In the current economic climate, most businesses will be looking for ways to reduce costs.
The best way to do this is to put your window cleaning out to tender. If you select two to four other companies to quote, you can ensure that youre paying no more than market rate for the work done.
This can, of course, be very time consuming and you may be happy with your existing window cleaner. If this is the case, what other options are there? Here are some suggestions.
How often do you need your windows cleaning? Do they need cleaning every month? It is worth reconsidering whether the overall frequency can be adjusted. Missing out a couple of months, for example during major holiday periods such as during the summer and around Christmas, could reduce your bill by 15%. If youre looking for larger savings, consider stretching the interval to every six weeks rather than monthly and you could be saving 30%.
This will depend on the nature of your property and its usage. It may not be appropriate to reduce the frequency, because you cannot afford to damage the impression you create for visitors or customers, or those that use the building. In this case, look carefully at which parts of the building are most important. Some windows/glass areas will be less important than others. Consider reducing the frequency of the less significant areas.
In many contracts, internal windows are cleaned at the same frequency as external windows. Since they are exposed much less to the elements, this may not be required. Internal windows can be cleaned half as often as external windows. In some office environments, even less frequently can be appropriate. And remember the option of prioritising.
Some window cleanering companies charge different rates for using different types of access equipment. It is worth asking your window cleaning contractor to break down their quote as much as possible for different parts of the building. If your contractor is charging different rates, then consider carefully whether the more expensive methods are necessary. If they are, then look at whether it is possible to reduce the frequency of cleaning of the most expensive areas.
It is much harder to have a conversation with your existing contractor about cost reductions without detailed knowledge of how their prices have been calculated. Ask the window cleaning company to give you a detailed breakdown showing: each section of the property; internal vs external windows; difficult to access windows. Armed with this information you can walk around the premises looking at cost reduction opportunities.
Got that right Alex!
And of course they don’t realize that less frequent cleanings mean a high possibility of hard water damage which means a high cost to restore. Let them blog about that!
Some people just don’t get it. How many of us have spreadsheets marking out every $10-$x00 account and what the unit rate is for each panel for each job? I know I don’t. Showing up when you say you will has a built-in minimum value. It goes on from there.
