Colin, if you are going to quote figuresI left lets quote EXACT figures.
I left you with £1106 worth of work. Charged for £1,000 of it, leaving £106 free of charge.
The following month you sent me back done some cancellations which was £112.50 over the 10% leeway. I didn't even quibble over this despite at least one of them telling you they were not pleased with your job. Others here will testify and I said the same to you that if it means me coming down for a day to top up there is no issue, at that time I didn't even phone them.
This meant the second month you cleared £887.50 worth of work. As near as dammit you cleared £2000 after 2 cleans, had you collected the late payers. The only issue I had was when 2 days later you sent me £221.50 of so called non payers you wanted replacing. Even though this work was around 3-4 weeks late in paying and hadnt been phoned to see why they weren't paying, half them hadn't even had one reminder text. I am assuming you have dropped these off your list.
This led me to phone five of them, one of them had actually paid on the day! Why is it my job to chase this second clean money. I sent 15 back saying it's your job to at least try to get paid with a text or preferably phone call.
This led me to phone others of the original 112.50 you wanted replacing, quite a number did cancel because they weren't happy with your service, eg left streaks, cleaned in the rain (it was heavy rain if I recall).At the time we were discussing the so called non payers, so didn't mention these others.
You told me yourself you have issues with retention with your own work. IMO I think it's because you were lorry driving and had an employee doing most of the work. You are not hands on with your window cleaning and treat it as a second income. Window cleaners need to be on the ball with each and every customer to gain a good retention rate. The fact of the matter is you don't know why these cancelled or were late in paying as you never phoned them, I did phone some, not all.
In any event had you attempted to collect this money you would have broke even the second clean, that's even with cancellations of which many were because the customers were unhappy. I would also assume you have had walk ups in the areas canvassed, phone calls off leaflets handed out and one or two gutter cleans.
It is a shame when things don't work out and that disputes become public, however part of my canvassing service is not chasing online payments nor to replace work from poor jobs. That said if I have to come down for a day the following I have no issues and tend not to even phone to check. The only time I do check on cancellations is when im given a large amount as in your case, as it's obvious something, somewhere has gone wrong.
