Tosh,
I did the 'Woolies' before you, was a complete pain in the rear, I resented it every time I cleaned it.
Price is just so tight on it.
These people eventually lose out, check out most banks, they centralise, one contractor who then subs the work out to increasingly smaller firms, usually ending out with someone local. (If they are lucky)
These buildings end out not getting cleaned regularly, they spend more time being grubby than clean, That certainly applies to all of the banks in our 2 local towns, Chepstow and Caldicot.
Its a shame each individual bank cannot chose and pay a local window cleaner. If a window cleaner has to do all of say, Lloyds banks in a 25 mile radius, he has to spend a lot of time travelling just to do a single account, as against slipping it seamlessly into normal round if he is just cleaning work local to him.
The price then has to be relatively expensive to cover costs. So he subs it out to a local guy, who has to put a really tight price in if he wants the work, the guy he is subbing for has to take a percentage after all, and this company is probably subbing to a national company who also have to take a percentage.
so corners get cut, or the job only gets done when the manager has a moan about the state of the windows
Then of course the manager is also hamstrung if he wants extra's done.
If you are the window cleaner and are asked to do work not covered in your quote, you have to seek permission up the chain of command (so to speak) else you may not get paid.
The company you are contracting to has to do the same, usually waiting from permission from the head office of the bank manager.
A total pain, and I for one try to avoid those jobs like the plague.
I hope that the Hilton do contact me (courtesy of Tosh AKA windows_Chepstow) I would like to price up a job like this, even if only for the experience
Window cleaning on jobs like these are genuinely expensive, it isn't a £50 job that hardly makes a dent in expenses, so managers tend to look at the cheapest price, or at least a very competitive price.
But such competitive pricing ends out being counter productive, those that get the job often end out in the position of Tosh and find the renumeration recieved isn't sufficient to cancel out the hassle of doing the job, invoicing, the constant chasing for money and so on.
End result is a constant stream of new window cleaners.
Commercial work can pay incredibly well, but the reverse can also apply
I have loads of shops, the cheapest of which is £1.50 per clean
Loads more around the £2.50 mark.
How the hell can someone trying to get into shops compete with that? You need dozens of these shops all close together, once you have that they make you real money, getting there can be so hard though, in most towns there are between 2 and 4 firms competing for the work.
If you are lucky, one of these will have folded up/retired/moved on and if you are in the right place at the right time you can move in get some of the work.
Unless he has sold the work on of course
But then maybe you were the one he sold it to
Ian