a Q? for you square footer pricers..

[Mikey P]

I have to occasional problem where the new price shopper is not hearing what my Girls are telling them.
Use to happen with my wife when she answered the phone as well.


They tell them that our base rate is.50 a foot and then give a price range based on averages. A Living Rm ranges from 70 to 150, a small BR ranges from 30 to 60 and so on and so forth. Anyways, they get the price range totaled up and yet the job still comes out more that the high end of the quote, a few recently were MUCH more and the customer is freaking.

Other than going out and doing quotes, how do you all go about dealing with these situations where customer has very large rooms and are not relaying that to the CSR?

 

[Brian R]

In the nicest way possible you need to tell them if they have a bigger house then they will have larger costs overall. Larger mortgage/rent, larger heating/air bill, larger electric bill etc.

They "get it" at that point. They may not like it...But they understand.

Once you can relay to them that your direct costs are specific to the size of the area to be cleaned.....I think they understand a bit better.

 

[Brian R]

With that said....I've been doing room pricing by estimating what my average open area cleaning of a room will be for my service areas.
Further drives mean higher charges as well.

Win more than you lose....Then you win.

 

[Jim Nazarian]

Ask them the total Sqft of the house or Google the house to get the info & call them back with a revised estimate...In Los Angeles I have a pretty good idea how big the house is by what city they live in...a house in Reseda will get the low price vs a house in Tarzana.

Maybe add a category for MBR or game room with a price range of $60-120, I get some MBR + walk in closets that are bigger them some houses.

 

[Brian R]

I find that bigger rooms have less dirty areas.

 

[Ron Werner]

I've had enough calls like that, they ask for a "rough idea".
Once the price gets up there I tell them it would be better for me to come and give them a in-person quotation. There's only so much you can do over the phone. Many times when I go for the quote I find their measurements are off, and/or I can explain the different levels better, or what I can or won't move, etc etc.

While on the phone, even after explaining different levels of service to them, to decrease the price to meet their budget, or explaining that the price will be adjusted for traffic areas, etc, sometimes they just say thankyou and "we'll get back to you" or "I'll pass it by my husband" etc I have to let them go, esp if they aren't open to me coming to give them a quote.

If price is their main issue, ie looking for lowest, I am not going to drop my price that much just to get the job. Been there, done that, kicked myself too many times agreeing and they turn out to be the pickiest customers, oh why didn't you do that, can your clean these 5 mats too please, why didn't you move the furniture, etc etc. I tell them I can refer them to a good budget cleaner (Steve Marsh's line). Who here would cut their price JUST to get the job, esp if they wanted it cut in half from the lowest price you could give them? The other cleaners need work too.

The short answer is I let them go. Taken me years to be able to do that.

 

[CDRX]

I usually ask for the square footage of the entire house. They will often say that there is a lot of hardwood, which is normal but you can at least estimate higher if you know that it is a 4000 square foot home vs a 2000 sq ft home as the rooms tend to be larger. I also ad the caveat that this is just a rough "ballpark" and I will measure before I do the job to give them an exact quote, which usually puts their mind at ease.

*I actually just had this happen today, gave a rough phone quote based on average home size (forgot to ask total sq ft) turned out to be a 5400 sq ft house, she was understanding that her home was larger than I had anticipated and agreed to the higher price.

Perfect example where if I had asked about total square footage I would have been able to give a more accurate quote over the phone.

 

[Bucey]

I tell our customers that we give "Good Faith Estimates" based on the description of there cleaning needs. We are with in 5% on all estimates. Asking the total Sq Ft of the home can be very helpful as well. It works for us!

But then you are asking CSR to know the average sq ft of homes in your area that may be hard with out experience. It took us some time to get it figured out.

Hope you find some good ideas!

 

[John Watson]

We would tell them, even with 30 plus years of doing this, I have never learned how to do it over the phone so it comes out fair for them or me. When they say they or their husband will measure, I tell them isn't funny how very few people measure the same. I then let them know that when we come out to accuratly measure the cleaning areas to be done, we could do it together, when compleated if they want us to do it, we are ready right then to do it for them. If they still want other bids or to schedule at a different time. No Problem, I just want them to know we might add a surcharge for the extra trip.

I have had very few who want to get other bids or choose another day but it does occasionaly happen.

 

[Charlie Lyman]

I usually ask for the sq ft of the whole house. I then figure %10 percent of the sq ft is the price. 3000 sq ft house is around $300. 2000 sq ft house is around $200, ect. I let them know this is a ball park figure so it could vary some. That seems to work for me.

 

[renegade_cowboy]

I have to occasional problem where the new price shopper is not hearing what my Girls are telling them.
Use to happen with my wife when she answered the phone as well.


They tell them that our base rate is.50 a foot and then give a price range based on averages. A Living Rm ranges from 70 to 150, a small BR ranges from 30 to 60 and so on and so forth. Anyways, they get the price range totaled up and yet the job still comes out more that the high end of the quote, a few recently were MUCH more and the customer is freaking.

Other than going out and doing quotes, how do you all go about dealing with these situations where customer has very large rooms and are not relaying that to the CSR?

The IRC defines the average room in america is 200sq ft. What I do, is have a base price for the 200 sq ft per room and anything over the 200 sq ft i charge per sq ft. Since doing it, I have increased my usual room rate on the larger rooms that take more time without any miscommunication issues regarding the price.

And yes Trashed Green is well worth the $70 a gallon I am paying for it after shipping.... I figured one gallon will make me approx $7000. Wish it was powder form though..

 

[Billy]

We always tell clients that we don't give "Estimates" over phone, but if they give us an idea of square footage & any other details that may help us, we can give a "Guesstimate" based on our .69 base rate. Although we also remind them it is a Guesstimate only based on "their" measurements & it would be different if they are off on their measurements, etc.

Even with all the explanation on the phone sometimes we have someone say they thought the phone price was a solid price, so now we will tell them if we set the appointment & they decide not to do the job there will be an Estimate charge to help offset the cost of fuel and time involved. We don't have a fuel charge on tickets, so we rarely go out for FREE Estimates now days.

This works at weeding out Price Shoppers, along with our $225.00 min charge.

 

[Mikey P]

Are you in a race with Ron Werner to see who can do the fewest jobs this year Billy?



Have you read a newspaper lately?

 

[Billy]

Are you in a race with Ron Werner to see who can do the fewest jobs this year Billy?



Have you read a newspaper lately?

We definitely aren't a Volume company
:mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

Yes I read the WSJ daily.

 

[mirf]

I do believe $225. min. would weed out the price shoppers. wow, that is high for here!

 

[Billy]

I do believe $225. min. would weed out the price shoppers. wow, that is high for here!

Yes it does that well, which was one reason for it being what it is. We started business with a $49.00 min, then went up from there thanks to our early involvement with Bridgepoint Systems. We really don't know where we would be without their support, classes, etc. early on in our career. As for now, we have been at $225.00 for many years & believe or not we have thought about $300.00 min since this is our normal low.

We figured out a min that we don't mind working for. It does go up sometimes for distance or after hours, etc - same as we raise the base rate for other reasons. We have never been about "Volume" to this point. Also, we rarely do a min charge anyway since all our pricing is higher already.

Another good thing for us as it has been many years since we checked locals pricing, but we get a few calls here & there from others trying to check our prices fairly regularly, especially if we go to a class.

One more thing... we didn't lower prices or our min charge at all during bad economy & still have had positive Growth.

I say... "To each is own" on pricing, etc.

We can't be doing everything wrong since we will celebrate 18yrs (Full Time no outside employment) in business soon.