Bungle,
The prices we are charging are for a premium window cleaning service. Part of my sales pitch is that our client list includes a brain surgeon, a high court judge and a knight of the realm and that we use rubber bumpers on all of our brushes so we can look after our customers valuable windows.
Most of the homes we are working on are changing hands for north of £400k, and a lot of them are period properties. Some of our clients will have spent over 80k on beautiful new wooden windows for their period homes. The prices we are charging on 12 weekly are similar to what Lee and Vin are listing on their websites.
For 12 weekly, yes, you are right, it is a long time. One of the reasons why I chose 12 weekly is because of there is decent profit margin on 12 weekly work, and our business model (partnership with local window cleaners rather than employing) would not work for our partners if we were doing the work every 6 weeks.
Retention: My figures on CP are skewed by the fact that I've suspended about 75 customers this year who were not ready for Go Cardless; and also I've been refining the rounds for the past 4 years. I also have a "Three Strikes and Your Out" policy: If we can't get access the back on more than three occassions; we let the client go.
I've looked on Go Cardless to get you some data on our retention rate so here it is (Just so you know, we've been using Go Cardless since 2015.)
Active Customers: 641
Inactive Customers: 104
My calculations show that Go Cardless customers on 12 weekly have a retention rate of 84%.
Where in Birmingham are you based and what is the name of your company? We're based in Harborne and we cover Moseley/Harborne/Solihull/Sutton/Bromsgrove.