[julia]

Hi All
A question for you all - do you charge your clients when they cancel their sessions at short notice>  Do you pay the cleaning staff that should be attending full pay, half pay or no pay?
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks
Julia

[Gerry Styles]

We make a £25.00 charge if notice of less than 24 hours is given

[julia]

Hi Gerry
Thanks for your reply.  I have invoiced my clients as if they had their clean but they deduct it from the invoice.  This usually leaves me out of pocket as I have paid the cleaner.  Do you pay your staff if these dont work??
Thanks
Julia

[Alan Rowley]

I have thought about charging customers who cancel, but I decided against it. This could give customers an excuse to cancel permanently if they have to pay for a service they haven't received.

My ladies are paid on an 'as and when required' basis so I don't pay them if a customer cancels. They all work much more than my agreed minimum hours anyway, so they don't complain.

[turneylogan]

As part of our selling process we told customers they could cancel us at any time but would appreciate some notice. As staff were hourly paid then they simply didn't get paid for cancellations. No problem

It only became an issue at Christmas when we would write to all our customers telling them which days we would clean for them and requesting them to advise us if they did not need us. However, every Christmas we would have staff turned away at the door, or asked to come back another time or day.

More of a problem to our cash-flow was non-payers. They got two cleans then a phone call and if that didn't work then we didn't turn up until they called us.

[Ian Rochester]

Turney,

You should really be chasing up ANY non payers regardless of how much is outstanding, even take them through the small claims court if necessary.

I have a friend who is also a magistrate, he has on the odd occasion written to some of my non payers on his letterheaded paper, surprising how quickly they get paid.  He gets his windows done for free and the odd carpet now and then