[matt]

mine are all 6 to 8 weeks now

it works well

[dai]

Tosh, I stated offering 8 weekly cleans about 3 years ago. I did it one estate at a time, and currently have 3 estates on 8 weekly cleans at +50%.
I explained to the customers that I was far cheaper than many of my competitors.
In order to make my business economically viable, I had two choices. Put up the price substantially, or pass the under priced jobs to another cleaner.
I told them that I would be prepared to carry on doing their windows, but only on an 8 weekly cycle for 50% extra.
I pointed out that they would save on their annual window cleaning costs, and that it would then be economically viable for me to continue doing them.
All but one accepted this, I was a bit surprised as I had expected to lose more.
As has been said above, I too find very little difference when I clean 8 week accounts, as opposed to 4 weekly ones. Dai

[NWH]

My work is 6wkly 8wkly and a handfull of 12wkly,in my opinion 4wkly is far to regular even on 6wkly cleans i never get round on time.I think a lot of wcs that have mainly 4wkly work are fairly new to the job i might be wrong but at the prices i charge my customers wouldn`t want to see me every 4wks,that`s the thing about longer intervals you can justify charging far more cos the customer can see they need cleaning,if you get not today thankyou your to regular.

[NWH]

The good thing about the 6-8wkly time span is that you could go round even a week early sometimes and they wouldn`t care,if like squeaky your 4wkly and turning up a week early your in trouble you need more work.The chances are that the week you have free cos of lack of work the sun will be shining until the other work is due up.I never turn work down until i`ve at least had a look at it,only then if the type of work is not for me i`ll pass it on but i always pop round and have a look first.

[matt]

i dont see the " its much dirtier at 8 weeks " claim

yes they are dirtier

BUT

its the same effort to clean them, you either WFP or mop and sqeegee them off, still the same motions

[Scrimble]

when i quote for a larger property i will quote 4 or 8 weekly, i.e £25 four weekly or £30 8 weeks, all my £20+ customers are 8 weekly as of there choice, i prefer doing them every 8 weeks cause i have an excuse to charge more, none of them takes more than an hour to do so £30 for an hours job is acceptable to me.

however on smaller properties i will do it only if customer asks but i do charge more, i quoted a house yesterday at £16 but customer wanted 8 weekly so i charged £20 and customer accepted.

i think its a good way of doing it, i wouldnt want more than 10 percent of my round to be 8 weekly though.

[DASERVICES]

Cheers Guys  lot of good comments here.

I have two choices dump or employ. Been the employ route but had numpties, which was proved when I let my 12 year old daughter help me with one of the jobs I do. She did it quicker than the guys I employed last year so that tells you something.

One thing  when talking to fellow window cleaners up and down Scotland is the no hopers from the job centre they get. This year I went to one of them meetings where you meet up with local businesses and met an American chap who told me the most successful business was started by a guy employing students from the university. Now it is a billion dollar company so has got me thinking as do not want the hassle of giving someone a full time job etc.. Has anyone used uni students, I think this is the way to go as they are flexible and always looking for part time work.

Weighing up my options as I am in a situation where what I earn is not to live on but extra. What I have to do is cut my working days down to 3 days to spend more time with the family, coming up to the teenage problems ( I'm sure aliens come down and abduct them)

Once again thanks for your replies, need to ponder it over the weekend.

[russ_clark]

Put a professional advert in your local paper.
Do not state 'window cleaner required'
Try  'reach and wash operative required'
How nuch did you pay your 'numpties'
Try 'up tp £10 per hour'
You pay for what you get IMO.
Russ

[LSB]

i have recently put all my prices up , and only had about a dozen cancel , and a few went 2 monthly ,so you might be surprised at how well the customers take the increase ( mostly i increased between £1 and £3 ) . and as most of you have commented on  i also have new customers coming in from everywhere !