Lets talk attrition, new and repeat customers

[Mikey P]

I get a shit load of new customers each month.

More than I'd like to be honest.

I think, thunk, thought that my repeat would be higher by now so, either we suck as cleaners or we charge too much for you average Joe.

Lots of move in and outs, wood floors, tough economy, yadayada and the like... skew our repeat number. Folks that try us once and say "yeah that was great but not $100-$200 greater than the last dudes" is what really gets us.

Too many home owners just don't need a one on one relationship with their carpet cleaner so our charm, trustworthiness and whitebreadness don't always guarantee a life long repeat.

Unfortunately there are only so many .50 a foot clients in this town to go around..


...or maybe this is normal, what are your thoughts, and if you don't mind sharing your numbers?


I guess I'm a bit sceered that if the interweb light went out I'd be fooked.
Just wondering if I should go back to 40 cents, skip a step or 3 and (hopefully) keep the 2nd truck busier..

today's report.. (Vortex/2 man crew with the Lima Bean only working a few days these last two months...)

 

[Royal Man]

It's just the nature of this business.

You have to always be driving new business.

If you depend on just repeats your business will whither on the vine.


Too many clients clean too infrequently, only when selling a home, their needs change, they move away or whatever.

Lack of repeats is not necessary a reflection of your service or price structure.

Clients just go bye, bye.

 

[FB7777]

Tough call Mike, to boost repeat sales, you could offer compelling discounts to attract previous customers thru your mailing with Service Monster

Of course, then you run the risk of conditioning your customers to wait until your service "goes on sale"

I think you have a great thing going with your customer base,

instead of lowering your price, skipping steps and confusing your employees, why not look at commercial?

Especially tile and grout, commercial carpet may be too frustrating price wise for you.

Don't get hung up on the per sq ft numbers and concentrate on the fact you are operating a high productivity cleaning plant

 

[FB7777]

It's just the nature of this business.

You have to always be driving new business.

If you depend on just repeats your business will whither on the vine.


Too many clients clean too infrequently, only when selling a home, their needs change, they move away or whatever.

Lack of repeats is not necessary a reflection of your service or price structure.

Clients just go bye, bye.

Are you fricken kidding me Dave?

How the ACE did you ever operate a 16 employee shop?

Sure theres attrition, but what about referrals?

I just don't get you Yoakum...your company service experience must be horrendous

After 24 years, if all I wanted was a 1 man show I'd have to turn away every third job and My marketing consists of 300 reminder cards a year and a shitty website that I don't even visit

But people love my wife on the phone and my cleaning is outstanding

 

[daniel@procarpet]

Nice job average!

 

[Royal Man]

Whatever Pfred,

I'm happy with the amount of work I have.

Biz has been great!!

Clients love me, very few price shoppers, working less jobs and making more money.

Usualy atleast one $400-$500 resi job everyday.

The phone rings day and night. (Three tonight)

I did give away jobs last week and a couple this week.

My area is tough. It has 3 times the carpet cleaner density than your area has. (You area has even less if you take off the duplicated listings from Greg.)

Different strokes. Lots of ways to be successful in this biz.

 

[Mikey P]

We do a decent amount of tile, close to 20% of our gross on most months.


Just not commercial to go around in SCruz.



In Dave's defense we did one yesterday where we were there last in 2004. No one else has been there and it was not very soiled..

 

[FredC]

Whatever Pfred,


My area is tough. It has 3 times the carpet cleaner density than your area has. (You area has even less if you take off the duplicated listings from Greg.)
iz.

I think you might want to investigate the area a bit more.

and where does Greg have duplicate listings? I handle Gregs shit and I haven't created any...........

 

[Royal Man]

I found at least 3 extream Google map markers when I was trying to gauge numbers of cleaners.

 

[FredC]

show me where they are Gregs.....you do realize there are other Xtreme and Extremes in the are right?

 

[Royal Man]

Who knows?

I found Extream grout action by the state park.

Extream Grout Easton by Brockton and Extream cleaning services inc by Marshfield.

If they are not all Gregs so be it.

They are fairly close to each other if not and would be very confusing to clients.

Just seemed strange for so many Xtreams to show up.

Is that a Massachusetts thing?

 

[Desk Jockey]

I'd drop your price in half and double your sales.....you should be out of business by Spring and won't have to worry about the internet anymore. Retire off the millions this board is bringing you.

Seriously price is on everyone's mind even the regular customers. However will the reduced rate generate more business? If it doesn't then you just gave away .10 a square for no reason, it's hard to say if that .10 will be enough or too much. ????


What do you suppose is the reason for fewer repeats? I'm sure it's not a quality reason, so you are keeping in contact regularly? Maybe it's staying clean too long? Are a good share of your clients elderly?

Those are some good numbers, unless you're concerned about running out of population I don't know that I'd sweat it too much.

 

[Connor]

Who knows?

I found Extream grout action by the state park.

Extream Grout Easton by Brockton and Extream cleaning services inc by Marshfield.

If they are not all Gregs so be it.

They are fairly close to each other if not and would be very confusing to clients.

Just seemed strange for so many Xtreams to show up.

Is that a Massachusetts thing?

Welp, I gotta say that your detective skills suck, Yoakum.

 

[hogjowl]

I don't necessarily think that lowering your prices is necessarily the key. It's just normal to question them simply because that's all most cleaners know to focus on.

In fact, I would be willing to bet that most of the customers in your market might be turned off by lower prices.

I think that your problem may be the impression in person might not jive with the impression build in relation to your prices.

It might be your language, your appearance or your or even your hygene that is the problem. Personally I think it's probably the first two. I'm sure you bathe regularly.

 

[Mikey P]

Seeing how you've never met me or my crew, Ill stick your assumptions in the round file.

 

[hogjowl]

Ill stick your assumptions in the round file.

Probably the language.

 

[ACE]

It’s easy to second guess yourself or lose objectivity. They only way to understand how your customers think is to ask them. You could send out a survey after each job asking your customers about their experience with your company and how they perceive value. They would probably need to be anonymous to get honest answers and they would need some motivation to return the survey. Every large successful retailer and restaurant is doing this.

 

[Ken Snow]

Re: Re: Lets talk attrition, new and repeat customers

It’s easy to second guess yourself or lose objectivity. They only way to understand how your customers think is to ask them. You could send out a survey after each job asking your customers about their experience with your company and how they perceive value. They would probably need to be anonymous to get honest answers and they would need some motivation to return the survey. Every large successful retailer and restaurant is doing this.

X2

 

[Art Kelley]

I think you're facing the same problem Mercedes made when they bought Chrysler Corp, trying to expand their market share in North America. You built a Mercedes reputation when it was just you, a chimp and your Vortex. When you send out two chimps in a van and charge Mercedes prices your old customers realize they can get this cheaper somewhere else. It didn't end well for Mercedes because their's and Chrysler's are very different customers. As separate companies they are both doing well now. Perhaps you should start a different lower cost company if you want to expand.

 

[jcooper]

Too many home owners just don't need a one on one relationship with their carpet cleaner so our charm, trustworthiness and whitebreadness don't always guarantee a life long repeat.

The guru's will try to say it's not true, but IMO 100% right.

I try to kill these people with kindness, trust, professionalism, advice, knowledge and so on. Some people care about that shit some don't. Like Miss Plifton doing her ipod crap while I'm trying to tell her the black line under her door is going to look like shit or why she should move her crap around more then once every 12 years!

Unfortunately there are only so many .50 a foot clients in this town to go around..

There are only so many clients(carpet & tile) period and you are looking for the top 10%.


Our repeat last month were 29%, that's actually a lot for us. One thing I need to stop doing is giving away money(discounts) in hopes they will be repeat clients.

 

[ACE]

Surveying customers is just another great idea I hope to implement someday. I think my current pricing is just right for us. We have excellent customer retention. It’s difficult, but I try to keep the service and pricing consistent, easy to understand and replicate. Our prices are higher than Stanley but lower than Chavez 8) and the customers seem like they are happy to pay a little extra for a job done right.

I did catch one of my repeat customers muttering expensive asshole under her breath the other day :shock: .

 

[Desk Jockey]

I did catch one of my repeat customers muttering expensive asshole under her breath the other day :shock: .

Never clean for relatives! j/k

 

[ACE]

Hey Richard,

I understand you survey your customers. Can you share what you learned?

 

[Lee Stockwell]

Small town newspaper here, just about every day when I scan the obits I've lost a customer. Just try to pick up a few references and family from each.

Add to that the fact that a good percentage move each year, and many of those move out of the area completely.

It's a constant battle.

 

[Desk Jockey]

We have received back around 150 QC cards so far this year. We send them out self addressed and postcard stamped.

99% come back with rave reviews, a few have made us tighten up on being more prompt, occassionally we will have person that must have been afraid to call back for reservice.

It is nice to see what your clients are thinking, well at least the ones responding. It has also changed how we view some of the tech's, some do far better with client relationships than we would have though. While a couple of tech's are proficent cleaners they don't appear to have enough personality to do as well with clients as the QC cards are reflecting they do.

 

[Mikey P]

Rich is there any way to share the card you send out?

 

[Desk Jockey]

Sure it's Wayne Miller's card.

 

[dgargan]

Mike how do you get yelp to perform like that?

 

[Mikey P]

Im a top 25'r, what do you expect?

 

[dgargan]

What does that mean? Are you sending your customers there to post reviews to help your ranking or is Yelp just a west coast thing that has not moved east yet?