[Phil Mitchell]

Recenlty I've picked up enough work to move from a 5 week to a 6 week clean. I wrote a letter to all customers informing them of the change and added a few other bits due to changing the company name, bank details etc. I'm not sure how many regular cleans I have but it must be approaching 300ish. I also have one day of 10 week cleans,12 customers in total.
Now, I havent changed the 10 week cleans i.e. to 12 weeks as I feel that 12 weeks is too long and the price they pay would have to change and I dont think this would go down too well.
A 10 week custy sent me payment last week and asked to have a 12 week clean. My first thought was this was a bit cheeky but  I can see where shes coming from due to the 5 to 6 week clean. How do I go about telling her my reasons for not changing her clean without sounding ungratfull to have her custom?
My wife reckons I should just do it as times are getting hard and it would be better to keep her than rock the boat but I'm business minded and feel she needs to understand I make the rules for my business.

[matt]

the time and motion between a 6 week clean and a 10 or even 12 week clean is exactly the same

you can bring the 12 week in with your 6 week cleans, thus everyother clean, so no harm done

[Phil Mitchell]

I've considerd this but all the other custys are expecting me every 10 weeks still. I guess they understand the frequency of their clean hasnt changed. This one cusy seems to feel she can change her clean without even inquiring if its ok. I also miss out on a percentage of that days payment by spreding it out to 12 weeks and with a new family and our maternity pay finishing next month I need all the money I can get.

[alanwilson]

matt is right in what he is saying, although stubborn dirt will be a little harder to remove due to the extra "baking" time.

YWCS makes a good point though - what is the point of taking on more custys if its going to mean increased cycle times?  You won't be any better off, in fact the only benefit I can see is if you loose a custy its less of a loss but other than that all I can see is negatives, more dirt to clean off the windows and frames, more paperwork etc.

[Phil Mitchell]

I gained the new customers intending to move to 6 weeks. Were now in recession and this move should pull me through the bad times ahead. If I call less frequently, they are paying me less. If there paying me less then I've less chance of lossing them in the long term.
I have no intention of going over 6 weeks so now my business will grow financially with more stable foundations. I know of wc's who clean every 4 weeks and are loosing custys every week probably because they turn up too often.

[matt]

does it not defeat the object of getting new customers if you reduce the frequency of the cleans?

a massive benefit is if you lose a few due to the current climate, its not much of a biggie as you can allways do them at 5 and 1/2 weeks etc etc

i allways say its better to have too much work than not enough

[alanwilson]

fair point phil

[Chris Galloway]

if you dont do the same area when you do this other custy that want to change to every 12 weeks, then i dont see it a problem, id do it.

However if i was already in the area doing others at 10 weeks i wouldn't change to 12 weeks just for 1 customer! if they wanted to change to 12 weeks id have to increase by £2 say just for the extra travel just for that job.

I would reply saying it wasn't viable as a reliable business you provide to all your customers to do it outside of the times you do it already, as you are in the area doing other cleans at the same time. If you have to visit at different times, then you couldn't offer the same level of customer service to your other customers as you have to keep a reliable service to all your customers. If they wanted a bespoke service then there would have to be an extra charge for it for the extra travelling and time out taken from other areas of your rounds/service

You may lose that customer but im sure the loss would be offset the time out you have to take to do them from your other areas and travelling costs etc to get to them.

Who's running your reliable business you or your customers. Keep control advise you cant do it, without being reliable to the rest of your clients elsewhere. Unless you want to be running everywhere at all times.

[Phil Mitchell]

The way you've put it Chis could be the way to go. You have taken what I was thinking but put it over in a way I couldnt think of. Thanks.

[darragh windows]

we do 90% of our work monthly and the other 10% every 8 weeks, any 8 weekly ones always have a slightly higher price and are divided in half so we do half them every month with our monthly work and the other half the next month we then never have to travel especially to do them and never get an overload of work

[AuRavelling79]

Now if you take the 10 weekly clean and the 12 weekly clean and times it by the number you first had and divide it by Pi (3.142) and factor in the frequency of the clean cubed by the number of litres of water {(3Xi  x  3Yi) to the power of five} you used you will then arrive at the correct equation.

 

Ooops, sorry, I thought I was still in the diesel prices thread!