[Alan Rowley]

Just wondered what you lot think is the best type of clean to go for and why.

We do many weekly / fortnightly domestic cleans, with the odd office thrown in. The offices have been no trouble, if a little slow at paying up, but the domestic cleans can be problematical.

One or two domestic customers complain over nothing, probably to get some money off. Occasionally, they will ring at short notice and cancel. However, I do enjoy domestic cleans.

We've done a few EOT, some of which we've made a killing, others which have stung us, but that's the name of the game.

Never done builders cleans and not sure I want to. Quoted for a couple, but didn't get the jobs - probably because I put in too high a price.

What do you do? What do you like / dislike? What do you make most money on?

[Joe H]

I stopped doing domestic cleans fornightly years ago.
Its fine in principle but what I found in practice is that the client, although said they would do a clean in the inbetween weeks, started to neglect things.
This meant going in fortnightly to a right mess, especially kitchen and bathrooms.
Ok, we charged a bit more for fortnightly but it got to be a pain so dropped it.
Weekly cleans only now.

[mk1]

Just wondered what you lot think is the best type of clean to go for and why.

We do many weekly / fortnightly domestic cleans, with the odd office thrown in. The offices have been no trouble, if a little slow at paying up, but the domestic cleans can be problematical.

One or two domestic customers complain over nothing, probably to get some money off. Occasionally, they will ring at short notice and cancel. However, I do enjoy domestic cleans.

We've done a few EOT, some of which we've made a killing, others which have stung us, but that's the name of the game.

Never done builders cleans and not sure I want to. Quoted for a couple, but didn't get the jobs - probably because I put in too high a price.

What do you do? What do you like / dislike? What do you make most money on?

good question we do not do domestic cleans any more to many problems rates are low  been asked to do loads of them but dont for the very reasons you have stated.

builders cleans are o.k but its a very competive market and the margins are tight 

EOT/POST TENANT CLEANS are our prefered clean as we charge for the clean then windows extra, ovens extra, carpet cleans extra, simple to do just pick the keys up and away you go so can be very flexible about the times you clean them 

office cleans are good (bread & butter) but will not do these below £12.50 ph as under that figure it just not worth it .......hoover,staff,polish etc.

regular communal cleans are very good as much as £45.00 ph  if you can get them 

[Alan Rowley]

I don't think I will stop doing domestics as we have built up a good customer base over the last 9 months, and some of them pay well.

What disheartens me is a clean we did on Friday. The customer left a note saying she was 'not entirely satisfied' with our last clean. I texted her immediately I read it - didn't phone as I knew she was at work. Asked her to contact me and tell me where we went wrong. I also left a note with the invoice asking her to contact me. Heard nothing.

For the life of me, I don't know where we went wrong.

[richyvezy]

Hi Alan

We started off by offering domestic cleans and have since added office, communal and EOT cleaning to our services but domestics are by far the most pain in the ar*e to manage etc.

The problems with doing domestics start when you finally decide to recruit staff and hand over jobs that maybe you/your business partner used to do !! No matter what you pay them etc they will never put as much effort etc into the job as much as you/your partner did. It's been said many times, this is because it's just another job to them. This is where things start to get noticed by the clients and start complaining.
Of course there are some diamond cleaners out there but they are few and far between and if you are lucky enough to find any you ought to treasure them as one of your main assets.

We still get clients now that will complain for the sake of it because they want to have my Wife (Bus partner) back as "there's nobody that cleans as good as her" !! We have cut back on our domestic clients now and will be looking at taking it of our services altogether - they are the bain of my life.

As said earlier communals are good but our most money is made from EOT cleans.

Richy

[Alan Rowley]

My business partner is unable to work at the moment as her daughter is very poorly and I have several customers who say 'when's Tracey back because no-one cleans like her.'

I feel like saying 'her daughter's got cancer for **** sake and all you're bothered about is cleaning your house while you sit on your fat ****'. They really wind me up but I manage to smile politely.

The office cleans never bat an eyelid and don't care who goes in to do the clean.

[garyj]

The best ones are the multi-cleaner sites, so when one is off the others can cover. The one cleaner sites are always the biggst pain, most aggro and lowest profit. Sometimes wonder if they are worth the hassle. It's all down to the cleaner on site, get a good one and they're worth their weight in gold ( bit of an exaggeration ), but they are very few and far between.

Just phoned someone who left a message on the answer phone last week desperate for a job, I have a vacancy on her doorstep at the hours she wants and the rate she wants. She said she'll phone me back today or tomorrow while she thinks about it  . Don't know if I can be bothered to waste my time even meeting her now, she sounded like she was doing me a favour  .

[richyvezy]

My business partner is unable to work at the moment as her daughter is very poorly and I have several customers who say 'when's Tracey back because no-one cleans like her.'

I feel like saying 'her daughter's got cancer for **** sake and all you're bothered about is cleaning your house while you sit on your fat ****'. They really wind me up but I manage to smile politely.

The office cleans never bat an eyelid and don't care who goes in to do the clean.

Alan

Know exactly how your feeling mate. I've been unable to work for last 16 months so alot more pressure has been put on the missus (bus partner) to try and make various sites run smoothly as well as doing her own domestic clients, covering for others etc.
Unfortunately clients are not interested in sympathy, they just expect what they are used to and if that means wanting Tracy despite her problems then they could become problematic.

I don't think that it's any coincidence that we've had yet another client that my Wife used to clean for complain about the silliest of things that she did that the new cleaner doesn't do !! Some of them do act like spoilt kids. Every other client that we put the same cleaner with is happy as larry with what she does for them.
It's then very difficult to inform the cleaner of her so called wrongdoings as she's doing fine everywhere else. I think it's time to dump them and canvas for a couple of new clients so our cleaner doesn't loose out hours/moneywise.

Offices do care who they have cleaning and do notice things so it would be a mistake to think otherwise.

Richy

[myvanwi]

Just wondered what you lot think is the best type of clean to go for and why.

We do many weekly / fortnightly domestic cleans, with the odd office thrown in. The offices have been no trouble, if a little slow at paying up, but the domestic cleans can be problematical.

One or two domestic customers complain over nothing, probably to get some money off. Occasionally, they will ring at short notice and cancel. However, I do enjoy domestic cleans.

We've done a few EOT, some of which we've made a killing, others which have stung us, but that's the name of the game.

Never done builders cleans and not sure I want to. Quoted for a couple, but didn't get the jobs - probably because I put in too high a price.

What do you do? What do you like / dislike? What do you make most money on?

good question we do not do domestic cleans any more to many problems rates are low  been asked to do loads of them but dont for the very reasons you have stated.

builders cleans are o.k but its a very competive market and the margins are tight 

EOT/POST TENANT CLEANS are our prefered clean as we charge for the clean then windows extra, ovens extra, carpet cleans extra, simple to do just pick the keys up and away you go so can be very flexible about the times you clean them 

office cleans are good (bread & butter) but will not do these below £12.50 ph as under that figure it just not worth it .......hoover,staff,polish etc.

regular communal cleans are very good as much as £45.00 ph  if you can get them 

How long does it take you on average to do the communal cleans (apartments) and how often are they cleaned?

[Alan Rowley]

You can't win with these domestic customers. I had one ring up today to tell me he wanted us to go round fortnightly instead of weekly as it 'just wasn't dirty enough'. Maybe we shouldn't have done such a good job.

Another one cancelled this week's clean quoting 'family commitments' What about my commitments?

Why do I bother?

[myvanwi]

We have had loads of weekly cleans who change to fortnightly cleans because they think that is enough. In other words they want you to work twice as hard with twice as much filth for the same money. Nice ONE

[*Chris Browne]

We also stopped doing domestic cleans, we found to much of our time was being spent piffing around on what customers required one week and then not the other, Builders cleans, hard work..but good money, Get in to office cleaning and let someone else to the work

Chris

[mk1]

Just wondered what you lot think is the best type of clean to go for and why.

We do many weekly / fortnightly domestic cleans, with the odd office thrown in. The offices have been no trouble, if a little slow at paying up, but the domestic cleans can be problematical.

One or two domestic customers complain over nothing, probably to get some money off. Occasionally, they will ring at short notice and cancel. However, I do enjoy domestic cleans.

We've done a few EOT, some of which we've made a killing, others which have stung us, but that's the name of the game.

Never done builders cleans and not sure I want to. Quoted for a couple, but didn't get the jobs - probably because I put in too high a price.

What do you do? What do you like / dislike? What do you make most money on?

good question we do not do domestic cleans any more to many problems rates are low  been asked to do loads of them but dont for the very reasons you have stated.

builders cleans are o.k but its a very competive market and the margins are tight 

EOT/POST TENANT CLEANS are our prefered clean as we charge for the clean then windows extra, ovens extra, carpet cleans extra, simple to do just pick the keys up and away you go so can be very flexible about the times you clean them 

office cleans are good (bread & butter) but will not do these below £12.50 ph as under that figure it just not worth it .......hoover,staff,polish etc.

regular communal cleans are very good as much as £45.00 ph  if you can get them 

How long does it take you on average to do the communal cleans (apartments) and how often are they cleaned?

that depends on the type of communal clean but most of ours take under an hour and are stair wells leading to apartments......usually run by a management company..........on top of the cleaning we also do the care taking for the apartments ....grass cutting,light bulbs,painting and of course window cleaning (external) on a two monthly basis.......to be honest if we could get say 15/20 of these we would be in the villa in spain  as it is we will keep trying 

[myvanwi]

My business partner is unable to work at the moment as her daughter is very poorly and I have several customers who say 'when's Tracey back because no-one cleans like her.'

I feel like saying 'her daughter's got cancer for **** sake and all you're bothered about is cleaning your house while you sit on your fat ****'. They really wind me up but I manage to smile politely.

The office cleans never bat an eyelid and don't care who goes in to do the clean.

Just laughed for ages about this comment its is so typical and I have heard it so many times - selfish is not the word. We are trying to steer away from domestic cleans but not having much luck.

[Cleaning Resource]

commercial cleaning is the only way to go if you want an easy life and a bit more security, some of me contracts pay on a 45 or even a 60 day invoice but that`a only a pain for the first period, they are alot less fussy and I reckon easier work too.

I think it depends how you are at selling, if your not too good at it then I would recommend people chase dom work cos you just chuck out a bit of advertising and sit back and wait for the phone to ring, commercial stuff you have to go out looking for the work.