[benny d]

Hi,
See if I can open another can of worms 

What is your rate to clean a stain?
It was a 40+ mile round trip. Tea stain on bedoom carpet, which took about an hour in total to clean, with the use of spotting machine and solutions etc.
Took about 2 1/2 hours door to door?
Thanks
Ben

[garyj]

I guess the first problem would be 'getting away' with the travelling expenses, if they specifically want you for the job you will get it, if not someone closer will almost certainly get the job because they will be a lot cheaper. And it is 'only' a tea stain ( which can be difficult, especially if it was hot tea with milk & sugar). So your minimum charge will apply to this job.

Seriously, I don't think there is much profit in this one, but you could very well get the whole carpet, and suggest a protector to help with future incidents, and of course you'll be the person they call for the next carpet clean if you do a good job.

Might be worth walking away from this one 
Might be worth doing the job, and waiting for the extra work it could bring.

Everyone is going to charge a different rate, if it was me I'd suggest doing the whole room and charge about £70.00 (presuming its a medium sized lounge). But no doubt, there will be some much bigger price suggestions.

PS. Sorry mis-read, didn't realise job was already completed.

PPS LAst time I ever reply to anything that starts " Hi Dudes" 

[John_Flynn]

LAst time I ever reply to anything that starts " Hi Dudes"     


Same applies here, I will NOT answer!!

[eco freindly. peoples champion ron .sherlock]

well dude.i reckon that for 2.5 hours at say 40- 50 £ ph would be about right. however if i wasent going to clean the whole room i wouldent of taken that job on. and i reckon your post should of told us what you did charge, did it make up for letting that poor chap down cause you thought his carpets were too smelly and dirty? was this more your cup of tea?SHAME ON YOU. YOU CANT TAKE EASY ONES ALL THE TIME.OR CAN YOU do you feel lucky.WELL DO YOU

[paul@ctcs]

John your such a miserable old git, cheer up for god's sake!!


Benny,

I would say £50 tops, its hard to justify charging for travel time.

Paul

[John_Flynn]

I love you too Paul 

[Len Gribble]

Depends regular or new customer!

Len

[Ian Rochester]

Charge whatever your minimum call out is, if it is likely to take an excessive amount of time then make sure they are aware of that before you start the job.

[Karl Wildey]

would also be between £40-50.

So what did you charge Benny d

[benny d]

Hi Chaps......,
I was only trying to be friendly... But what the hey !
I had that £ 40-50.00 mark in mind myself. I did the job a few days ago for the people who own a letting agency who I do work for. Well I did alot for about 2 months ago and for some reason I havnt done a job for them for the past two weeks.
They have said they are really quiet atm, so when I got a call from them to do this job in their house, I decided to do it just to try and keep in with them.
So tnx for most of the replies, some I will ignore.
I will go for £ 45.00
Im sure I will have many more questions in future 

[garyj]

Yep £45 would be about fair.

PS Last time I reply to a post with the line " what the hey" in it.

[Karl Wildey]

You find that with letting agencies they go quiet and you assume they have gone to a cheaper cleaner, then out of the blue a few jobs arrive, this is life with letting agencies.

[benny d]

Hi Karl,
Thats interesting to hear about the letting agencies. I hope that is the case. I have been doing work for them for about 3 months now, and up until 2 weeks ago I had atleast 2-3 jobs a week. Then zip 

They had assured me that it was a quiet time, but I thought it strange from 2-3 a week to 0 in 2 weeks.
I hope your right 
More questions to follow im sure 
Benny by the sea

[Matt Read]

I do a lot of lettings work benny,and i would agree with karl if its a small outfit....one of mine is a large company and they keep me busy thoughout the year but even then there can be a couple of weeks with nothing then its all at once.The smaller operations tend to be very sporadic and a lot can depend on the way they think,ie the smaller lettings agencies tend to let sub standard properties and only get carpets cleaned when you are virtually sticking to the carpet when walking on it !I know we should charge for every job but again with the smaller agencies they tend to be small business' like ourselves and i have given good discounts for private work,i think it helps,keeps you in their mind in a good way.

I've also had an agency i've done work for, for the last 10 years and recently found out that i'm no longer the only cc on their books (i was wondering why the work had decreased)but they do tend to have a high turnover of staff in their lettings department and new faces sometimes bring their tradesmen with them,but on the flip side the people who leave, tend to stay in the same line of work and take you to their new company,,so all in all i would say don't put all your eggs in one basket if you can help it ,remain calm and profesional and even if they have tried a new cc , chances are he will have to let a short notice job go and they will be back on the phone to you...business isn't personal unfortunatley and you have to roll with it 

[Chris Bailey]

Hi Benny

If that was me, and I was getting 2-3 jobs a week, at good money, then I would have done it F.O.C.

The letting agent would not then look for a cheaper cleaner!!

£50 investment for a good customer, cheap as chips

Chris

[therapist]

Agree about FREEBIES for letting agency owners and they do have long quiet periods occasionally.

I did a job for a builder, whose plumber marked a new leather suite......just over 40 miles e/w and the job literally took 2 minutes to complete, after inspecting .....                                                          I charged the builder forty eight pounds, which I'd prequalified ,as, the probable cost before committing myself to what might have taken 3 hours, plus.                                                            This is the only kind of work I'd do on a Saturday and regard it as " goodwill marketing "

r m

[benny d]

Thanks alot for the info again.
There is a few things to mull over.
I cleaned their 3 piece suite a few weeks ago for half price to keep em happy. But as no work from them for a while perhaps I will charge half price and tell em im doing that so that we are all friends, and gimme gimme more work 
If I seem to have got the elbow from them after that I will charge full whack in future!

UPDATE
I have a new question tomorrow about cleaning a chemists shop floor.
Too late now to think about it too much! Lots of chewing gum  on floor....
Bye