[cleanimperial]

Hi
Any advice on how i can change my hourly rate to per vist price on our smaller contracts. Client found out that my cleaner left early and hit the roof. We have had the contract over three years now and not one complaint. When we took the contract on and it was filthy.

Thank's Fred

[*Chris Browne]

Confused

I think you need to elaborate....

Chris

[Len Gribble]

Fred

Are you a franchisee pay per clean?

len

[Prestige1]

I think what Fred has asked is. He currently has a contract where he gets paid per hour, (2hrs a week = £30) what he wants is to change this to, £35 per visit and not say how long his staff are there for.

I try and get all my jobs this way, but are often pressed on how long will they be there for. It’s a tough one to answer.

Phil

[cleanimperial]

Hi
What i meant was instead of chargeing by the hour charge per visit
so just say £35 your building will be cleaned to the specification regardles of time.

[Mrs Nicholls]

i have trouble with this cos whatever you say you are going to charge, the customer always has a duration or timeframe in mind and will just do the maths.

I'll say £55 per visit
customer thinks they need 2 hours x 2 cleaners
then they say oh so its £blah blah per hour then

cant get around it.

[abacus]

Hi all

I dont come on this side often as we have only a little of this type of work but have had the same problem
I usualy tell them that although that might seem to be the price per hour that they have to take into account that you have insurance cost the same as them and they know how that is going up also the equipment and the chemicles travling cost  ect and the fact that you know how to do this work well as they have not had to complain about the contract at all and it is only because your cleaner is experienced that he sometimes finishes a bit earlier if it was another cleaner it may take them longer and then would they want to pay more ? I always quote per clean not in hours if pressed I say till the job is finished.hope this helps 

regards grant

[martin19842]

hi there

when i sold office cleaning services, we never ever talked about the duration that the cleaners would be on site.

we had a window of cleaning ie between 5.00pm and 5.00am

and a specification of the cleaning that would be carried out.

it worked very well, and continues to be used.

obviously you as the supplier are going to have a calculation that would say it would take 2 cleaners 4 hours per night to clean,

in reality the client isnt bothered how long you are there cleaning for.

all they want is clean building,

the cleaning industry is an invisible service, when the client starts to complain that is when the trouble begins.

asl ong as you have a strong presentation, and a good quality control method in place you should be able to operate this way.

regards

martin

[DP]

We try to sell the clean and not the time, but it never works, all of our major contracts clock watch and most will expect a rebate or compensation in services if there is a default in hours.

Just about all the cleaners are expected to do their time and by way of protection for us, we stop their money proportionately if they don’t.

It simply has to be that way due to problems we have had in the past.

We run contracts from the south coast to the midlands and just about all require value for money and it seems the preferred method for measuring that (certainly in the commercial area) is in hours (even if their building is immaculate).

[Cleaning Resource]

I prepare a cleaning spec and quote to that, like the other fella said if the place is clean then they won`t complain whatever the cleaner does..

whenever we start a new contract we put in all the hrs untill it`s spotless after that the time varies depending on what day it is and what jobs they are doing that day, most of my jobs work along the principle of, 2 days a week get a proper deepclean rest of the week do the basics. works fine for me,
I also pay my staff a higher hourly rate if i get good monthly benchmarks,
works a treat they start on £5.50 goes upto £6.50 (mon-fri) 

[DP]

I think we must work in completely different areas of cleaning, there is no way we could work like that, even though we prepare an extensive spec and of course bring the building up to scratch, we wouldn’t last 5 minutes if cleaners came and went as they please. I really cant see how you can "manage" that level of inconsistency either unless your there yourself everyday.

[Cleaning Resource]

all of my cleaners are fulltime working in mobile teams of 2 to 5 people I have taken a long time selecting staff, they get payed at the enhanced rate if they get good benchmarks and also get a profit share if the good benchmarks have been consistant throughout the year. Basically all my sites are spotless my staff are in a routine it`s not as inconsistent as it may sound and they know that if they don`t do a good job then they don`t earn as much as they could, when you consider that my staff are fulltime that extra £1 per hour amounts up to an extra £160 per month, in total with the profit share at the end of the year they could get upto £2500 extra per year, an incentive worth having.

This is the whole reason behind me making the decision to employ fulltime mobile cleaners as against part timers working for just a couple of hours per day, I found it very hard to motivate part timers an incentive of an extra pound an hour is not enough when your staff are only working 10 hours per week.

on the negative side employing full time staff is a pain in the arris, paying national insurance contributions, arranging the logistics is a night mare plus the travelling expenses etc

But who wants an easy life 

[DP]

I didn’t realise you were operating in this way, which makes a lot more sense. I was gonna say that travel must chip away at the bottom line. Its definitely a different side of the coin. However after saying that, and although we do have full time staff, I would seriously like more full time crews, its where my background is and I am very aware of the benefits.

For us, its not practical as we are spread out too far (one of our sites is nearly 100 miles away). I think which ever way you do it its always a logistical nightmare, with sickness and holidays, plus the stream of one off,s and periodicals on top at the moment, it really is a nightmare every day.
 

[Cleaning Resource]

using fulltime staff as i say is a complete and utter nightmare but when I set up i decided that this would be the  way that i could provide a better service than my competitors, i`m lucky living in paignton, Devon i`ve got two major cities on my doorstep (exeter and plymouth)both less than 30 miles away.

it was worse when i first started but now i have more contracts i`m able to make the rounds smaller so it`s getting easier.

i`m going to be starting out in bristol soon so the nightmares will begin again no doubt,

one big bonus is that staff absence hardly effects me as my teams are made up of 3-4 people usually, meaning that if one of them does not turn in for work the others can cover the work load without too much trouble.