So you have a few customers that get rough with you. $300 I wouldn’t have accepted that if I would have known it was gonna take you 3 hours to do the work. The next customer here is your $300.00 the windows look amazing do you have some cards we can hand out. I have major hospitals that I service and am a reputable company but I still let customers change my thoughts on pricing. I do not negotiate but I will wake up the next day thinking wow I need to charge less cuz this lady feels taking advantage of paying an agreed upon quote. How do you mentally block out peoples feedbacks and just charge what you charge. It is very annoying how one minute your getting fired or bad word of mouth for charging good money and the next customer doesn’t care. I know this is a never ending battle in business but do you have any feedback as to how you become numb and just stick to your guts. Do you ever feel bad for charging the customer a pre agreed upon price? I can litterally do $125.00 to $150.00 jobs in an hour with a waterfed pole and I am a competitive company.
I’ve been in business for 10 yrs and I can’t ever remember a time where a customer complained that we finished the job too quickly or made too much per hour. They may comment about how fast we were but never in a negative way. I usually just say something like…”yeah, you do this every day for so many years and you get pretty efficient at it”. I find that most people would prefer you finish quickly (and do a good job) rather than stay at their house all day.
I’m confused when you say that the customer feels taken advantage of when they have to pay a pre-agreed upon price. If it’s been agreed upon before the service, what’s the problem? You do the estimate. They agree on the price. You provide the service. They pay that price. On to the next one.
If they’re complaining about the price then you don’t want them as a customer anyway. I understand that when you’re starting out every customer counts but don’t second guess your pricing. Some people are just cheap or want a deal. Stick to your guns and charge what makes you feel good at the end of the day.
mentally classify them into segments, customers are random people, classifying them as you’re talking to them into groups or segments or profiles helps
for example, simple groups:
windows are their thing vs windows are not their thing
on social security vs receiving a hefty pension(s)
having windows cleaned is what you do vs after 12 years I guess I gotta pay someone boy this sure gripes me
happy to pay for a service vs looking for anyway to find and grind a service provider to peanuts and loving every minute of it
see what I mean?
and yes the right groups, profiles or segments are in the minority and hard to find - biggest misnomer in this industry is “there’s plenty of glass out there” that phrase gripes me lol
Customers will divide a service person’s quote by how long they were there and make everything about hourly figures even if you did not give them an hourly rate but a job quote. Some people don’t understand when you have a advanced equipment and professional skills jobs do not take long. Some people will see a $300 job in 3 hours and be happy because they know it would have taken them 10 hours and some people will go wow $300 for 3 hours of window washing that is a rip off. I must live in a different area because people go but it’s only taking you this long you were only at my house this long.
Some people have an assumption that you need to be at their house for a certain amount of time to justify a certain cost. I have had customers ask me as there writing the check “is it still $275 I mean you were not here very long.”
Here’s the key: They are giving you this feedback, after the job is done, as opposed to at the time of the estimate.
Had they been doing the latter and you weren’t selling jobs, then you would want to reconsider your pricing.
What they are in fact doing is trying to negotiate with you at the wrong time. They have no leverage at the point of payment because the work is done and the windows look great.
Jodie @TheWindowCleanse said it well. They are only complaining after the fact, so your prices are fine.
Fight back on their perception, and maybe you can start to change how your customer base thinks. Example-A lot of people like how I can clean their windows in 3 hours due to my equipment and experience because it saves them the 10 hours it would take them risking climbing on a ladder to clean their windows. Its a sound argument, not to mention the value of their time, and even if they don’t agree right away it will spin around in their head and may change their mind or their friends mind when they complain.
It also never hurts to drop the big builds you do. People sometimes instantly change their perception of me once they know I do bigger buildings.
Window cleaning has a perceived value. The customers who realize that the value is good are your ideal customers. The ones who complain after the fact are not your ideal customers. They are cheap, which means that they don’t see the value in your service.
To be clear, it really bothers me when I get the after the fact complaint that the price is too high because we finished too fast. What I hear them saying is “I don’t value what you do.”
I just use my favorite 4-letter word for those customers…NEXT!
Move on, let it go, and stick to your pricing.
We’ve had similar topics on the forum and my favorite response from a member was “were you hoping it would take me longer?” 7 times out of 10 if a customer asked me to charge them by the hour, they’d probably come out ahead, because 10 out of 10 times I’m always going to factor in some “wiggle” room on any new job. It’s a take it or leave it price. If it’s a repeat customer and I close $100/hr. on the first clean, I’m likely to drop it around $90/hr.
Don’t fret about it. This mornings job took just shy of 3 hours and the customer gave me a $50 tip which brought it to just shy of over $300. Next.
“window cleaning is a luxury service”
I keep that in the forefront of my mind when putting together my pricing. I provide 3 different packages for window cleaning, it’s helped to close more jobs with less work and even less “wow that’s expensive” nonsense.
Lots of good advise here ! Never change your pricing , because someone perceived it to be high ,or you where done faster then they thought it would take.
Your Estimate numbers dictate your price period.
How many of these type customers do you actually come across in a year ? .
Let them complain , it shouldn’t bother you.
Have a rebuttal so you feel good wheN you leave. Obviously they won’t be calling back.
What are they going to leave a bad review saying he was faster than they thought .
“ Im sorry you feel that way The price is fair for the type of company I run , I’ve been doing this a long time , an I invested in lots of equipment to make us more efficient.
Are you happy with the work , anything you want me to redo?”
That’s all that should matter. Buh bye 
.
“A less experienced or less equipped window cleaner definitely would have taken longer, and might not have done as good a job. It’s taken me years to get to the point where I can complete a job like this one in only 3 hours. I charge for the results I provide, not the time I spend.”
Take your time out of the equation. Your customers are paying for the result, not the process.
Bottom line (in my opinion) is that you need to charge MORE not less! By charging more, you will weed out, and not attract the penny pinchers who want to complain.
If you are getting complainers: You are not charging enough
You aren’t paying me for the minutes it takes to do a job, you are paying me for the years it took to acquire my set of skills.
A job is a job and such worth what it is worth. Doesn’t matter how short or long it takes.
We ALSO GET ANGRY! However, I have short term memory when the next customer is thrilled with our results and pricing, it replaces my negative thoughts.
I have been in sales for over 40 years, owned and sold for many companies. This is what I know: I once did product fundraising for schools; we had a unique product that produced the highest profits for our non-profit schools. Even after publishing our results with the school names and locations a percentage of the people still chose to go another direction with their fundraising. During the recession years, many schools shut down and ALL of our competitors accept one is no longer in business.
Believe it or not we make more money (per time spent) with window cleaning! Its rewarding to receive new customers while our competition is discounting their services to someone that is never going to be happy!
Your prices are your prices. If you have done your research, and understand all the costs involved-- why let a customer dictate? I agree with above posters, people…don’t seem to value the service provided. I consider this a luxury service. Period. I have also put in the blood, sweat and tears over the last 15 years to know what a job is worth-- and what my time is worth. Now will I get every bid? Hell no, I’ve been told my bid was “3 times as much as the other company”-- but you know what? You don’t value the service provided and you are not a good fit for this business. As the guys above have mentioned-- NEXT!
That’s Gold
I’ve been in Business for 5 years now and the last 2 years I have finally been able to not care about estimates being turned down for being on the expensive side. I admit I’m more on the expensive side as mentioned but as your own boss you will be able to quote as high or as low as you like. With that being said if you quote more on the higher side of things you want to make sure the customer is as satisfied as can be as you leave the job site and really really take care of that client cause they WILL use you again. Even if it means going to their house on a Weekend perhaps cause they have no other time to do it… DO IT.
I have a 1 out of 3 rule with bidding. If I don’t get at least 1 out of 3 bids due to being over priced than I consider a little bit and wonder what’s going on. But there’s some days where you will get all of your bids that day. It really just depends on the people at the end of the day. Hope this helps
