[jana08]

Hi everyone,

I have a quick question if anyone can help me.

I have a customer who I can't afford to loose.

The problem is he is 23 miles from my home, which is a total of 46 miles journey there and back.

I have to go there twice a week and was thinking of employing someone nearer to do it for me.

I havent employed anyone before and would like some help with what I should do about raising the hourly rate with the customer?

I charge £10.50 per hour at the moment and cant afford to carry on doing it at the rate.
For two reasons;
             2)  Most of it is going on petrol
             1)  If Im going to employ someone I will need to be able to cover much more things.

How much would you charge??

[suffolkclean]

Why can't you afford to loose her if your not making any profit and spending most of the £10.50 on petrol - dosn't make business sense to me. That's why I don't do regular domestic cleaning anymore.

If you put the price up then you might loose her?
I had an enquiry of this nature before and I said I would have to charge for the travelling time to get there 23 miles is quite a distance to travel twice a week for £10.50 per hour.

A) Charge her travelling time at the hourly rate 1/2 hr each way = £10.50 more
B) Put her hourly rate up to £12 per hour & Employ someone to do it.
C) Don't put price up to keep her custom and don't make any money?

Barbara

[Les]

 I was going to ask the same question about not affording to lose the customer.

I also wonder how you'll make more money by putting up the price and then paying someone else to do the job. You may lose the customer anyway when they don't see you turning up and being charged more for the privelidge.

They might offer your new employee the job and cut you out altogether.

Just as a side issue, we don't quote an hourly fee, we survey the job and then give a total price for the work. That way they aren't moaning because 'a neighbour saw you leaving 5 minutes early'. It also gets around the problem of you 'apparently' earning more per hour than they do 

hope it helps

Les

 

[jana08]

Thanks for that advice.

If Possable could you tell me how you would tell them?

Would this be in a letter?

[simonwonder]

jan 08
where are you
i agree survey job have a minimum charge to include travel time and aim high job then becomes fun as you earn more and nobody is clock watching

[DREAM CLEAN]

why not try and get some other customers in the area?
then you would have 2 or 3 customers thus making it worth while
Nick