I have a 7 days work on one estate alone. I have been doing these houses since they were built 10 to 11 years ago. They are small very compact 2 and 3 bed semi's and terraced. All open plan fronts. I charge £5 per house if they don't have conservatories. cheap? yes well, you have to take into consideration economy of scale, and local competition. When you do house after house in the same close, your not travelling. In fact most days don't even have to move the van.
These customers have been serviced regular as clockwork, they have never had an unreliable window cleaner.
A young guy has just started up using ladders. He's been canvassing the estate, undercutting my prices. Now we are all vulnerable when we make the switch to WFP. Some customers are not sure about it no matter how many explanatory letters you give them.
One gobby disgruntled customer can do you a lot of damage. I am still getting repercussions from the first Newsnight interview with the man from the fed.
So far I have lost 3 customers. One said that WFP had left a bloom on her windows, she's a heavy smoker and the bloom was on the inside. Her daughter also went with the new guy. One long ex customer that I had dumped for bad paying also took him on, she recruited her mate who was a good customer.
It's OK bumping up your prices, but you have to deal with the competition too.
I see the sense in what Ian Say's, but can't agree with all of it. Sure I'm too cheap, but the take for the last 4 days is £557. That's 4 days of hard graft I know, and my Mrs helped me for 2 of them.
Guess I will have to go out and look for more big houses at the right price. Dai