[Clive McDonald]

Did my first day WFP monday. Tonight I collected the money.
I steeled myself for complaints off one because I had made the mistake of asking her to see what she thought when she already had a history of complainting. I cleaned her AM and then picking the kids up from school that day asked if everything was okay because as I had explained to her it was a new system to me. She said that it didn't seem to remove stains as there was some bird muck that it hadn't gotten off. I asked where because I had come across some and gone to great effort to remove it. She said at the back where I hadn't seen any, I said I can't have noticed it, and she said it was pretty faint-an old mark on the window but you could see it if you looked closely.While I was still at the house she had said, you can't have done that window, the sun was low across it and it was filthy but I had done it and the dirt was inside.
Tonight when I called for the money (£8 dropped from £10 because that's what her last window cleaner charged) she was waiting for me."I don't think that new system of yours is going to work.You left spots at the bottom of some of the windows. I cleaned inside to make sure it wasn't inside and it was still there.It was easy to wipe off very faint white stains, I went outside and did it,but I shouldn't have too. "
The upstairs were fine, apart from the fact that I hadn't cleaned the sills and they were filthy. I was able to explain this, I had cleaned them quite diligently, but I found with the downstairs sills that I was washing six years dirt out from under them so that everytime I cleared them more dirt appeared from underneath. I couldn't see upstairs but the same thing must have been happening.
I left with her not paying and me having to say I would try to get it right next month. But what I can't understand is, why didn't the upstairs windows spot, and of those that did downstairs it was towards the bottom, and even though she had clearly already inspected them she never mentioned this when i had seen her that afternoon.

I don't think she's a liar, but on Monday we had snow flurries, rain , hail, all sorts. Couldn't the weather be responsible for some of this?

Because this is new to me, and she is fussy I really believed I had been concsientous. Is this one of those I am never going to win?

[Pat Purcell]

My guess is that the upstairs windows were dripping down onto the downstairs cill and splashing onto the bottom of the window

[brett walker]

I have only had a couple of complaints

practice makes perfect stick at it, sometimes customers just looks for things

Brett

[ronaldo]

Stick with it and you wont regret it, once you get the eye for it then the job is a doddle and i,m talking from experiance as i am a mega fussy wc and at first i had my doubts when i switched to wfp but not anymore.
Dont get me wrong on some glass its crap but you have to adapt your work to the method your using and once you have the right work for the equipment your using then its as good as anything.

[Spruce]

Hi
Having completed the change to WFP 9 months ago I would now try to tell the customers as little as possible about the new process of pure water cleaning other than to say that the glass is left to dry naturally.
I found that the moment you tell them that the cleaning process will get better with every clean and that they may find some little white spots after the first clean was an open invitation for them to go and look for problems.

Spend more time with your first clean and rinse well and you shouldn't have too many problems. Changing over to WFP will reduce your income to start off with but will pay dividends later.

The only problems I had and occassional still have on some customers is the windows that have the 2 quarter (fly) windows above a large pane of glass below and this can cause streaks - but it will eventually come right. ( I found the the easiest way to do them initially is the thoroughly clean and rinse the top 2 opening windows and then do the bottom section once the top has dried off - maybe after doing several other houses around about first.

[Paul Coleman]

Hi
Having completed the change to WFP 9 months ago I would now try to tell the customers as little as possible about the new process of pure water cleaning other than to say that the glass is left to dry naturally.
I found that the moment you tell them that the cleaning process will get better with every clean and that they may find some little white spots after the first clean was an open invitation for them to go and look for problems.

Spend more time with your first clean and rinse well and you shouldn't have too many problems. Changing over to WFP will reduce your income to start off with but will pay dividends later.

The only problems I had and occassional still have on some customers is the windows that have the 2 quarter (fly) windows above a large pane of glass below and this can cause streaks - but it will eventually come right. ( I found the the easiest way to do them initially is the thoroughly clean and rinse the top 2 opening windows and then do the bottom section once the top has dried off - maybe after doing several other houses around about first.

Yes I've noticed a bit of vertical streaking on such windows too.  Interestingly, I was at a job today that I do the traditional way (it's all ground floor) and that has the same type of streak.  I think this may be a window design problem rather than a WFP problem.

Do you find the streakiness is on the large lower pane directly below the point between the two upper panes?

[david68]

I had a customer drop me today due to wfp results.
When done her windows she was happy that the water was purified and every drop clean.
But when collect the money she said no more cleans in future.
I ask why and all she said was that another cleaner approached her and told her that wfp was a bad method and we where not getting the results of the traditional cleans and made her believe soap cleans dirt thats why we use it washing the dishes.
Why dont the wfp people use purified water to clean their dishes.

Anyway wfp is the future so one lost is not my problem at the moment

Dave

[Paul Coleman]

I had a customer drop me today due to wfp results.
When done her windows she was happy that the water was purified and every drop clean.
But when collect the money she said no more cleans in future.
I ask why and all she said was that another cleaner approached her and told her that wfp was a bad method and we where not getting the results of the traditional cleans and made her believe soap cleans dirt thats why we use it washing the dishes.
Why dont the wfp people use purified water to clean their dishes.

Anyway wfp is the future so one lost is not my problem at the moment

Dave

Pure water is not used to wash dishes because by the time you have cleaned the first dish the water is no longer pure.
Anyway, the customer chose to listen to another window cleaner as is her right.  It's a pity she didn't give it a few cleans to examine the results as she may have been pleasantly surprised but ,as you say, there are plenty more customers out there.

[rp cleaning services]

curious,you should have charged this customer some money to clean her windows if only a fiver,the next month you go and clean her windows she will look for problems to avoid paying,be careful.

[steve k]

when faced with 2 top openers above a large pane...simply WFP one of the openers then bring your brush down, under and across AVOIDING the gap before moving brush up to clean second top opener.
If you get any water in the gap between top openers, you will get a fan of water marks onto the main pane.

If you have dirty top sills, you will be waiting ages for them to run clean.
If standard size house, get the ladder up there with a hose pipe from customer and blast out all the filth from underneath the sill at the bottom of the pane. Get a sponge and PVC cleaning cream and give them a good clean. 5 minutes a sill we are talking here.
The sills will be immaculate and a quick wipe over with your brush in future cleans will keep them clean.
They may need an occasional wipe over if in a leafy area (trees) by hand.

When doing the tops, it is important to allow a small amount of time to allow the drips to stop from the top. These will bounce off bottom sills and splash back up onto bottom panes leaving marks.
Do all tops first, right around the house then any windows not affected by the tops such as conservatory windows or porches, then go back and if drips have stopped, start on the bottoms.
If still dripping and you have a house within hose reach, go and do the tops of that one as above, then return to do bottoms on both.
I have a couple of roads where I park the van at bottom, pull out 100m of hose and walk back towards van poling all the tops of 15 houses. I then put hose and brushes away in van and walk back to house 1 and trad bottoms.
Half an hour passes from doing the top of house 1 with the pole before returning to do the bottoms trad.

[Londoner]

I think in this case the problem is with the customer rather than with the WFP. If she already has a history of moaning I would have dropped her before now.

I do think you can tell your customers too much when you are in the process of changing over to WFP and it builds them up to expect too much, espescially on first cleans when you are a bit anxious as well.

Customers are like dogs, they can sense fear. After a couple of weeks when you are more relaxed about it all you convey that relaxation and confidence to your customers.

[Paul Coleman]

Did my first day WFP monday. Tonight I collected the money.
I steeled myself for complaints off one because I had made the mistake of asking her to see what she thought when she already had a history of complainting. I cleaned her AM and then picking the kids up from school that day asked if everything was okay because as I had explained to her it was a new system to me. She said that it didn't seem to remove stains as there was some bird muck that it hadn't gotten off. I asked where because I had come across some and gone to great effort to remove it. She said at the back where I hadn't seen any, I said I can't have noticed it, and she said it was pretty faint-an old mark on the window but you could see it if you looked closely.While I was still at the house she had said, you can't have done that window, the sun was low across it and it was filthy but I had done it and the dirt was inside.
Tonight when I called for the money (£8 dropped from £10 because that's what her last window cleaner charged) she was waiting for me."I don't think that new system of yours is going to work.You left spots at the bottom of some of the windows. I cleaned inside to make sure it wasn't inside and it was still there.It was easy to wipe off very faint white stains, I went outside and did it,but I shouldn't have too. "
The upstairs were fine, apart from the fact that I hadn't cleaned the sills and they were filthy. I was able to explain this, I had cleaned them quite diligently, but I found with the downstairs sills that I was washing six years dirt out from under them so that everytime I cleared them more dirt appeared from underneath. I couldn't see upstairs but the same thing must have been happening.
I left with her not paying and me having to say I would try to get it right next month. But what I can't understand is, why didn't the upstairs windows spot, and of those that did downstairs it was towards the bottom, and even though she had clearly already inspected them she never mentioned this when i had seen her that afternoon.

I don't think she's a liar, but on Monday we had snow flurries, rain , hail, all sorts. Couldn't the weather be responsible for some of this?

Because this is new to me, and she is fussy I really believed I had been concsientous. Is this one of those I am never going to win?

I have heard of spots near the bottom of the windows because of dirt splashing up from the sills.  Doing the sills first may help.  Although this can mean the brush head having some dirt in it when you do the windows, a good rinse will shift this.  Alternatively, do a quick squirt of water onto the glass a few inches above the sill as your final action on the clean.
From what you've written though, Iget the feeling that you could do the perfect job with this customer and she would still find something to moan about.  Next it will probably be "all the water down the walls" or "water on the floor".  I put up with a customer like this for some years once (when I was cleaning the traditional way).  It got to the point where I used to dread going there several days before the job was due.  She wanted the lowest price, the perfect job, and wanted me there within a day or two of my schedule - BUT she didn't want them done in the rain.  In the end she complained about a small mark on one window.  I told her that if she didn't like my work then she didn't have to pay me and that I hoped her next window cleaner would fare better than me.  I walked with the job not quite finished.  If that sounds unprofessional, it would have been far worse if I stayed.  Customers like that feed off the power they think they have over you.  The more you give in to their unreasonable demands, the greater the adrenalin surge they get.  It's addictive for them.

DO NOT FEED THE ANIMALS !!   

[Londoner]

Kick her into touch mate. Shiner is right, they feed off the feeling of power it gives them.

[marc al]

  I only ever tell new customers that the glass may not be perfect this time as I will be cleaning all the muck off the frames too, but tell them that next time they will be fine, never tell them about spots, THEY WIIL HUNT FOR THEM.

  Marc

[gaza]

I now tell them Im cleaning the crap of the tops of their frames ,so in doing so I

[gaza]

I now tell them Im cleaning the crap of the tops of their frames ,so in doing so Im
actually dirtying their windows firs as Im swapping perfect windows for perfect frames that they would never have with trad w/c and the second clean will be perfect

 gaza

[Pj]

I think this house maybe upsidedown!

[AuRavelling79]

Marks at the bottom of the pane?

Scrub well along the bottom part - then rinse thoroughly.

Bear in mind your brush angle too - if it's flat on the glass at the top then it will tend to "miss" or touch only lightly the bottom of the pane as it bridges the gap between the glass and the bottom of the frame. This is especially so if the frame is square to the glass and not tapered.   

[simbo]

i never tell them anything other than today i am going to give your pvc a really good clean for no extra charge and make sure they come up really well on this clean, after that no problems tell them too much they look for probs. In my opinion this time of year is best to switch as you have plenty of reasons ie slippy ground etc and they do noy pay so much attention to them anyway
simbo

[Clive McDonald]

Just to finish this. Thanks for the advice. I got a chance to do my own windows and thought they were perfect. The next day I did notice some spotting at the top of some frames. So now I understand what you were trying to tell me, and i will rinse from the top.

Today a lady approached me."Are you a window cleaner? I've never seen anyone do it like that before!"
I stuck my chest out and launched into a full explanation. "That's brilliant." She said hanging off my every word. "How much do you charge? Will you do mine?"
I asked where her house was and she told me. "You're already my customer." I told her." And I'm doing you next."
Ahh well. Here is a picture of my 400lt trailer on my drive. I am pleased with it apart from that it is too heavy and hard to maneouvre. I can't use the van because I keep other stuff in it.