Setting up a new window cleaning round customer properly

1 day ago
3 min read

Introduction

Window cleaning is a business of small transactions repeated for years, which makes the setup unusually important relative to the size of the first job. Get it right and a customer pays reliably every six weeks for a decade. Get it wrong and you spend that decade knocking on a door for fourteen pounds. The setup decides which.

Most rounds are built without any setup at all. A price is agreed at the door, the windows get cleaned, and everything else — how often, what is included, how payment happens, what occurs when nobody is in — gets worked out by accident over the following year.

1. Setting up a new window cleaning round customer means agreeing the frequency

The interval is the whole business model. Everything else follows from it.

Say how often you come and stick to it

Four weekly, six weekly, eight weekly. A customer who does not know when you are coming is a customer who is surprised by you, and surprise is what produces "not this time". Give them the cycle in writing.

Explain that you work a round

Being in the area on a set cycle is why the price works. Customers who understand this stop asking you to come back next week instead.

2. Be clear about what the price includes

Every dispute in the trade is about scope.

Say which windows and what else

Front and back, frames and sills, conservatory roof, doors. If it is not in the price, say so before the first clean rather than when asked.

Price the first clean separately if needed

Windows that have not been touched in two years take much longer. Charge for that once and the ongoing price becomes sustainable.

3. Sort out access before it becomes a problem

Locked gates are the biggest practical cost in the round.

Agree how you get to the back

A key, a code, a gate left unlocked on the day, or a text the night before. Turning up to a locked gate wastes the entire visit. Agree a fallback as well.

Confirm pets and parking

A dog in the garden means no back windows. Better known now than discovered on a wet Tuesday.

4. Make payment automatic

This is the difference between a business and a chore.

Set up a standing order or an app payment

Automatic payment removes the single largest inefficiency in window cleaning. Ask at the first visit, when the relationship is new and the request is normal. Very few customers refuse.

Say what happens if nobody is in

That you clean anyway and payment follows, or whatever your arrangement is. Ambiguity here is how debts accumulate.

5. Set up the small courtesies

They are what keeps a round stable.

Message the day before

A short text prevents locked gates, cars on drives and washing on lines. It costs nothing and it noticeably reduces wasted visits.

Leave a card and say when you will next be back

Something with your number and the date. Customers who know when you are due do not ring somebody else.

Conclusion

A window cleaning customer is a decade of small payments, so five minutes of setup is worth more than the first clean. Agree the frequency and hold to it, because a customer surprised by your arrival is the one who says "not this time", and explain that you work a round on a cycle.

Say exactly which windows, frames, sills and doors are included, and charge separately for a first clean on neglected windows. Settle access to the back — key, code or a text the night before — since a locked gate wastes the whole visit. Set up automatic payment while the relationship is new, say what happens when nobody is in, and message the day before every visit.