Just had something I never thought about pop my head. Has anyone ever had an already existing customer of yours put their price in your responsibid and then call you and say your website says we’re supposed to pay $140.00 and we’re paying you $180.00. I would be pissed if I lost a customer over this or if they called me thinking that at pre agreed-upon price is now going to change because my website says another number.
The online bidding is just that a estimate all prices confirmed in person prior to start. Best practice though is to run everything through RB use the call screen and enter information while they talk with you on the phone or if your onsite for the bid
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where I am from somebody’s not going to sit there for 8 minutes and walk around their house while I enter in how many double hung’s, picture windows, garden windows etc’s. my plan is to raise my prices on there about 20% to give me a better opportunity of lowering people’s prices in person as opposed to getting there and everybody is higher.
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Until you try you really don’t know if people will spend 8 minutes walking around their house counting. Like @CAS said once you run EVERYTHING through the ResponsiBid Call Screen your pricing will be more structured.
If a customer happens to enter their info in ResponsBid on your website (which you don’t have to install if you don’t want) and they get a $20 higher price. Then you explain that cost of doing business has increased, insurance, materials, and so on. But because they are such a valued customer you can honor their old price this one time, or only raise by $5 this one time, or whatever.
This is exactly what we did. When we customized responsibid, we set it up so that pricing is about 20% higher than what we bid in person. This does 2 things:
- Weeds out price shoppers
- For those that want to schedule, when we arrive and confirm the pricing, it is always lower than the online quote, and the new customer is double happy.
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Exactly and I tell people we have dialed in pretty good but we always confirm and it’s always easier to lower a price vs raising it.
That’s always get a chuckle and agreement
Opted out! It’s too problematic , while it seems cool to save gas and time and convenient for customers there is just way too many things that can go wrong.
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Whatever works for you. But I think you may be overthinking it.
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That’s too bad. I get it though. A lot of people can’t wrap their head around doing things a different way, especially if there is a price tag involved.
I’ve had nothing but success with Responsibid. Sure, it was tough getting started with it. There’s a lot to it, and I had to tweak it a bunch to get it to work right for me. Heck, I don’t even use half the features, but the expense is so worth it.
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Be the first to admit I am an overthinker! lol
- I don’t clean tracks and sills? I found in this market you will be kicked over for the cheaper guy doing glass only if he also has a polo shirt, good website, personality, reviews etc. I tell people its this much for the outside glass, inside glass and screens. With responsibid it is built on window cleaners that do packages, I don’t do packages and by not cleaning tracks and sills thats less check marks to make a package look sexy. Responsibid should cater to the businesses that use it, we shouldn’t have to change the way we price to cater to responsibids package idea.
- Gutter Cleaning : Most people have no idea the linear feet of there gutters so with responsibid you can do square footage pricing. Very problematic as you could double quote or half quote a house very easy. Lets say Mrs. Jones goes to my website and it says $300.00 for her gutter cleaning based on sq footage and my in person quote would have been $150.00. Lets say Mrs. Jones clicks out and goes and tells her friend ya that company wanted $300.00 to clean my gutters and my house ain’t even that big. Lets say it says $150.00 and I go Mrs. Jones your square footage was accurate but I charge by the foot and your house is double the gutters so its gonna be double. Well why the hell you giving quotes on square fooage then! Also with gutter cleaning I also charge according to whats in the gutter. 100 feet of leaves is different than 100 feet of compacted asphalt shingles and moss and mud. Another factor is location of downspouts some people will have 75 feet of gutters that zig zag to the downspout making it impossible to rinse. There is way to much to see with gutter cleaning that responsibid can’t see and again your relying on clueless homeowners to give information they don’t know.
- Window Pricing: Hey Mrs. Jones you said online you have 15 windows but you actually have 18! Mrs. Jones is in the middle of doing dishes and says ok charge me for the 18. You clean her windows and give her the bill, later that day she walks around her house and counts 15 windows and calls you and says I only have 15. So you drive to Mrs. Jones house and she goes oh goly I forgot the garage and those 2 little basement ones I’m sorry. Now you just wasted time and gas, or Mrs. Jones never calls you and tells her friends ya he came here and charged me 18 but I counted again and only have 15
One of the things I like about giving bids in person is I give the price and thats the price. I don’t need to discuss panes, or per window costs. Nothing is more annoying then sitting there explaining why this windows is $8.00 these ones are $15.00 these ones are $20.00. I show up and its $225.00 take it or leave it. With responsibid your inviting yourself to have to explain what a pane is, why this window counts as 3 instead of one, why your charging for the furniture when you could have just included it silently in your in person quote etc. There is a bazillion things wrong with online quoting the end
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You’re way over thinking and don’t completely understand how robust and customizable Responsibid is.
I don’t do packages either and have not had to cater to Responsibid. It’s the other way around. Responsibid caters to me.
I’be already answered about the gutter pricing and window pricing thoughts in other threads just very recently so I won’t repeat myself.
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You are overthinking sir. I never heard of packages before ResponsiBid. We did Outside or Inside & Outside; that’s it.
A “package” is whatever you want it to be.
Package A = Outside Glass, Wipe Outside Sills, High-Five after the job is done.
Package B = Outside Glass, Wipe Outside Sills, Chocolate Cake served on silver platter after job is done.
Package C = Outside Glass, Inside Glass, Complimentary Shoe Shine after job is done.
Just slightly increase your window pricing to account for “errors.” You can always tell the customer on-site that it is $20 lower than the Online/Phone quote. Or you can pocket that $20 and grow your business a bit more. 
Gutter Cleaning you have a valid concern but it really is not that big a deal.
You can simply just do in-person quotes for gutter cleaning and NOT use ResponsiBid for gutter cleaning quotes.
I do not see an option to quote Exterior Glass, Interior Glass & Screen cleaning! Everything I have seen is packages. What is your website, I want to fill out your responsibid and see it pop up without offering packages
This is a carbon copy form for the customers that don’t use email. I want responsibid to give me an option to list prices like this not bundle them in packages. I fail to see where this is an option.
Package A = Outside Glass Only
Package B = Inside Glass Only
Package C = Outside + Inside Glass
Package D = Outside Glass + Screens
Package E = Inside Glass + Screens
Package F = In + Out + Screens
That’s all the configurations you offer it looks like.
I’m sure @Responsibid could think of a better way to lay out all the options for you.
They changed it to where I assume all jobs are going to be outside only and then I can ask the customer if they want screens cleaned and inside glass. If they say yes to inside glass a percentage I choose gets added, if they say yes to screens the percentage I want gets added. When it’s done it will just say window cleaning X amount of dollars and the customer can click job specs to see that they select outside and screens or outside inside etc. I am happier and a little more calm now! Now I just need to figure out what percentages line up with dollar amounts. For example I had it where screens added 20 % and it came out to like a buck a screen when i selected 10 double hungs so I had to raise screens to 30%. Now I have to figure how the heck I am going to get someone accurate gutter cleaning prices
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Yes, a package can be whatever you want it to be. I only give them a choice of basic and deluxe. Basic is outside only and deluxe is inside amd outside.
So when the customer gets the bid they always get an inside and outside price and also just an outside only price.
i use quoteflare for ALL residential quotes(does not have the follow up responsibid does). i can offer as many or as few options for the customer as i want (slightly more customizable than when i used rb).
the questions a i have set up allow a school kid to do accurate estimates with just a few minutes of training and it’s just as easy for a customer.
my instant online estimates are 100% accurate 99.5% of the time…they are not estimates.
