
Thats a lot better than leaflet drops, looks like things may be a little easier next year then

[Ian Gourlay]

I think 10 % from a mail shot is optimistic but you should keep in contact with pass customers.

What is important is that the return from the mail shot is as good if not better than your other methods per pound spent

As I undeerstand it you have a leaflet that gives better returns,  than average so hopefully your mail shot will do the same.

Just been listening to a Jay Abraham CD and thats what you got to do.  Get better leverage than the average.

[angela carlton]

Good morning Red !

From your comments, I don't think you need to attend the Altec open day, as you seem to be highly motivated and from the look of your leaflets, have a pretty good idea of what marketing's all about

Good luck

Angie

[Kinver_Clean]

After 20 odd years in the trade I find that it splits pretty evenly between repeat, referral and new(YP) 30/30/30 and 10% from Parish mags etc.

Took several years to build.

I found local paper ads worked v well for 12 months then died by which time YP kicked in. Only ad in YP now except our Village mag which costs 50 pa and gets 5-6 jobs a month.

Trevor

[the red carpet]

Thanks Angela, i apreciate your comments,
The thing that makes me curious to the Altec stuff is not how to generate new intrest/quotes as i allready have a good system for this, in my opinion better than Alltecs. Its what they do with that initial quote, all these healthy home audits and maintanance plans ect.

Using there methods im sure you could increase your ticket price, and clean more often for the same people and sell more protector and the idea of having people on the maintanance packages really apeals to me. I get a lot of new customers but if im honest dont make the most of them this is my problem and im sure fast track would help me with that part of my buisness.

Dan

[craigp]

all they do red when quoting, they give em a price for say lounge, then price plus protection, then pay monthly option, (to clean annually also if desired with free traffic lane clean at six months to help sell) also first clean may hav free protect, with sign up,

oh an pet care, baby care, and i forget others.

this is all on the software (FT will sell you the soft ware,) they got, they type in sizes it'll work out all above for them on there 3k laptop

its all set out in different boxs so custy chooses the option they want,

see, no need give FT 3k to know that.

[the red carpet]

I was thinking of starting my own mantainance plans and avoiding ft.

Somthing along the lines of say the clean costs them £100 i then offer them a highlight clean in six months for £50 and protector for £50 so total of £200 this then gets split into 12 monthly payments over the year by standing order to myself.

Benifit to customer, split the cost of the clean over 12 months interest free, and also offer free call outs for any spills while there joint up.

benifits to me, regular customers so no chasing work, guaranteed regular income and all the carpets i clean will have been cleaned 6 months previous and have been protected in the last year, so easier to clean.

Wouldnt know were to start with the paperwork though may speak to my bank about it.

Worked it out earlier, if my average ticket price at the moment is £100 and i get them all to sign up on maintanance plans at £200 a year.

If i could find 290 customers i would earn £58000 a year and not have to advertise

So a question to those that offer maintanance, what percentage of clients that except your quote to clean sign up on a plan?