[Adam P]

just had an email from one of our commercial customers asking that we clean such and such every week or every other week if we don't have time to do it weekly. the job they've asked isn't a quick one and we didn't allow for random extra 30 minutes a week jobs as if we did then our prices would have been way too high.

what do people do in these situations? the customer is expecting us to do more for free, now i don't mind saying that's impossible, but i don't want to lose them as they're currently one of our biggest.


also what do people normally do when the contract is up for renewal? it's written into ours that it'll keep going year on year unless they decide not to renew and if so must give us x amount of time notice. should i email just to check or leave it as is unless they bring it up? may sound silly but it's our first contract renewal so don't want to mess it up.

finally, how do people approach the customer when there is going to be a price increase? i feel like a fool if i was to say something like "hi there, are you wanting to renew the contract with us? if so we're increasing our prices to x..."

edit: actually one more. is it standard practice to increase prices every year and if so is there a normal amount? i.e. by the amount of inflation?

[martin19842]

hi there

a lot of companies havent increased prices during the last 18 months or so due to the economic situation.

now if a client wants to adjust the specification, i would propose a meeting, to determine exactly what they want you to do, and why ??

i would then re quote to illustrate to the client if there is a financial implication to there wants and wishes.

regards

martin

[Gilbert Sprous]

I would have to agree with Martn, a meeting would be in order.  I have twice been asked for specification changes and when I had the meeting found that they were not actually  looking for extra for free, they were willing to pay for the changes.  I am not sure if that when they asked for the changes that they were wanting it for free if they could get away with it, but when I met with them and discussed the current specifications compared with what they were requesting it was easy for them to see that it would cost more. 

I have not increased prices in a while now but will do with in the next 6 months.  I have not increased prices for a couple of reasons.  The past economic situation has made it harder for businesses so I did not want to give my clients a reason to shop around and the fact that most of my contracts have 35% to 75% margin already so even with the increased fixed and variable costs I still had a comfortable margin to work in. 

My consumable supplier has recently increased prices on me and sent me quite a detailed letter with graphs and bullet points on economic factors that led to their price increases.  The bullet points were not the standard "fuel costs" etc.. It was a very well laid out global situation that pointed out certain increases to their cost of business.  I think it was to detailed for my use but it will give me a great outline to start on my communications to my clients.

Hope this helps a little

Cheers Gilbert

[richywilts]

My consumable supplier has recently increased prices on me and sent me quite a detailed letter with graphs and bullet points on economic factors that led to their price increases.  The bullet points were not the standard "fuel costs" etc.. It was a very well laid out global situation that pointed out certain increases to their cost of business.  I think it was to detailed for my use but it will give me a great outline to start on my communications to my clients.

Hope this helps a little

Cheers Gilbert

any chance of popping a copy of this letter on here so that we could all use it to put our prices up!!!

[Gilbert Sprous]

It will have to wait as I will need to scan it and post it.  Right now my scanner is on the fritz.

Gilbert