[chris@c.m.s]

I did a first clean today unfortunatly I made the mistake of pricing it in the evening in poor light, anyway I turned up today and realised the windows almost had more paint on them than the walls, some also had silicone or something similar on them, I scraped the paint off two top openers then when I had cleaned the rest I spoke the customer who I thought was out  : and informed her I would clean some paint off with each visit untill they were all clear .
My question is am I being to soft, should I just charge for a builders clean, or should I have got all the paint off and kept my fingers crossed she remains a good customer.?

[24-7 S C Services]

HI Chris,

I have had this problem a few times.

I give the customer two choices

1) It will cost you this amount £??? for me to clean all the paint etc of the windows, then you’re windows will be perfect.

2) I will do one window per visit at no charge.

They only get choice 2 if they don’t take choice 1.

Again, yes this might be too soft, but I need to make sure the clients windows are clean as that is advertisement for me :-)

Andrew

[chris@c.m.s]

Thanks for the reply Andrew, that sounds like a good way of dealing with it to me, I think I'll avoid quoting on dark evenings also, I do hate leaving the windows in that sort of state, I like the first clean to be perfect.   

[rosskesava]

Worse than that is when you quote a new job and then find the windows have all been put in using puty and the glazier has left the linseed oil on the glass.

Worse than that is when you do the first window and discover the puty is still soft.

We did a grade 2 listed building (a large Georgian house) a few weeks back that had been restored. It was a nightmare and wfp didn't even touch the oil on the glass. We had to go around every paine with a scraper.

As for the paint on the windows, I think in the above case I would have justed cursed and said I'll do one window every visit.

[chris@c.m.s]

Thought window cleaning was supposed to be easy 
I tried to scrape paint from a new clean when I first started didnt realise it was sandtex untill I finished  Oops 

[rosskesava]

I tried to scrape paint from a new clean when I first started didnt realise it was sandtex untill I finished  Oops

I won't laugh. Promise.

I've spent ages once scraping off the 'visa, mastercard, etc' stickers from a shop door only to discover that not only did the blade have a nick in it which scratched the glass, but it was the wrong shop anyway.

I just sort of vannished half way through the job.

[P @ F]

Nice one Ross , i did the same at a customers house today , did all the windows on the back of the house , loaded van up and drove away , 4 doors down i noticed my customer in a gateway , i stopped to tell her i had done her windows , she then said , you havent , this is my house !

 What  a  bell end !
                                 Rich   P @ F   

[windows_chepstow]

Nice one Ross , i did the same at a customers house today , did all the windows on the back of the house , loaded van up and drove away , 4 doors down i noticed my customer in a gateway , i stopped to tell her i had done her windows , she then said , you havent , this is my house !

 What  a  bell end !
                                 Rich   P @ F   

I once did the wrong house three times.  Honest!!!

[Paul Coleman]

Nice one Ross , i did the same at a customers house today , did all the windows on the back of the house , loaded van up and drove away , 4 doors down i noticed my customer in a gateway , i stopped to tell her i had done her windows , she then said , you havent , this is my house !

 What  a  bell end !
                                 Rich   P @ F   

I did that with part of a flat once where it was hard to tell which windows went with which flat.  It seemed easy when I quoted but a few weeks later when I actually did the job, I couldn't remember.