just had an email from one of our commercial customers asking that we clean such and such every week or every other week if we don't have time to do it weekly. the job they've asked isn't a quick one and we didn't allow for random extra 30 minutes a week jobs as if we did then our prices would have been way too high.
what do people do in these situations? the customer is expecting us to do more for free, now i don't mind saying that's impossible, but i don't want to lose them as they're currently one of our biggest.
also what do people normally do when the contract is up for renewal? it's written into ours that it'll keep going year on year unless they decide not to renew and if so must give us x amount of time notice. should i email just to check or leave it as is unless they bring it up? may sound silly but it's our first contract renewal so don't want to mess it up.
finally, how do people approach the customer when there is going to be a price increase? i feel like a fool if i was to say something like "hi there, are you wanting to renew the contract with us? if so we're increasing our prices to x..."
edit: actually one more. is it standard practice to increase prices every year and if so is there a normal amount? i.e. by the amount of inflation?