The way I see it with WFP, as time goes by then more will convert however the customer will get more and more used to it being done that way.
This in turn means that as time goes by more and more customers will expect WFP on all the windows. For some people the difference in speed between trad and WFP pole methods is massive, for others there is not a lot of difference. However in truth the difference between a slow WFP and a fast WFP is less than the difference between slow and fast trad. In fact, slow WFP is not far off an experienced Trad.
There is basically four types of WFP folks but most of them are a mixture of some of them.
Just got into the business and jumped straight into WFP.
Too slow with trad gear.
Ladders are too risky.
Too many unreachable windows.
The first people to jump to WFP were mostly doing it due to the last two reasons, they decided ladders were too risky and wanted to reach more windows. The later guys fall into either people who did not see the point in buying WFP at first as they were fast enough and WFP did not seem to be as good for the customer OR the too slow guys.
The first people to move and also the "too slow and new" seem to be the sort of people who try to do 100% WFP (i said try). But it stands to reason, that the fast traditional guys who did not move until lately, or have yet to move, have little faith in the system.
This lack of faith is transfered onto the customer and it often makes little sense. We have always got most of our customers through them not being able to do the upstairs, and not because they do not like cleaning the downstairs windows (although this does amplify the reason).
When you have transfered your lack of faith in the system onto the customer (often this takes place only inside your head) you become worried that the customer is going to react in a negative way to the system. This is not good.
Logically, the average person in the street is not worried if there windows get wet, they are not overly worried if they stay wet. All a customer is bothered about is "are they clean?" and not "are they dry?". But as window cleaners who are traditional have, over a long period of time, implanted a different sort of logic (wet windows mean marks) and it is the window cleaner that is the "expert" you end up with a window cleaner that does not like leaving wet windows.
What I am trying to say is this...
The argument between trad and WFP downstairs takes place inside the head of a window cleaner that has no faith in the system and only inside his head, no where else.
You don't believe me? Then ask yourself this.
If you knew, 100% that WFP got windows 10 times cleaner (im not saying it does) than traditional methods, which would you use?
Obviously you would use WFP, if the customer said anything you would explain to them that this system is better, you would tell them straight that you have done lots of research and read lots of studies that scientifically prove that pure water left on glass is cleaner than soap residue left on glass even after someone has removed almost all the soap residue.
But because a lot of window cleaners have spent a long long time convincing themselves that water left on glass is a bad thing they find it hard to commit themselves 100%. Pure and simple, they have not got enough faith that it will be clean when it drys. Someone said that most customers prefer a traditional finish and they state this as fact. Yet I doubt very much that the WFP downstairs guys have lost 51% of there business to traditional guys or had 51% of the customers state that they want trad downstairs so plain and simple, it is not a fact. All they are doing is transferring their belief that trad is better than WFP onto the image of what they believe the customer thinks and as a result the brain spits out a result that "most customers prefer traditional". Maybe the brain has spat out the correct result, maybe not, all I am saying is ask yourself who is giving you this result. Is it "most" of your customers, is it "a window cleaners forum" or is it "yourself".
I think its the window cleaner that has anxiety over wet windows, not the customer.