I recently took a drive over to someone’s two story house and quoted them a price only to have them tell me later “that’s ok, our grandson said he will do it for us” and they will keep the number blah blah blah…
Bottom line, would it be better to charge a small fee of $10-2 to quote a house?
If they already paid for the quote then why not get the windows cleaned? It would make me more inclined to clean my windows if I already paid for them. I’m kinda annoyed by the fact that I drove out there, looked at the house, etc… then they fall out from under me. What do you guys think?
…and this is why flat rate pricing is perfect for me.
Not sure if you’ve considered it, but in the past year and a half, I’ve only had to give a handful of quotes in person. It a great system, for me. It gives customers a “contained choice”; it lets them feel like they have options; it takes the hassle of ‘counting’ for them and the confusion of explaining what is and isn’t a window and that whole mess; quick, easy, no driving. For me, it works. - oh, and free
Of course there’s a lot of factors, but I’d say look at a few people who do that sort of service, find someone who lives in an area like yours, and try it out.
Sometimes this is a answer you need to figure out.
As you start to price jobs keep track of how many windows and the style, how long it took to clean and use those figures to determine your future pricing see what has worked for you in the past
I would say yes, charge for quotes…if you want people to stop calling you.
Seriously, though, there are just gonna be some annoying cases like the one you described. You never know though, maybe their grandson will flake, or break his leg, or do a horrible job. Perfect, they’ve got your price and you’re just a phone call away.
I recently had a lady scoff at $130 in/out…didn’t matter; next estimate i booked a job worth over half a grand. Oh, and two weeks later said lady called and scheduled afterall.
It doesn’t happen often enough to lose sleep over. It is like spending a bunch of money on door hangers or EDDM only landing a portion of those, you won’t land everyone, set your prices so that at the end of the year you are happy.
In the meantime; experience is pretty much the only thing that will help you to weed them out over the phone. Usually people want a quick estimate on the phone anyway for residential, and in todays age, it’s even better if they don’t have to call someone.
Which is why responsibid is so good.
So when they call me, my questions are like this:
What is the square footage (especially if they are hesitant to give me the address, which is a good sign by the way).
I write that number down.
You wouldn’t happen to know off the top of your head how many windows there are would you? (they do usually)
That number will tell me what kind of windows (not always tho) they got. Because on say a 2000 sq ft home you will get about 16 to 25 double hungs including sliders etc. not true divided. and just to be sure my next question is:
The type of windows you have; are they the sort of tic tac toe pattern windows? If you slid your finger on the glass would it touch anything but glass from end to end or would it hit a divider and then glass again? (to this day I can’t find a better way to say that)
Are there any windows that would need a tall ladder on the inside of the home? What type of floor is under those windows? What type of furniture is under those windows (please don’t say baby grand piano)
Give them a rough price based on what they tell me which is xx amount, then I tell them if they want a solid quote all they need to do is give me the address and I’ll email them the quote in an hour after I look online at the layout of the home.
We use Responsibid as well. We have really dialed in on the square footage pricing up to 6,000 sq ft. We use it for our website, phone calls, and in person. People really screwed up the count type estimates. The only ones that would do exact type bid right were my competitors.
If a potential customer is insistent on a in person quote (that is under 6,000 sq ft.) we nicely tell them, if we come out to their location we’re required to perform $150 worth of cleaning which is our minimum.
Responsibid sounds really intriguing. The question that I have is… do you think that this eliminates a lot of “tire kickers” that browse your site? What is the ratio of Calls vs Responsibid requests?
I need to track my website traffic and see if I can tell where I lose people. I guess what I’m saying is, as a window cleaner with 99% residential customers, will Respnsibid be worth the $150 per month fee? Did your sales go up since using it or is it more of a time saver?
It eliminates almost all of them. Back when I used it, the commercial side was still rusty, its been a few years so I bet Kurt has that worked out by now…but for residential? Man, he gives you your money back if it don’t return your money to you within a certain amount if time IF YOU SPENT THE TIME TO DIAL IT IN AND FINISH EVERYTHING.
Its as if there’s a little you on your website. Its got filters that can block ip addresses from your competitors too.
I’m telling you its pretty amazing. YES its worth 150. Man, 150 you’ll make in a day. I know I don’t got it on my site, but I’m mainly commercial. Residential guys need this IMHO.
Even if you are “wasting time” you really are not. This is an important learning experience for newer cleaners. Other people are saying to use ResponseBid but that will hinder learning about how the estimate process works. If you can’t even estimate on the phone yet you should not be using an online estimate calculator.
