this always narks me, I personally think its just penny pinching from whatever chain of shops it may be.
Often results in poor quality work too.
At one point I did our local woolies, the national contractor was Initial at the time.
As I was dead local they had a top job done, but prior to myself the work being done was really ropey.
After a while Initial lost the contract, new guys took over and some other cleaner took it on, didn't last long and then our very own Tosh took it up for a while, but the money was really poor...always had been too...
So Tosh also dumped the job.
The place looks grubby and dirty all the time now, the guys doing it are no longer regular and the job they do is poor, very poor.
The Lloydstsb is also a national contractor, yet again most of the time the place looks grubby, and when whoever it is does come and clean it, the job they do is poor indeed.
It also takes away the power of choice from the shop managers, if they want extra work done, before it can be ok'd it has to go through channels, if the window cleaner does it off his own back there is a strong chance he won't get paid for the work he's done.
I hate this trend of national chains contracting out to national window cleaning firms.
I've lost WH Smiths to one, BetFred, and boots, the major supermarkets are out of my range as a result of national contacting, as are the big banks, fortunately they make up only a tiny fraction of my work.
Ian