Commercial work is a strange thing.
We have 1 office that we clean (every 12 weeks)... It takes 1 man 1 hour 15 minutes and it's £90... Been cleaning it for a couple of years and the customer is happy.
We have another office that we clean (every 12 weeks)... Have to clean it at 6:30am / 7am - It takes 2 of us an hour and its £125 - The customer has said a couple of times that it's expensive... I would say that it's about right for commercial work - I imagine that one day I will lose it to a cheaper window cleaner, but I'm not lowering my price.
Andy
Commercial can indeed be strange
I have a couple of office with factory jobs that I do where I took the job over from someone who was not doing a good job at all
The company that contracts the cleaning is owned by a guy I know, he asked me to go round office and factory windows to price it up as they had given notice to guy who was cleaning
I went to see him with a figure in my head for both sites and before I could open my mouth he said the price hasn't changed in seven years because I know you I will give you the extra that I charge them as an admin /handling fee
I said we'll don't you want my price first he said no as the price was set he just wanted me to work a price out to see if I was happy with what he could offer me which was a lot more than I worked it out at
I have been cleaning them 12 weekly for a couple of years now, one takes approx 4.5 hours the other approx 3 hours, I make roughly 1 hundred pound an hour on these
How could the other guy price them at this price 9 years ago then do such a bad job that he looses them
Then about 12 months ago the receptionist from a factory across the road comes and asks me to give them a price as they aren't happy with cleaner
I made appointment with her, went and priced them, submitted quote and risk assessment etc and was told you are nearly twice the price of current cleaner so we have to stick with him
I knew when I priced it that I couldn't go as high as the other factory's so it was a very reasonable quote I gave
So one window cleaner had been getting away with high prices and bad work for years
The other was getting away with poor quality work because he was only charging about a third of that
the prices people are charging vary wildly but so does the quality of work
So yes commercial is a very strange thing
