[Tyler Williams]

Finally going to do it!

All new customers get signed up on Gocardless immediately theres no other payment option.

But now I have the fun task of converting my old customers to gocardless.

I've got 50 customers to sign up. Printed off the letters and will be posting them tomorrow.

To the guys that have done this too, what experiences did you have? If people don't sign up how do you go about convincing them? Do you go round a few days later to talk to them or post another letter?

Thanks in advance 👍🏻

[hotsteam]

I have not done it yet, why do'nt  you say if you sign up to gocardless your price is fixed for 12 months !
if they do'nt want to,tell them how much the price will go up  !   

[Splash & dash]

Are you aware of there charges ?... I think it’s a slippery slope they have already increased them quite considerably and as more people sign up they will put them up again they can basically hold you to ransom I feel that you will also loose a lot of potential customers as many will not sign up to it , I looked at it a while ago before there price rise and decided against it m Ime so glad now that   I didn’t go with them , we accept cash ,cheques ,and bacs  good for us and all customers . Don’t put all your eggs in one basket would be my advice .

[Steven Biggs]

Finally going to do it!

All new customers get signed up on Gocardless immediately theres no other payment option.

But now I have the fun task of converting my old customers to gocardless.

I've got 50 customers to sign up. Printed off the letters and will be posting them tomorrow.

To the guys that have done this too, what experiences did you have? If people don't sign up how do you go about convincing them? Do you go round a few days later to talk to them or post another letter?

Thanks in advance 👍🏻

but why ?

[Stoots]

Thing is good customers will pay you promplty and if they forget a reminder will get them apologising and sending you payment.

Those that need 3 or 4 reminders everytime or worse never pay at all get filtered out and dumped.

Ive thought about it a few times, but unless you have a cash flow problem i dont think its worth it because once you are locked in you are stuck with their fee increases and it wont be easy getting customers off it.

[Tyler Williams]

I have not done it yet, why do'nt  you say if you sign up to gocardless your price is fixed for 12 months !
if they do'nt want to,tell them how much the price will go up  !   

I tried the first time by offering discounts etc and got a fair few to sign up but not enough. This time I've printed of letters asking them to sign up as of 21st October but its less of a choice and more if they don't do it then I won't be coming back

[Tyler Williams]

Are you aware of there charges ?... I think it’s a slippery slope they have already increased them quite considerably and as more people sign up they will put them up again they can basically hold you to ransom I feel that you will also loose a lot of potential customers as many will not sign up to it , I looked at it a while ago before there price rise and decided against it m Ime so glad now that   I didn’t go with them , we accept cash ,cheques ,and bacs  good for us and all customers . Don’t put all your eggs in one basket would be my advice .

I'm fully aware of the charges I already ise them for 50% of my round. Its 1% plus 20p of the transaction. Its very very unnoticeable but I get its not for everyone. I personally just know it will make my life easier with less admin so I can focus on other parts of my business

[Tyler Williams]

Thing is good customers will pay you promplty and if they forget a reminder will get them apologising and sending you payment.

Those that need 3 or 4 reminders everytime or worse never pay at all get filtered out and dumped.

Ive thought about it a few times, but unless you have a cash flow problem i dont think its worth it because once you are locked in you are stuck with their fee increases and it wont be easy getting customers off it.

You are 100% correct there that good customers will pay and will pay on time. I've weeded out quite alot of rubbish customers recently but for me Gocardless makes it so there's one less thing to do when I get home.

Personally I just like the idea of it for regular cleans ut makes sense but again I know it isn't for everyone and there are some on here who don't like it.

Each to their own

[NWH]

Ok all well and good but you have this customer that pays you 3-4K a year and they say no I don’t want you debiting my account when you feel like for the windows thanks,what do you say to them.

[Simon Trapani]

I think he’s talking about an average residential. I’m sure there’s the odd exception.

[Tyler Williams]

Ok all well and good but you have this customer that pays you 3-4K a year and they say no I don’t want you debiting my account when you feel like for the windows thanks,what do you say to them.

I have nothing near that level of money. BUT if I did I would explain how direct debit works that I cant take money when I feel like it and explain they are backed by the direct debit guarantee meaning EVEN IF that happened they can get their money back by asking the bank.

Appreciate your help coming up with situations that could arise

[NWH]

This is why this system is useless for certain people you can’t dictate to a particular type of customer-person this is how you’ll pay me,if they ask fair enough but I can tell you if I did this it wouldn’t be accepted by many.

[Tyler Williams]

This is why this system is useless for certain people you can’t dictate to a particular type of customer-person this is how you’ll pay me,if they ask fair enough but I can tell you if I did this it wouldn’t be accepted by many.

Certain people yes. But at the end of the day if its your business can you not ask for payment how you want? Otherwise its not your business its your customers.

Its been trued and tested by a few window cleaners on here like Richard at Isparkle or Lee pryor or Darren at Greenpro clean

Like I say though each to their own

[NWH]

Lol m8 they are cleaning many good large properties no doubt but look on Darrens YouTube and see the video of what his favourite type of property is it’s my worst,and if a business has 3-5000 customers the majority will be quick smallish jobs so like I said I wouldn’t want to upset or rock the boat with jobs that equate to 1000s a year,who cares if a 10-15 quid a month job jumps ship but different if it’s 1 job that in theory is paying your van payments each month.
Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth and all that I know who to badger for payment and all that without them getting Pi**ed off,if not I’ll wait and always get paid in the end and when I do it’s been worth waiting for.

[dazmond]

Finally going to do it!

All new customers get signed up on Gocardless immediately theres no other payment option.

But now I have the fun task of converting my old customers to gocardless.

I've got 50 customers to sign up. Printed off the letters and will be posting them tomorrow.

To the guys that have done this too, what experiences did you have? If people don't sign up how do you go about convincing them? Do you go round a few days later to talk to them or post another letter?

Thanks in advance 👍🏻

each to their own but i wont be offering this to my customers as most pay by BACS which is free.....i have a rolling debt of between £500-£1500 at any one time...at present its £950-00.....however i dont live hand to mouth and im way ahead of my bills and have plenty of savings behind me so it makes no difference whether i get paid today or next month.....

i find i have a steady drip of money dropping into my account most days......

i can fully understand you implementing gocardless esp if you want to grow into more than a sole trader but for me i dont like the thought of a company taking a cut of my money just for getting paid and relying on them for ALL of my business payments...over the course of a year it will be a substantial amount......

i do have a card machine and they take a small transaction fee(1.7 %) but im finding i dont use it much........but it still comes in handy from time to time......this is the only charge i have to pay for getting paid....

[swanson]

All i offer is cheque Bacs cash and thats it nice
and simple.

[Shrek]

So let’s put this into perspective...

1000 x £15 monthly jobs = £200 transaction fee
+ 1% of 15k = £150

£350 monthly fee

Yearly cost for collecting payment for you is £4200 at their current rate.

That’s a lot of dosh to pay out to a middleman

[NWH]

It’s only worth using that system if you are collecting lots of smaller payments who wants to be chasing up 20-40 quid for maybe 2 cleans,if you are cleaning 5-8 jobs a day that are bigger payers it’s easy to keep on top of who owes what.
These systems work with a business that has multiple vans each cleaning 30-40 small jobs a day where it is so easy to lose track of who owes what,I can work a week and know who’s not paid.

[NWH]

So let’s put this into perspective...

1000 x £15 monthly jobs = £200 transaction fee
+ 1% of 15k = £150

£350 monthly fee

Yearly cost for collecting payment for you is £4200 at their current rate.

That’s a lot of dosh to pay out to a middleman

Yeah and once you start using a system like this and it’s in place you can no longer function or will struggle to without it,I can see the purpose and that it would work well but the volume of work would need to be quiet large and manually chasing payment worthless in monetary terms.
As for Greenpro clean watch one of his videos he says it himself turnover 9 grand a month and end up with 50k a year lol paying for a system to collect payments on those figures is it worth it,I don’t think so.

[Ched]

So let’s put this into perspective...

1000 x £15 monthly jobs = £200 transaction fee
+ 1% of 15k = £150

£350 monthly fee

Yearly cost for collecting payment for you is £4200 at their current rate.

That’s a lot of dosh to pay out to a middleman

With takings of £180,000, £4K2 isn't too bad. Imagine how much time it takes to drop a payment card, receive payment, cash cheque and check the custy has paid x 1000 a month. As opposed to a single click and then a summary of payment info.
You are quite right it's not for everyone but admin time needs to be taken into consideration.

[Lee Pryor]

Go for it Tyler! You won’t regret it. Also you absolutely can dictate how people will pay you! Of course you can, no different to any other business or industry. We have no problems with that.

[dazmond]

So let’s put this into perspective...

1000 x £15 monthly jobs = £200 transaction fee
+ 1% of 15k = £150

£350 monthly fee

Yearly cost for collecting payment for you is £4200 at their current rate.

That’s a lot of dosh to pay out to a middleman

if thats true(im not sure your sums add up)then thats a ridiculous amount of money to be giving someone for getting your money in every year!so over a 10 year period thats over £40k!!! ....CRAZY........

[NWH]

You need good customers this is what takes years it’s not difficult getting numbers or volume of customers that’s a canvassing issue you can always leaflet-knock and get work but it won’t all be reliable paying customers or people that pay on time,little and lots i can see it working but for me personally I’m not about to dictate or give an ultimatum to better paying jobs that will pay within a week or 2,pointless exercise that would or might induce cancellations that could have been avoided.

[NWH]

I clean your windows every 6 weeks I insist that you pay me my way this is the only system we use,I will initiate the payment when we’ve cleaned you have no choice in this.
Ok Mr window cleaner we don’t want to operate like this we will get someone else,that might be 3-4 grand a year you’ve just flushed away with the terds that makes great business sense to me 🤣,mate if you intend turning over a huge amount of jobs per day for very little money go for it if you want to be strolling most days doing 20% of the jobs for the same or probably more money then don’t.

[NWH]

What’s the first things people look at during a recession most of the time it’s direct debits and which ones can be cancelled that’s not speculation that’s a fact,dropping the gardener off a day or cancelling the window cleaning all together is more than possible having a direct debit for the window cleaning well that don’t take much figuring out.

[Lee Pryor]

I clean your windows every 6 weeks I insist that you pay me my way this is the only system we use,I will initiate the payment when we’ve cleaned you have no choice in this.
Ok Mr window cleaner we don’t want to operate like this we will get someone else,that might be 3-4 grand a year you’ve just flushed away with the terds that makes great business sense to me 🤣,mate if you intend turning over a huge amount of jobs per day for very little money go for it if you want to be strolling most days doing 20% of the jobs for the same or probably more money then don’t.

But that doesn’t happen and they don’t say that. Less than 1 in 100 might and they were going to be a messer anyway. I have nearly 7000 on gocardless. Literally not a problem!

[Shrek]

So let’s put this into perspective...

1000 x £15 monthly jobs = £200 transaction fee
+ 1% of 15k = £150

£350 monthly fee

Yearly cost for collecting payment for you is £4200 at their current rate.

That’s a lot of dosh to pay out to a middleman

if thats true(im not sure your sums add up)then thats a ridiculous amount of money to be giving someone for getting your money in every year!so over a 10 year period thats over £40k!!! ....CRAZY........

Why aren’t you sure my sums don’t add up 

What’s your calculation then , 1000 £15 monthly jobs x 20p per transaction + 1%

[NWH]

2008 was the last recession the banking crisis this is set to be far worse whoever has built their business to any degree since this period won’t know the outcome until the foreseeable,these type of payment systems are developed largely for people like yourself where it’s almost impossible to track payments not for most business like ours although GoCardless themselves won’t tell you that.  I deal with large domestic properties in the main and I can tell you from experience the majority wouldn’t opt for this way of payment.

[NWH]

GoCardless perfect for the the couple with a couple of kids who lead a manic life both out to work who don’t have time to deal with small bills,not the case with larger properties that have staff that deal with household bills or people that are home 75% of the time that pay bills on the terms they choose we are not SKY or British Gas and never will be.

[dd]

So let’s put this into perspective...

1000 x £15 monthly jobs = £200 transaction fee
+ 1% of 15k = £150

£350 monthly fee

Yearly cost for collecting payment for you is £4200 at their current rate.

That’s a lot of dosh to pay out to a middleman

if thats true(im not sure your sums add up)then thats a ridiculous amount of money to be giving someone for getting your money in every year!so over a 10 year period thats over £40k!!! ....CRAZY........

Why aren’t you sure my sums don’t add up 

What’s your calculation then , 1000 £15 monthly jobs x 20p per transaction + 1%

According to your example he is earning £15,000 per month. Seems a bit excessive, even for a CIU member (though maybe not for NWH).

[Shrek]

So let’s put this into perspective...

1000 x £15 monthly jobs = £200 transaction fee
+ 1% of 15k = £150

£350 monthly fee

Yearly cost for collecting payment for you is £4200 at their current rate.

That’s a lot of dosh to pay out to a middleman

if thats true(im not sure your sums add up)then thats a ridiculous amount of money to be giving someone for getting your money in every year!so over a 10 year period thats over £40k!!! ....CRAZY........

Why aren’t you sure my sums don’t add up 

What’s your calculation then , 1000 £15 monthly jobs x 20p per transaction + 1%

According to your example he is earning £15,000 per month. Seems a bit excessive, even for a CIU member (though maybe not for NWH).

It’s just an example , you can scale the numbers however you wish.
Someone with 500 x £15 monthly jobs would pay £2100 a year in fees. It’s still a lot of money for the middleman

[NWH]

It’s like everything these days digital you are paying for the simplification of it I see that it works well but you need to be employing a fair few window cleaners to make it worth having,you’ve got some on here that use it and they work on their own 🤣 not needed.

[KS Cleaning]

I clean your windows every 6 weeks I insist that you pay me my way this is the only system we use,I will initiate the payment when we’ve cleaned you have no choice in this.
Ok Mr window cleaner we don’t want to operate like this we will get someone else,that might be 3-4 grand a year you’ve just flushed away with the terds that makes great business sense to me 🤣,mate if you intend turning over a huge amount of jobs per day for very little money go for it if you want to be strolling most days doing 20% of the jobs for the same or probably more money then don’t.

What you continually fail to understand is that in most parts of the country it isn’t possible to do single houses at £80 a pop for an hours work, and it certainly isn’t scaleable as there just aren’t enough mugs out there who are prepared to pay 80 quid an hour to a semi skilled person. However £80 an hour banging out compact £10-15 houses is doable and the customers won’t bat an eyelid.......There is more than one way to skin a cat!

[NWH]

Lockdown is creeping further south for a second wave can GoCardless deal with that lol.

[NWH]

I clean your windows every 6 weeks I insist that you pay me my way this is the only system we use,I will initiate the payment when we’ve cleaned you have no choice in this.
Ok Mr window cleaner we don’t want to operate like this we will get someone else,that might be 3-4 grand a year you’ve just flushed away with the terds that makes great business sense to me 🤣,mate if you intend turning over a huge amount of jobs per day for very little money go for it if you want to be strolling most days doing 20% of the jobs for the same or probably more money then don’t.

What you continually fail to understand is that in most parts of the country it isn’t possible to do single houses at £80 a pop for an hours work, and it certainly isn’t scaleable as there just aren’t enough mugs out there who are prepared to pay 80 quid an hour to a semi skilled person. However £80 an hour banging out compact £10-15 houses is doable and the customers won’t bat an eyelid.......There is more than one way to skin a cat!

I’m glad you brought this up 10-15 a pop and not batting an eyelid you’ve absolutely exactly hit the nail on the head,this is not the kind of work I’m interested in at all.
I want people who want someone round their property they know and trust and are willing to pay for it,I think this is where the hour long course process of employment comes from lol.
You stick to running for 30-40 small jobs a day and I’ll stick to cleaning 15-25% of that at my pace that’s the beauty of our job we get to pick and choose,unless you have  average workers that are running playing the numbers game.

[NWH]

More than 1 way to skin a 🐈 but I’ll choose the easiest way I think you wouldn’t clean endless amounts of 10-15 quid jobs unless you needed the volume of work for employees,you can’t simply clean the amount of jobs needed day in day out on a weekly basis with a small team it would become draining.

[Teaboy]

Dont really comment on here much but what balls some of these comments are

collect payment however you like we will be moving to go cardless as it frees up admin time and helps sort out cashflow, which as you employ and grow is one of the biggest obsticles to get over.

[Shrek]

Dont really comment on here much but what balls some of these comments are

collect payment however you like we will be moving to go cardless as it frees up admin time and helps sort out cashflow, which as you employ and grow is one of the biggest obsticles to get over.

First post! Looks like you don’t comment at all!!!!!

[NWH]

You will collect payments how you want that’s fine but if you have certain jobs that want to pay you the way they want sometimes you have to just bend over and take it,if you had this attitude with all your work you may come a cropper I know I would like I say this system works of course it does but works better with huge numbers that are hard to keep track off over the course of the month,some people are trying to keep track of 1500-2000 payments a week it makes sense for them to use and pay for it that way even if it’s 1000s a year it’s still going to work out cheaper than having someone in the office chasing payments.

[Richard iSparkle]

Go for it Tyler

Anything that simplifies your business and saves you time is worthwhile

[NWH]

Tyler do you have a business account.

[Nathan Tipping]

As Coronavirus pandemic is still going, gocardless will become more and more popular because it helps the amount of touch points and helps reduce spread of the COVID-19! It will be difficult to covert 'cash lovers' however, they will just have to get used to the fact that they need to use card.

[Splash & dash]

As Coronavirus pandemic is still going, gocardless will become more and more popular because it helps the amount of touch points and helps reduce spread of the COVID-19! It will be difficult to covert 'cash lovers' however, they will just have to get used to the fact that they need to use card.

Bacs is king as far as Ime concerned I won’t have my business held to ransom buy go card less and there price rises that you have no control over .

[dazmond]

BACS is king for me also...over 80% of my customers pay this way now...its free too.....

[NWH]

As Coronavirus pandemic is still going, gocardless will become more and more popular because it helps the amount of touch points and helps reduce spread of the COVID-19! It will be difficult to covert 'cash lovers' however, they will just have to get used to the fact that they need to use card.

Lol will it how many 1000s of customers do you have I do ok with Bacs payments don’t forget they can cancel as quick as you sign em up m8,I can’t remember touching anything when someone pays me online can you unless I’m checking if it’s gone in. I myself wouldn’t want a direct debit for the window cleaning I’d rather see a slip that he called and pay them within seconds,even better if you send a quick text reminder that you’ve called read reviews regarding window cleaning firms that use this system it’s interesting reading some of it.

[Shrek]

I will never use go cardless . Bacs is the best option , free to use and doesn’t show up in the customers direct debit list!

[KS Cleaning]

As Coronavirus pandemic is still going, gocardless will become more and more popular because it helps the amount of touch points and helps reduce spread of the COVID-19! It will be difficult to covert 'cash lovers' however, they will just have to get used to the fact that they need to use card.

Lol will it how many 1000s of customers do you have I do ok with Bacs payments don’t forget they can cancel as quick as you sign em up m8,I can’t remember touching anything when someone pays me online can you unless I’m checking if it’s gone in. I myself wouldn’t want a direct debit for the window cleaning I’d rather see a slip that he called and pay them within seconds,even better if you send a quick text reminder that you’ve called read reviews regarding window cleaning firms that use this system it’s interesting reading some of it.

C’mon tell the truth, we all know you ‘give it a wee rub’ when you see the big payments going into your account 🤣🤣

[NWH]

Nathan you say Gocardless is the way it has to be this method this and that on another thread you are asking advise on setting up a business 🤣,if you want advise on setting up a business don’t ostracise what are usually the better paying customers by insisting in a particular method of paying you.
You give a payment options 1 of them could be GoCardless you pay me this way grrrrrrrr or you won’t get a window cleaner,complete nonsense the main thing is that you get paid.

[NWH]

As Coronavirus pandemic is still going, gocardless will become more and more popular because it helps the amount of touch points and helps reduce spread of the COVID-19! It will be difficult to covert 'cash lovers' however, they will just have to get used to the fact that they need to use card.

Lol will it how many 1000s of customers do you have I do ok with Bacs payments don’t forget they can cancel as quick as you sign em up m8,I can’t remember touching anything when someone pays me online can you unless I’m checking if it’s gone in. I myself wouldn’t want a direct debit for the window cleaning I’d rather see a slip that he called and pay them within seconds,even better if you send a quick text reminder that you’ve called read reviews regarding window cleaning firms that use this system it’s interesting reading some of it.

C’mon tell the truth, we all know you ‘give it a wee rub’ when you see the big payments going into your account 🤣🤣

🤣🤣🤣 yeah the odd twitch we all do when that nice bit goes in.

[NWH]

Gocardless 🤣🤣 might work for some get some customers first eh lol,baby steps.