Repeat customers

[lance]

Are they calling you as often now that the economy is going along not seeming to get better? Are they having you do the same, less, or more work (areas, furniture, etc.) than they did five years before?

If you have owned your business for seven years or more, how much of your work is for repeat customers? Are you gettting as many referrels from them as you used to?


Thanks.

 

[Brian R]

Now that I've been cleaning the carpets myself in this area for about 8 months....I'm getting more repeats and referrals. Doing 2 repeats from Groupon jobs today.

I can tell you that we don't get as many repeats in My Sacramento area as we used to percentage wise.

Why? Maybe economy, maybe because my award winning personality moved to TX, maybe marketing......

We get more new customers now but the repeats are not what they should be IMO.

 

[Walt]

Some of my customers are letting it go a little longer in between services.

I do know that I've lost a few to the economy. But, I've gotten a few back as well. They used someone else and were unhappy.

At this point more than half of my business is repeat clients. We rarely do post cards and do very little advertising. I know it's lazy, but I have no desire to grow or work more myself.

 

[NobleCarpetCleaners]

I will report the truth on this and say hellllllll yes hellllll yes. Pushed many of my 12 month repeaters to 18. Waiting on the some 26 month slackers to pony up and get on the schedule. Old folks in my rolodex are still sticking to their 6 to 9 months schedules. Different mind set and I don't really try to disect it but it's their. Wealthy folks in my list are still cleaning on sched because they like their life style and aren't going to change it.

My middle income folks have be dented in their budgets and gutted in their minds. And I don't know what folks around here read or study (if at all) but this nation of ours is lieing to itself. I for one do not have my head in the sand.

The economy has also dented the shit out of "professional" circles like Real Estate. I've witnessed a significant change in their expectations of service people. They don't want less, they want more for way less money. Many people buying in this market get fueled and motivated by Real Estate folks to get a cheap price for cleaning. I get a lot of move-in move-out work on my terms and I interview everyone along the way to stay "plugged in". The fields of repeatable crops have dwindlded and are getting harder to capture. As she said in Top Gun, "it takes more then just fancy flying".

Repeat customers are very profitable over the "long term". Lean to adapt and be profitable in every transaction you do. I think of every new client as a "One-Time" but talk to them like I'll be seeing them again. I plug them into Service Monster and move on. If I had office staff to call and bs with them I would, but I don't so, well, I don't.

Short answer, alot of them don't repeat as often.

 

[Mikey P]

Less tile, slightly lower job average but more new customers are keeping us ahead of last year.

Our wealthier repeats are as steady as always


Still plenty of money around here.


God bless Dry Treat!

 

[Walt]

You can get dry treat in Cali?

 

[Royal Man]

My regulars seem to be going longer between cleaning. Commercial is not even having cleaning done or going once every 2 years instead of once a year.

Biz is still up due to many are cleaning instead of replacing.

This is the upside of a bad economy.

In general many are just trying to hold on to what they have.