[Jim_77]

£XXX per seat...

Would you charge the same for cleaning 5 armchairs as you would for a 3-seat and 2-seat sofa?

There's 6 more arms!

[Ricky M]

Jim,
     yes I wud but its rare that situation cums up , well its just a guide that works for me .


               R.T

[Russell Morgan]

I charge £55 and people round here baulk at that price.
We talking normal 3 piece here or leather/suede??
How long does it take you??
I do one in about 1hr 40mins.
John

i work in the march cambs area, easily get 100-120 a suite, and 25-30p per square foot carpets, i've generally found the cheaper you go, the less work you get, you need to sell to people, you tell them the price, 55 quid is silly, if we all charged that, then i dont think thier would be any carpet cleaners about!!

[JandS]

How is it silly if that's the going rate??
Rang 9 round here from various adverts and they ranged between £48 and £65 I think it was.
Yet I can quote £3.50 - £4.00 a sq metre for carpets and nobody's bothered.
First thing they ask after price is how long will it take you.
Oh under 2 hours love     for £120     I'll ring round first and get a few quotes.

John

[derek west]

theres your mistake,
when custys ask me how long it will take i say "with the quality and power of the equipment i use about 2 hours, if i used the rubbish equpment some carpet cleaners used i'd be here all day, and the carpets wouldn't be dry for weeks"

if you don't explain, how do you expect them to understand.
derek

[Jim_77]

Never tell them exactly how long it takes.  Think of your normal suite cleaning time and add a bit more on, then vaguely give an estimate of between X and Y hours to cover it.

Obviously they divide the time by the hours and think that you are putting 60 quid an hour in your pocket, when as we all know it's not the case.  Don't give them the opportunity to do that.

[Mike Halliday]

Customer...."how long will it take you"

Me..... "I'm going to allow a full half day to clean it, it probably won't take me that long but until I start I don't know how difficult it will be to remove the soiling, half a day allows me enough time to do the job properly,  no matter how hard it is to clean".

 the customer now thinks they are paying for half a days work so whether it takes an hour or 3hrs  I'm covered.

[derek west]

Jands
i think the point (no matter how different) we are trying to make is, dont give a straight answer, they'll never understand, make the answer work in your favour, as long as you do a number one top notch super duper job then when she or he see's the results they wont be bothered if you did it in ten minutes.
derek

[carpetworx]

Customer...."how long will it take you"

Me..... "I'm going to allow a full half day to clean it, it probably won't take me that long but until I start I don't know how difficult it will be to remove the soiling, half a day allows me enough time to do the job properly,  no matter how hard it is to clean".

 the customer now thinks they are paying for half a days work so whether it takes an hour or 3hrs  I'm covered.

I like that approach.

[Mike Halliday]

the only problem is when they ask you if you could fit in another small carpet, if you've only been a couple of hours then they know you have some spare time, and even worse if they think they are paying for half a day they might want it including in the price

the way to get out of this is to tell them you need to flush out all the pipes because a different solution is used, so you'll have to charge, this also work when they ask if you could just run over a 'few' small rugs ( expecting them  for free) if you explain the extra work involved ( flushing out the pipes) they usually don't mind paying or tell you not to bother

mike

mike