I’m only speaking for myself, but this is not usually a problem. I don’t call to schedule my residential maintenance jobs (monthly to quarterly). I set a schedule with the customer (Example: March, June, September, December) and do the job sometime during that month. When I get a call to postpone, it is usually for some special occasion (“Instead of coming in June, could you come during the week of July 10. We have a family reunion.”)
The key is to get this all set up initially, with the customer understanding that you won’t call to schedule, you will just take care of the job. The beauty of this is that they do not need to think about their windows; they will be cleaned.
I call them on a quarterly basis so I can get inside to do their windows inside and outside. How do you know they will be there available to let you in?
My discount model is simple. First time clean - full price.
I will call in 3 months to schedule the day to clean the windows for that quarter and the customer benefits with 20% off of full price.
no not at all, the point was if 100pmh is the desired goal/anchor point,
is a hit being taken on the first visit (more than 3 hours),
a hit being taken on the repeat (more than 2.4 hours on repeats)
or getting the 100pmh (any pmh goal, just using 100 to correspond easier to time increments in example) for a one time/first clean (3 hours) and the repeat (2.4 hours)
(the above not in a corresponding order to the previous post question)
a ‘discount’ on the repeat can mean very different things to different people
They don’t need to be at home. My residential maintenance jobs are exterior only. We make an appointment once or twice per year to do the interior. Some of these jobs are done each month. I would much rather do 4 or 5 exteriors in an afternoon than 1 in & out.
In 3 months time screens and tracks have collected dirt as well as the exterior of the windows. Must be a regional thing, but several of my regulars screens attach from the inside, tracks can’t be cleaned, but show mud from wet windows, so easier for me to schedule a specific day and time and do an easier in/out than it was as a first time clean.
I don’t cut my prices to meet my competition or for new customers. Cut rate prices mean you are a cut rate service. My time is too valuable to discount or give it away.
that’s why I find the repeat “discount” rate to be such an anchorpoint, ething builds out from that, not really a discount but the desired [I]minimum/goal[/I] PMH
seems 90% of the time the first time ends up in a hit one way or another, for the repeats it seems to take about 3 services to really dial in a home for a “clean” and repeatable time for all future services, esp the more complex ones of course.
I am less concerned about the hit on the first service, no one is going to pay what it really takes to set up a home, at least out here anyway.
Customer lifetime value is king in this business for sure
I have a 5 star hotel sending me emails occasionally with cut rate prices or meals thrown in for free… that doesn’t mean that are a cut rate hotel!
They simply have availability they couldn’t fill, and they want to fill it by offering a deal.
Unless you are totally booked out weeks on end throughout the year and are able to charge over and above - you’ll find some people need a push in the “right direction”… a deal helps that.
Do deals on your terms… whether you want to do a deal or not, it’s up to you.
When it comes to that hotel… are you really getting a deal, or are they just “dressing it up” as a deal, to get you to bite… thats another thing entirely!
i strongly disagree with first time customer offers. as a loyalty customer myself i have sometimes stopped shopping at businesses that consider a new customer more valuable than me who shops there over and over. and i hate my cable and phone providers as they constantly offer discounts for switching but if you stay you’re screwed.
how would you like paying someone say 150 to wash your windows and find out next door had it done for 125 FROM THE SAME GUY!! i would be furious.
maybe they won’t find out…i want them to talk to each other.
The only customers I " first time discount " are:
Retired or
Uniformed (I.e. Firemen, police ,
Armed forces)
They deserve a break
I am racially insensitive. I am culturally controversial .
I am not politically correct and I wear this with pride. I can give a fat babies dick if you don’t like me (r.m.)
Cleaning Windows is Just My Job, Not My Life…
