I have experience cleaning windows doing janitorial, but as a relative newbie to the residential window cleaning market I am interested in getting some of your thoughts on how fast it should take to clean all the windows in a customer’s house.
I am writing this because I have done a few jobs that took two whole days. I thought I could get it done in one day and ended up having to come back for a second session. So for my last big job, I hired an experience guy and we knocked it out in 6 hours.
That started me thinking about speed. If I were a customer and strangers were showing up at my house, I would probably want to be at the house the whole time watching them. Now, I wouldn’t want to be there all day. I would really like it if they had 3 or 4 guys and got it done really quickly so I could go about enjoying the rest of my day.
Of course having extra people is more “strangers” in their house. And you would have to part with more of the profits for wages. But I think that from now on I will always have a second person helping me with bigger jobs because I think the customer will want the job done promptly. Any thoughts.
Yes, that logic is pretty sound. From my experience, 3 people is an efficient operation. You can get the job done in a timely fashion, as you said so the customer is more comfortable, but at the same time if you had 6 people running around the house then they might feel like they can’t watch them all and be nervous. We usually have 2 outside and 1 inside, outside ladder work takes longer anyway, and the customer can “keep an eye on” the 1 person if they want to. Also if possible a female on the interior seems to work well, puts the customer at ease, and a female usually is a little more conscious of surrounding nick nacks than a 20 something male. More crew members also seems to open the opportunity for one to wander off or talk on cell phone, so from your payroll side, I like 3 better.
As a one man show today, my customers know it will take me awhile. Larger % just go on with there day as normal. There happy its not them cleaning. I see where you are coming from, but there is no correct way cause each customer and job is different. This I will say, After doing the house a few times alone, you learn how too attack it and get it done fastest. Now that I work alone, I hate sharing that money lol
We usually have 2 outside and 1 inside, outside ladder work takes longer anyway, and the customer can “keep an eye on” the 1 person if they want to. Also if possible a female on the interior seems to work well, puts the customer at ease, and a female usually is a little more conscious of surrounding nick nacks than a 20 something male.
It sounds like you have a good operation running. I like the idea of a female on the inside. My wife helps me out on jobs and it does seem to put female customers at ease when there is another woman around. I like to keep a very respectful work atmosphere. I have been cleaning windows at houses that had landscapers or other service people there that were displaying some pretty off-putting behavior. Crude language, aggressive attitudes, stories of drunken bar fights etc. I wonder how those guys get jobs working around the public.
My goal is to make the experience as pleasant as possible for the customer while still being very efficient. I like to think of getting your windows cleaned as similar to going to a day spa or getting a massage; it’s a total experience, all the details count. If you compared it to a restaurant: would you go to a restaurant that had excellent food but that had really poor service. If it took an hour and a half to get your food, and the employees were rude or scary, and/or they played loud horrible music. Window cleaning is, most likely, no different.
Dwsracing probably has a good relationship with the customer and they don’t mind if he takes longer. It’s all in what the customer wants - what their priorities are. I’m guessing that a certain percentage of customers probably value speed. I’ll find out. I’ll start talking to my customers and try to ascertain what their needs are. Thanks for the input.
Goods points. Most clients will let you know if they have a deadline for you to finish if you ask them before booking. Then you can schedule accordingly.
I have had employees in the past and worked on my own. Right now I am on my own. I’m pretty fast on jobs so I usually average half a day at a house on new jobs and 2-3 hours on return jobs unless its larger like 5000 square ft and up then I am there all day. Alot of customers like just me better because they know each window will be done right and they trust me not to have to watch over me. Plus it’s more quite than having a crew. If a customer is wanting to leave and does not want to be there the whole time than I tell them it will only take an hour or so for the inside then they can go or I can show up befor they are there and do the outside and call them when I am getting close to needing to get inside. Also more guys means you will need to stack more jobs on the schedule and that means more time in the truck and less time on the job wich means less revenue for the day. From my experience the best crew if you want more than one guy is 2 guys unless you are at a really big job like 10000 square feet. Just my preference.
Another idea for big jobs with customer deadlines - We get this info prior to, then start on the insides letting the customer know once we are done they can lock up, leaving us to finish on the outsides. Quite common actually - Just communicate with your customer.
You forgot some very important Bremerton residents on your home page. All the guys from the band MXPX!!
You’re right. How do you know about them, I thought they were pretty much a local thing.They seemed to always be on the verge of getting really famous. My brother is in one of their music videos. I went to high school with a couple of them also. I see them from time to time in local diners.
This is a good topic. I guess in my experience most people are fine with being home for 1.5-3hrs(average time for resi jobs) people do sometimes just leave us there while they go and run errands. But your customer will almost always tell you what their schedule is and then you can make adjustments such as doing the insides first, going into turbo mode etc. 2 people on a job is enough in my opinion. 3 is nice for those days you feel lazy.
I don’t like being at a any residential job longer then 3 hours. Most jobs a 2 man crew can tackle in less then 3 hrs unless its a real monster. I try not to take to much of there time. You just can’t be comfortable when a stranger is in your home.
Also we always do the inside first just in case they got somewhere to go.
Owning a property maintenance company in a resort town in So. Cal for the pat 7 yrs I can tell you that having 3 employees is most profitable!$!
Working by myself the first yr was the worst thing I have ever done, slow drawn out nightmare that continued everyday… Yea I got to keep all of the money, but I actually make more money in less time with properly trained employees! Do not work by yourself unless your a glutton for punishment & do yourself a favor & read. “The e-myth” Priceless advise to a technician looking to run a comany!! Cause we all know Illegals are here to make us legal business owners wealthy $$$$
My dream is to have a bus, loaded with a crew and we bang out a 20 window home in 10 minutes in an out at a discounted rate. Rinse and repeat and dominate entire communites. Overhead would be crazy though. But could be done at the right price.
