This week has been really bad being unable to work 5 days straight. So it got me thinking about having to reschedule appointments.
If we get bad weather one day, we don’t push everyone out of the following day. When I explain this to a customer they say other cleaners will bump them.
Is bumping people how most window cleaners do it? We just rebook the cancelled appointments within the week.
I would rather upset one person by rescheduling, than many by bumping all!
However where possible i will try to get them in asap - it’s what weekends are for 
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For a resi customer if they cancel its next available day.
That is one unreasonable customer thinking you should bump the next days customer
This week was all route work Mon- Thurs
Friday - Saturday Resi
So what I did yesterday Cause I knew it was raining today … Was I did all the stuff that was in the open, and left all the overhang stuff for today
Sometimes it can’t work out that way , but I finagled it for this week
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I will ask the customer if it’s ok to at least do the insides, that way I’m not entirely backup and half the job is out of the way.
I go for the next available slot. I have done only insides on a rainy day but not my preference unless it’s a really big house. I don’t like having to go 2 times to house.
Someone a couple years ago on here mentioned leaving “rain days” to make up work if we have to push someone back. I started doing that and it works out really well.
Granted, the first few times it can feel uneasy to specifically leave days open. However, it’s great to be able to tell people there will be a make up day in the next two weeks in the event of bad weather. If I don’t need it to make work up, I just plug in some last minute jobs or call people and tell them I had something open up sooner. It has taken so much stress off the bad weather reschedules.
That said, I rarely reschedule. Most of the time I can get people to go ahead if I promise to touch up any Windows that weather impacts (1 out of 20 might actually take me up on that).
While I’m rambling…
Another strategy is learning which customers care and which customers don’t care about the bad weather. Some people say “It’s going to rain sooner or later any way.” They don’t care about the weather. Definitely schedule those people in April. If people seem really anxious about “What happens if it rains?” and they are exceptionally nervous, I encourage them to wait until later in May or even June.
In the fall, I just tell people straight-up “We’re going to run out of good weather, and if we push it past mid-November I can’t guarantee that I’ll get it done this year.”
I also have three large quarterly accounts (car dealerships) that come up in April and October that I can spend at least two days completely inside at. Those are great to keep around for bad weather. One year one of the salesmen said to me, “Man, you have bad luck. The weather is always bad when you come here.” And I was like, “Oh yeah, that’s crazy, huh?” 
Great post. That is the main reason I work 4 days a week. Has worked really well for me. We get a lot of rain in Louisiana.
That’s a good idea. I have a hard time getting there in April/May & Sept/Oct, though. But I love the 4 day week.
SW Florida gets a lot of rain and now that my schedule is filling up I’ve decided not to work around it. Rainy days I work just like regular days.
Route work is fine cause most of my accounts are shops and buildings with overhangs.
Residential clients get a phone call before I head over, explaining that I am prepared to work despite the rain and I will guarantee my work if they notice any problems after the rain stops.
I’ve even put out door hangers on rain days, walking door-to-door with an umbrella.
Dedicated to making it work! 
For everyone that reads this thread:
Do everything with in your power to keep every appointment.
everyday you dont work, hurts your bottom line!
If it’s feasible to do insides and then reschedule outsides, I do that. Otherwise I do all I humanly can (without compromising uncompromisable things) to cram them in within a week, even if it means bringing an extra employee for a day.
I tell my commercial clients that if it doesn’t rain today it will tomorrow in Ohio. Plus the fact is, rain does not make windows dirty, unless the windows are close to the ground. It is the biggest misconception in window cleaning. I never schedule more than 4 days a week though for what I call rain sensitive customers. Sometimes it can rain for days on end. Then when we get one sunny day, all your customers want to know where in the heck is that damn window cleaner. I try to train all my customers by educating them on how windows get dirty. The wind causes the dirt to fly on windows when it is dry, then the rain hits the windows, and now they become dirty. Actually cleaning the windows on a cloudy or rainy day is the best time to do so, and i even tell my clients this. In Arizona most window cleaners have to do things weekly because it is dry, and so much dust in the area that windows stay dirty. After 24 years doing this if they do not want to be cleaned, when it rains or snows, I just tell them they will get skipped until the next rotation. I have lost customers because of this. I explain that in Ohio we only get 180 days of sunshine if we are lucky a year. This is why we have you on a maintenance schedule. Residential clients are different though. Mainly because they only have there windows cleaned once or a few times a year. yet through the years i have explained this to my customers, and I have customers in my residential that do not mind if it rains. This is one of the hardest issues to deal with as a window cleaner if you are going to make any money.
I was asking more about residential since that is all we do. So if it rains we don’t have any commercial work to supplement with. It sounds like most people do both so the rain does not bother others as much.
How do you have delays when your customer says their powerwasher/painter/contractor/butler is delayed?
With a smile I guess.
I find that people who have cleaned their own Windows in the past don’t seem to care about rain. They understand that rain isn’t a big deal, perhaps because they’ve dealt with it before after doing the work themselves.
I whole heartedly agree with your post.
I have explained it the same way to my residential customers. When it very cold, like has been the case this month, I understand wanting to reschedule because open windows cool down the house and make the furnace run like mad.
I deal mostly with lake homes. The combination of humidity from the water, and the traffic kicking up dust, get their windows dirty, It’s hard to get it through to them that RAIN does not make their windows dirty. It only shows the results OF HAVING dirty glass.
