How would you respond to this customer

The wise guy in me would have said, 60 dollars and hour, thanks for pointing it out, the guys must of been loafing or we didn’t charge enough. I’m not to far from you and that price sounds very reasonable and luckily in our area I haven’t had to many questions like that. About 25 yrs ago I had a customer complain like that about price after job was done. I can’t remember exact numbers but it was like 4 hours for 200 bucks. She couldn’t believe the hourly charge and didn’t call the next year. The following year she did call and I remembered and asked what happened. She said she couldn’t see paying that kind of money so she got a guy and paid 15 bucks an hour. 2 and a half days later , wasting her time ect she realized she paid more money and wasn’t even happy. with the job. Turned out to be one of my favorite customers. I would just say that you don’t figure out hourly and you make your money being well trained, efficient and thorough . Judge us by our finished product, if you are happy with the price , you will be more than happy with the service.

  1. yep, I can get a couple teenagers with newspapers and vinegar and leave them here all month if you prefer to pay hourly :slight_smile:

  2. = Leverage

I would just tell them price per hour and mileage, and leave it at that. One of my regular customers asked me what my hourly rate was last month, I told her $55. She did the math, added $100 and handed me a check. Sweet!

Probably some of the best words in business I’ve heard.

There is nothing intimidating about a man standing at your door with a t-bar and squeegie.

although I would love to have them think that they are paying us for our expertise, from the customers perspective its not the same as comparing us to the expertise of a plumber or electrician or any of the construction “Trades”. Being a window cleaner myself I know for a fact that there is a lot involved in the way of tools, methods and skill, sadly though the customer doesnt see it.

When I do a window cleaning job for $200 and complete it in 2hrs I can sense that the customer is doing the math in their head and thinking about how much he has payed me per hour.

When I do a power wash job for $400 and it takes me 3hrs I get no kind of funny looks. The presence of a complicated power washer with its hundred foot hose and various wands with tips is enough to intimidate the customer to think he could never do something like this himself. Thats when he understands that he is paying for the expertise.

I am thinking about upgrading my uniform from dry-fit collared polo with embroidered logo, to long sleeve button up dress shirt with a vest.
I want to create the image of a high luxury service to compensate for the fact that the customer thinks we are just glorified janitors.

This way since they tend to lean more toward paying us for labor hours instead of expert knowledge, I want them to think that they are also paying for the presentation of a dependable professional that is clean cut and trust worthy.

This is my question, Image wise does your company look like it deserves $60 per hour?

I did exactly the same thing!!! :slight_smile:

loaded question. “deserves” is entirely subjective. there are many people who think brain surgeons aren’t worth $60/hour.

Probably Right, How about does your company look like a $60 per hour rate company? Uniforms, Professional Company vehicle ect… If these things are lacking, I can see why she would email saying what she said…

Taken a few snippits from around some other replies…

Dont forget to end on a happy note! After all they were a happy and satisfied customer!

Dear Sir,

The price we agreed on, and your were happy with before we started the service was calculated on a per pane/window price and and would be charged the same whether it took 2 hours or 10 hours.

The fact we are a competent team of legally operating professional window cleaners we were able to complete the job in a suitable time frame.

Please bear in mind, the almost “$60/hour” you quote is far from a take home wage. There are plenty of business expenses to deduct from that such as:

employee pay (3 guys)
workers comp
liability insurance
vehicle maintenance and insurance
equipment and material costs
company income tax

and other smaller expenses to run a professional and more importantly a legally operating business.

You’ll see that unfortunately there’s a very long list of expenses associated with each job we do and it’s nowhere near the windfall it might look like at first glance. I’d truly love to charge less, and I would if we could afford to, but these are simply the costs of being a legitimate, insured business with consistently high quality service.

Im delighted that during your courtesy call back after service which i checked with you that you were happy and satisfied with the service you told us you found us to be professional polite & hard working, it shows were doing things right, and our customers appreciate that.

Please let me know if you have any further questions, and hopefully we’ll see you next year!

1 Like

tell him your hiring :wink:

Like an old time Chimney Sweep with coat tails and top hat?

It’s the following reasons I cringe when new guys say they charge only $2 to $4 per window. A hobby or a business?

• Employee pay
• Liability insurance
• Vehicle maintenance, gas, and insurance
• Equipment and material costs
• Company income tax
• CPA
• Advertisement
• Licensing fees
• Reasonable profit to stay in business

I would just tell your paying for my expertise. I’m a professional & give professional results. Guaranteed.

[MENTION=2940]Garry[/MENTION]
Might be figured into that but I find the employers contribution to SSI quite a PITA

reminded me of one time I simply said “you’re a businessman, you know a business can’t be run on less than that”

stopped him cold in his tracks and he agreed to the price and never mentioned it again.

You should see the emails I get trying to explain to them $600 an hour

In reality probably nothing you can email to make him feel better because if some one can afford a 1k Window cleaning their no dummy when it comes to money.

i never would reply to that.

Last did a clients windows in 2010, before the job we communicated our price change from $3/pane to $5/pane

Been doing his pressure washing, gutter holiday lights every year since. Yesterday while doing gutters/lights I noticed the windows were not 3 years not cleaned clean. So I figured he was using someone else.

Pulled in today to find the window cleaner there. He did his first price increase in 14 years this year, he is now $3.50/pane including the screen, $5 for skylights and blah blah blah.

Clear difference in equipment, presentation of company and individual. Honestly does not bother me. Not one guy had a day off due to lack of work this year. If I keep all the guys working each day I don’t really care who it is for, just at our current pricing.