[chris@c.m.s]

Tony If most of your customers don't like wfp then your doing something wrong, your comments to me are laughable there are some capable people using wfp and perhaps some not so, but I haven't had one complaint or anyone ask to go back to trad, I'm quite happy for trad guys to think its rubbish though    

Dudek if your work is top notch then its there loss and they will probably come crawling back I have had one cancel purely on price last year but I also know the guy who does them now is rubbish, its a case of  pay peanuts. keep your head up and standards high and most customers will appreciate it.

[paul saunders]

I think some people could be at risk of thinking they are invincible just by reading all the nonesense that gets bantered around this forum. make no mistake about it, we are only window cleaners & good trad w/cers can still make very good money by undercutting over-valued wfp'ers. I also think many wfp'ers are not making as good a job as they think they are, windows always look clean when wet.
If i can get a service as good cheaper elsewhere then i get it, no question about it.

wfp V's trad? as far as most custy's are concerned there's nowt in it. wfp'ers are guilty of massively over-hyping the whole thing. maybe it's a comfort thing to ease the burdon of customer conversion, i don't know. Listen to some & you would be forgiven for thinking once wfp you can command whatever price you like.

Yeah, you'll get people telling how much a custy loves wfp etc. etc. but they fail to mention what the other 300 custy's say :

All my oppinion of course, just don't get too drawn in by idiotic braggarts.

Tony

A honest WFP'er ............... now that's a novelty. 

[Mike 108]

I agree totally with what Tony (macmac) is saying (athough that might not be the initial poster's problem).

With the speed with which some WFPolers say they are working, they can only be 'wetting' the glass - not cleaning it.

How many times have you seen your wife, or kids, do a quick car wash?  The whole car gets a good wetting - but when it's dry, there's dirt all over the place.

Mike

[Jimmy1]

I agree totally with what Tony (macmac) is saying (athough that might not be the initial poster's problem).

With the speed with which some WFPolers say they are working, they can only be 'wetting' the glass - not cleaning it.

How many times have you seen your wife, or kids, do a quick car wash?  The whole car gets a good wetting - but when it's dry, there's dirt all over the place.

Mike

I agree, I'm can't match the speed of some of the guys on here, but Im confident I do an excellent job.

[Highrise]

Grit your teeth and move on  

Welcome to the game...

We have all experianced one thing or another in this job, Just get new customers to cover the loss you have lost and move on...

But one thing I have leart is don't let people take the p856346s out of you..

[jonah]

I sometimes try too much to be the nice guy....but at times I must admit I do wonder about loyalty...does it exist really in our profession...??

I personally do not believe that there is such a thing within my business...they are only as good as the last time they paid...Whilst I try to do a good job for all ...I trust none of them, I like some more than others but in the main...they are all strangers to me...

Saying this...yesterday I went to do  normal 8 weekly job and the lady came out to pay...I asked about her husband who had been ill for sometime...'how is he?' I asked..passed away she replied.....I saw the money in her hand and just said...keep the money and buy yourself some flowers.....she choked up and lost it.... smiled and said thank-you....

Remember sometimes it is good to commit an act of random kindness....

Dave.

I bet you got more out of that act of kindness than any ammount of money youd have earned    . Many could learn on here from what you did , well done .

[Paul Coleman]

I learnt a harsh lesson about loyalty when I need a lot of time off sick a few years ago.  All loyalty really means is that they woul oftemn prefer to stick with the devil they know as the devil they don't know might let them down.  Window cleaning has a terrible reputation for unreliability.  However, that can work in our favour because it can discourage customers from changing.

[macmac]

Tony If most of your customers don't like wfp then your doing something wrong, your comments to me are laughable there are some capable people using wfp and perhaps some not so, but I haven't had one complaint or anyone ask to go back to trad, I'm quite happy for trad guys to think its rubbish though       

Who said anything about MY customers?
Never had a complaint about wfp, neither have i had one about trad. my custy's are happy with wfp, they are also happy with trad. I use which method suites best.

This still does not mean that they come running out the house, praying at my feet, begging me to increase my prices, that they'll pay anything just 'cos i've got a wfp. It doesn't protect me from being undercut either, it doesn't stop a trad only guy being just as professional as me, or doing just as good a job as me.

It does however keep me realistic which helps me to progress.

Tony

[Wayne Thomas]

I agree totally with what Tony (macmac) is saying (athough that might not be the initial poster's problem).

With the speed with which some WFPolers say they are working, they can only be 'wetting' the glass - not cleaning it.

How many times have you seen your wife, or kids, do a quick car wash?  The whole car gets a good wetting - but when it's dry, there's dirt all over the place.

Mike

I agree, I'm can't match the speed of some of the guys on here, but Im confident I do an excellent job.

The trick is to get as much water flow as possible without causing splashbacks from the sills and a good technique.

[brett walker]

Disheartening i know, you just have to take it on the chin and move on a good window cleaner is hard to find their loss

wfp   some customers

some love it 

some hate it 

some dont understand it           how ever much you explain it  :

some dont want to understand it

your right theres no loyalty, everything changes if customers want to get left behind just replace them with ones that want to move forward with your business they just get set in their ways


Brett

[chris@c.m.s]

Yeah, you'll get people telling how much a custy loves wfp etc. etc. but they fail to mention what the other 300 custy's say :

Thanks for clearing that up I thought you had 300 moaning customers like Squeaks 

[Moderator David@stives]

I lost 2 a couple of days ago due to wfp, i have had these customers for 10 years.

It took them nearly 3 years to decide they didnt like it.



Certainly was a bolt out of the blue

[williamx]

I have lost quite a few over the years, I have also binned loads as well, its all part and parcel of being in business.

The reasons that they don't want wfp, is not because it does a bad job, but its because its new and they don't like to change.

In the future when a newer alternative to wfp comes along, the same will happen when you try to change your wfp customers to this new method, they will sack you because they don't like the new system, it does not matter to them that it does the job, its out of their comfort zone, and that makes them unhappy, so they will sack you at the earliest time possible.

Another thing is never have all your jobs in one area, spread you round around a bit, so if a new cleaner moves into one area, it doesnt have as much impact on your income.

[Captain Scarlet]

The way of being quick and still doing a good job is having a quick technique ( which doesnt compromsie quality - for example giving a really decent scrub and rinse ) but where you save the time is how you move your body ( arms, body and legs all quickly ) and moving quickly around the property....in a sense a controlled rush, thats how you get really quick

Then theres reeling the hose in, you can do it really fast ( or use an electric winder ). Have a decent flow rate ( this forces you to work faster....somehow! ). Writting all the bills out the night before. Knowing a property so your hose doesnt snag. Arranging your drive to different jobs to save time. Having lunch ready made in the van. Carrying water  with you, and not needing to go to the shops. There are countless ways to save time without compromising quality, Luke

[davids3511]

Another thing is never have all your jobs in one area, spread you round around a bit, so if a new cleaner moves into one area, it doesnt have as much impact on your income.

That's excellent advise. I will get working on that tonight. I need to stock my leafletter up with new leaflets and a map of what area I want covered tonight so I think I will go to an area I don't already cover. I was trying to compact as much as I can but I now think a bit in another area would be good.

[dai]

I lost 2 a couple of days ago due to wfp, i have had these customers for 10 years.

It took them nearly 3 years to decide they didnt like it.



Certainly was a bolt out of the blue

The thing is dave, it's so easy to become over confident in our own ability to leave every job perfect.
We leave the windows wet and think good job done.
I had a shock today cleaning on a marina, it was sunny with a drying wind and the glass sheets as we like it.
I can do the third floor tops on four houses, and then go back to do the first floor windows.
When I went back and looked up at the windows I had done first, they had dried and I could see Smokey runs on two of them. These runs were about 6 ins wide below the vents ,so I know what caused them, but if I hadn't checked I wouldn't have seen them.
Recent rain had washed most of the salt off, but those vents must be full of it.
Non coastal cleaners will have no experience of salt, but it's a bugger, you can keep chucking water at it, but it takes ages to dilute the stuff to a point where it won't show on the glass.
I know you do lots of this kind of work, sometimes it pays to go back and check. Dai

[Londoner]

Loyalty is a very elusive thing when offset against money. Think about your own buying decisions, would you continue going to the same petrol station out of loyalty if the one up the road was cheaper?

I also think that some of the comments on here on here about WFP being used too quickly rings true. The fact is you still have to take your time and do a proper job, corners etc and rinse.

I posted on here a long while back about a lad I had been watching from my taxi while he did a block of posh residential flats. Each window got two up and downs in the middle of the glass, a quick squirt rather than a proper rinse and on to the next window. I commented on his poor workmanship and some of the replies suggested he probably know more about cleaning windows than I did.

The speed and ease of WFP has drawn some people down the road of doing jobs faster and faster and thinking only about how much money they are making.

Customers pay good money to have their windows cleaned. They expect to get a good job. As WFP users I feel we are more vunerable because we don't check the glass afterwards and we don't know what the customers really think about it.

Any customers you converted from trad to WFP may still harbour doubts, you will never know. As long as they don't all decide to drop you at the same time it doesn't really matter. There's always a new customer round the corner.

[karygate]

getting faster with wfp takes time and i think you are right in people do rush. as for checking when you,ve finished i have been doing it now 12 months and when i look at the windows perhaps a few minutes after cleaning you can see if you will get a potential problem or not . also you will get poor window cleaners and always will no matter what they use . don,t blame the tools.

[eddie d]

strange thing this loyalty.

seems to exist as long as your doing and charging exactly what the customer requires.

i adopt the same policy.
 

[AuRavelling79]

The way of being quick and still doing a good job is having a quick technique ( which doesnt compromsie quality - for example giving a really decent scrub and rinse ) but where you save the time is how you move your body ( arms, body and legs all quickly ) and moving quickly around the property....in a sense a controlled rush, thats how you get really quick

Then theres reeling the hose in, you can do it really fast ( or use an electric winder ). Have a decent flow rate ( this forces you to work faster....somehow! ). Writting all the bills out the night before. Knowing a property so your hose doesnt snag. Arranging your drive to different jobs to save time. Having lunch ready made in the van. Carrying water  with you, and not needing to go to the shops. There are countless ways to save time without compromising quality, Luke

My vote for post of the week - all so true!