[geefree]

Thinking of doing some price increases this summer, for the under priced customers,

What affect did it have on you?... i think if i pop £1 on each one  (20).. that would do for the time being, but if i lose a couple of them , its been a waste of time

whats you experiences of price increases regarding losing work?

Gary

[jonah]

Price right in the first place 

[Dean Aspects]

I am in the process of putting my prices up again did it last year and doing it again this year all going up £1 have done about 50 so far and lost none put a couple of them up £2 and still not lost any which means either i am too cheap or i am so brilliant they will pay whatever to keep me  

Dean

[L.J.Thorpe]

Price right in the first place

doh :,they still have to go up eventually

[geefree]

Hey this is a follow on from your " buying underpriced work" post , and designed to help you jonah,.... the ones i wish to increase are my very first customers , when i had little idea how to price a clean.

I am trying to get other peoples views as sometimes you can increase ten people by £1 and lose two at £12....

so initially its a loss although it will be pulled back over time etc on the others.

[geefree]

Price right in the first place

doh :,they still have to go up eventually

lol

[L.J.Thorpe]

some have gone up already and the rest have been warned that its coming in april,most ok but one old dear, who has had many free inside kitchen window cleans,looked at me like i had taken a dump in her flowerbeds when i mentioned a £1 increase  :

[geefree]

some have gone up already and the rest have been warned that its coming in april,most ok but one old dear, who has had many free inside kitchen window cleans,looked at me like i had taken a dump in her flowerbeds when i mentioned a £1 increase  :

;0 ;0

[jonah]

some have gone up already and the rest have been warned that its coming in april,most ok but one old dear, who has had many free inside kitchen window cleans,looked at me like i had taken a dump in her flowerbeds when i mentioned a £1 increase  :

Hope you charged for that , just dont send me any flowers !

[brett walker]

If you think your prices need to go up by a quid then i would put them up ive found the odd one cancel thats tight and think that nothing should go up in life only their wages but you'll find most of your customers will understand that everything goes up

Just look at the price of fuel at the moment

regards

Brett

[paulscotney]

Very often aftfer cleaning the windows the customer says STILL  £12 etc I say yes (thinking is this an invitation, Should I put it up next time, but I only do if I think it deserves it. Normally I don't, probably too soft.). Do Sainsbury, Waitrose, Asda, Tesco etc never put their prices up? Of course they do. If u don't increase then u will be broke. The customers all understand this. If they don't ditch them.

[groundhog]

I constantly review my prices using my stopwatch, and work out what is my hourly rate for each job, I then put the lower paying customers up to bring them in line with my better paying customers. It dosn't bother me if I lose a low paying customer as this gives me an opportunity to take on more better paying work, thus continually improving my round. Although I rarely have lost customers due to putting up prices, I can only remember about 3 times that this has happened.

[matt]

Very often aftfer cleaning the windows the customer says STILL  £12 etc I say yes (thinking is this an invitation, Should I put it up next time, but I only do if I think it deserves it. Normally I don't, probably too soft.). Do Sainsbury, Waitrose, Asda, Tesco etc never put their prices up? Of course they do. If u don't increase then u will be broke. The customers all understand this. If they don't ditch them.

when you get 1/3 of your customers asking that in a day, your long over due a price rise

im due my next price rise this year, 1 quid every 2 - 2 & 1/2 years works out ok for me

[pjulk]

I have had quite a few say to me lately has the price gone up yet or its about time the price went up.

Well i had one today when you putting your price up this is after i have already cleaned the windows its a £13.50 job.

Anyway i turned round to her and said its going up today.

I was only joking and she turned round and said about time too.             I was shocked...

She said how much i said i was only joking but they are going up £1 from next month.

She said no that not enough make it £1.50 to round it off to £15 and from today.

Well im not going to say no.


Over the week end im going to do a letter for all my customers telling them its going up.


Paul

[jonah]

Gary how is the canvasing going mate ?

[geefree]

Hey up Jonah,

its going ok cheers for asking... better than late jan.

[jonah]

Im up and down at the minuite last week got quite a few and was happy , this week I want to crawl up into a ball and hibernate lol .  Keep going remember you have to knock a hundred doors to get .............. forgot what the rest is but you know what i mean 

[geefree]

Yep,

I dont like canvassing at all even though i have worked in sales for donkies...

leaflets are doing ok for me at the moment,

and i am bringing in a .. ok wage.. but i want my round to burst at the seams, so i have options.

[TVCS]

I am putting up my prices on most of my customers in April.  I'm like you Gary.  I have some customers that I priced when I started and they are way low.  I'm not too worried about losing the odd customer here and there as recently I have picked up some good, well priced work.     

I put a few up last year and one custy played her face about the increase.  We had a natter and she said  ' I expect things like petrol, electric, food and things like cigarettes to go up but not my window cleaner!' 

These people dont realise that we still have to pay for food and fuel etc. 

[Londoner]

I'm convinced that many window cleaners never put their prices up ever. They clean a customer for a few years and then drop them and move on.

The number of times you hear about a window cleaner who just vanished without saying he was going leads me to think that is what has happened. Often the story is the same, no price increase for years.

I question any new customer carefully but firmly about their past window cleaner(s) and you can learn a lot. Its very interesting.

One of the side issues round here is how far the WCs are prepared to travel to get here. I have heard of one who came from Kent, thats 2 hours on the M25.

Luton, Dunstable and Flitwick have all been mentioned recently. Thats a good hour plus in the mornings. And someone on here comes up from Dorset a once a month to work. We used to have a crew who came up from South Wales years ago and slept in a pub car park.