Residential Maintainence Programs

[Hoody]

You know they have various names... "Keep it clean, Always Cleaning, Stay Clean" ect.

How well has a program of that nature worked for you, and what are some major factors that have made it work.

Also if you don't like these types of programs, explain why.

Thanks

 

[joeynbgky]

I have tried selling the "after care crap" But I think it is a rip off for the home owner. Hey I make make a little money off of it but I don't think that it is worth it..



There is a company in my area that cleaned a very small bedroom for one of my customers. (Customer got numbers confused)

He charged her $265.00 bucks. He sold some one year spot treatment and crap. she finally called me the next day. And explained what happened.




the cleaner showed up and did a free 100 sq foot demo. well after part of her room was clean she had to have it cleaned. I would have charged her $50.00. So no i dont like them.

 

[Hoody]

Thats not entirely what I'm talking about. I'm talking about charging your normal price, and giving some incentive to clean with you more frequently. Also a lot of people are on fixed incomes, and cannot come up with a few hundred to have 3-4 rooms cleaned. So breaking it down where they could pay each month would be beneficial to them. It also brings in some cash each month so there is money always coming in. So its a win/win situation.

 

[Chris A]

It's on my list of things to do, does that help?

 

[joe harper]

Steve,

We have a simple program.....Here it is.....

First cleaning is at full price..."customer is offered a maintaince plan"

If the carpet is cleaned with-in 3 months....20% off ..."initial price"

If the carpet is cleaned with-in 6 months....10% off ..."initial price"

We will freeze...their price for 2 years...if they use the plan..


The customer is asked if they would like to have a reminder call..."yes..or..No"


*If a customer adds additional area after the initial cleaning...those areas are
charged the full price for the first cleaning...*

(This program is mostly used with families that have small children & animals)

 

[Steve Toburen]

You know they have various names... "Keep it clean, Always Cleaning, Stay Clean" ect.

How well has a program of that nature worked for you, and what are some major factors that have made it work.

Also if you don't like these types of programs, explain why.

Thanks

Good questions, Steven. A full package for the Stay Beautiful program is included with SFS. (When are we gonna get you to come to SFS? With or without your boss?) Anyway, quite a few of our SFS members have implemented the program. Others, like Chris, have it on their "Things To Do List". Here is a summary of what I am hearing from the field along with my own experience:

Pros:
1. Guaranteed clients- These folks are pre-paying you months in advance. They aren't going anywhere else.

2. Incredible cash flow that you can count on- 12 months a year- Now you know exactly what to expect from people on the program since you are taking the SB amount out of their credit card account every month. For those in the snow belt where residential work dies down to trickle in the winter this can be a life-saver.

3. "Pre-trained" customers- Since you are in their home every six months they know what to expect and usually aren't even there. (Works for me.) Plus the carpets clean in a flash since you did the bad areas six months ago.

4. Lower marketing costs- Heck, they are on a contract. They don't need to be "marketed to".

5. Makes Cheerleaders- People really like the program PLUS they talk about it to others. And it "differentiates" you in the market place since very few other carpet cleaners are offering the program.

6. A much more valuable business- Prospective business buyers are captivated by the stack of contracts you show them guaranteeing a future income stream after they buy the business.

So in a nutshell that is the upside, Steven. But there are always two sides ...

Cons:
1. It takes a lot of effort to get it up and running- Even with the turnkey Stay Beautiful package (contracts, procedures, forms, marketing) we include with SFS not all of our members are doing it yet.

2. Your customers have to trust you- If you are a brand new business people will realize that they are paying you for a service that will not be performed for six months. "Will you be around to do it?" is a reasonable question.

3. You do have a lot more bookkeeping since you are receiving payments every month. (Which is a good problem to have, I guess.)

4. You must start from "profitable pricing"- If your regular cleaning prices are not generating at least 100.00 per machine hour than the formulas don't work.

5. The biggest problem? Slowing your SB clients down enough to actually have the work performed even after they have paid for it! Some of our customers actually went a couple years paying us even though they were always "too busy" to let us do the pre-paid cleaning. (Worked for me! I had done my part.)

Cut to the chase time, Steven. IF a company commits to the "residential maintenance" concept and actually works the program a substantial number of your clients will sign up for it and stay on it for years. The idea is one of those gems that makes sense for both sides ... IF you do it.

Steve "Island Boy" Toburen
http://www.StrategiesForSuccess.com

PS For a complete "how we did it" overview of the Stay Beautiful program just go here:

http://www.strategiesforsuccess.com/932 ... -beautiful

The download is free after you fill out a one-time-only registration form that is so simple even Marty could do it. Just make a note of your user name and the password that is immediately e-mailed to you after you hit finish and you never have to go though the registration process again.

 

[Brian R]

If we can get our Carpet Cleaning Companies to work like a gym membership....I think that would be cool.
A small payment that is Automatically deducted from a credit card or checking account every month until they cancel.

Gyms count on you never actually coming to the gym (I know a guy who owns one). He has 4000 customers but there are seldom more than 50 or 60 people in his gym at a time....yet the money comes in like clockwork. That's about $80,000 per month.

Most people won't even think about the small payment.

So a 2000 sqft house charged $30.00 a month will bring in $360.00 a yea...and they can have it cleaned up to 2 times per year....and while you are there...they can add stuff on.

I may have to work on this.

Oh and the first year...they have to do it for a year to pay for the intitial clean.

That might be a little low or high...depending on where you are at but you get the idea.

Steve t., is this how you do it?

 

[dealtimeman]

i agree with brian but it would have to be very well structured and worded agreement.

 

[Steve Toburen]

Remember, Brian, that you always get the initial payment for the work up front. In fact, our techs would bring up the SB program immediately after the customer handed them the check:

"Thanks, Mr. Robison. By the way, have you heard about our Stay Beautiful program? No? With this program your carpets never look dirty again plus you never have to come up with a big sum of money like this again. Everything is pre-scheduled and we just deduct 10% of the cleaning price per month from your credit card. However, you get two cleanings per year included with the program so basically you are getting two cleanings for the price of one!"

It's all in the download, Brian, plus a lot more. Quit making me type so much.

http://www.strategiesforsuccess.com/932 ... -beautiful

Island Boy
http://www.StrategiesForSuccess.com

PS You do need to use at least Acrobat 7 or higher to do the free download on the Stay Beautiful program.

 

[Brian R]

Ahhh, I see. Right after payment.
So I should start marketing this to my most recent home owner customer right?
Hmmm.

Or at least to my really good regular customers that I haven't heard from in a few months.

Thanks Steve, and Hoodybaby for bringing it up.

 

[Steve Toburen]

Ahhh, I see. Right after payment.
So I should start marketing this to my most recent home owner customer right?
Hmmm.

Or at least to my really good regular customers that I haven't heard from in a few months.

Thanks Steve, and Hoodybaby for bringing it up.

That's right, Brian. The beauty of this concept is you are always ahead of the game. If for some reason the customer decides to bail out on you they just don't do their next scheduled cleaning. It stops the eternal "chasing your money" game.

Steve
www.StrategiesForSuccess.com

PS "So I should start marketing this to my most recent home owner customer right?" One caution, Brian. Be sure that you want to commit to this program BEFORE you start marketing it. Once it is rolling you can't easily stop since you are accepting payment for services rendered before you perform them. (works for me!)

Also, be sure to have all of your infrastructure (contract, bookkeeping systems, tech bonus program, marketing, sales scripts) in place before you roll the program out. And yes, all this infrastructure is included at no extra charge in the SFS seminar and no- it is not in the Stay Beautiful orientation! After all, we need some sort of carrot to entice you to attend SFS! However, the SFS orientation download does give you enough info you can reinvent the wheel if you want- more power to you!

 

[Brian R]

Feb. 15-19 Dallas huh?

I should be living there by then.


I will work on numbers and contracts and all that before I get started. Or I may just waut intl the class.
Thanks

 

[hogjowl]

I do it, Steven. If I do a proper estimate beforehand and price the job properly, then I can offer them an Always Clean program for a 10% to 15% monthly payment, and it is quite profitable for me. If I price over the phone, and am competitive with my market, then I can't do it.

A year ago, I was going full guns and was selling the program quite well. Right now, I am terribly slow, and folks are price shopping.

 

[Steve Toburen]

I do it, Steven. If I do a proper estimate beforehand and price the job properly, then I can offer them an Always Clean program for a 10% to 15% monthly payment, and it is quite profitable for me. If I price over the phone, and am competitive with my market, then I can't do it.

Sooooo, maybe I am a bit slow here, Marty, but could it be that "your market" is telling you to quit pricing over the phone???

How to move those first time "price shopper" into accepting an in-home pre-inspection? I thought you would never ask ...

http://www.strategiesforsuccess.com/175 ... one-format

No charge, no spam, no obligation for the download. Just write down your user name and the password that is e-mailed to you when you hit finish on the registration form and you can download all the resources on the site without going through the registration hassle a second time.

Island Boy
http://www.StrategiesForSuccess.com

PS Brian, you may want to wait till the Dallas SFS before going through all the hassle of setting up your "Stay Beautiful" infrastructure from scratch. Just your lawyer's fee for writing the contract we include in the class for free will more than pay for your entire seminar fee.

 

[Brian R]

Groovy

 

[hogjowl]

No, my market has seen me pricing by estimate for almost 22 years now, and I am still a BDCC who can brag about getting high prices on the internet.

My market is telling me to get real.

 

[Doug D]

http://www.StrategiesForSuccess.com[/url]

PS For a complete "how we did it" overview of the Stay Beautiful program just go here:

http://www.strategiesforsuccess.com/932 ... -beautiful

The download is free after you fill out a one-time-only registration form that is so simple even Marty could do it. Just make a note of your user name and the password that is immediately e-mailed to you after you hit finish and you never have to go though the registration process again.[/quote:btxg4nl5]


I love the program! In SD the winters can be brutal and am looking forward to collecting the money while sitting in my recliner watching sportscenter and eating cheetos!!

 

[CleanEvo]

I'm a simple guy, so I like to keep it real simple. If a customer books a cleaning before the 1 year anniversary is up, they get 10% off our regular pricing.

Sometimes I'll clean a chair for free.

I would never go for a program like that, so i would have a hard time selling it.

 

[Hoody]

Thanks Steve, and yes thank you too Marty.

We had a program very similar to what Harper is doing in Ohio. It worked very well. 1 year contract they'd get 5% off, 2 year 10%, 3 year 15%, and that included additional services while we were there, or something to that effect. But where it failed is no one was budging for anything extra.(Because we failed to educate them) I've learned people want to get something to buy. The whole "whats in it for me". Whether its education or a saving of money.

We're looking at possibly going to package pricing(up in the air yet) as people like options. And for the top two tiers there is a maintainence package available for them. And for how ever long they signed for they would still get that discount, and for additional services rendered. Even though I HATE to discount anything, this market is much different than the one in Ohio. Doing the numbers w/ the owner of the company we'll still come out with a nice profit with this format.

But then we are wanting to design a small marketing campaign. I want to do it by email. And when they sign the contract I'm going to ask for their email, so we can send them a copy of their monthly invoice, and "exclusive offers" for program members. They'll also get small touches on the shoulder with educational marketing tidbits. Cleaning improves IAQ, Duct Cleaning facts, ect(you get the picture)

In the end I want our customers to clean MORE with us, and allow us to render more of our services for them. Again its a win/win situation. We're keeping their home healthy and clean, saving their investments, and they're getting great service. And we're able to stay infront of them, and let them know what we can do for them, and they feel they're getting a deal.

EDIT:

Our residential techs want commission only. So I thought that with this program, and the package pricing; we would do in-home estimates and that would allow the tech to explain each package, and the benefits to the program(beyond the discount) It also puts the responsibility and accountability on them for the residential side. And as long as we're doing our background marketing work properly it will help them with the process. They can write their own paycheck, and they sell it themselves. We have two great techs who are eager and are go-getters. Nothing official, just something I've been chewing on.

 

[Doug D]

Our residential techs want commission only. So I thought that with this program, and the package pricing; we would do in-home estimates and that would allow the tech to explain each package, and the benefits to the program(beyond the discount) It also puts the responsibility and accountability on them for the residential side. And as long as we're doing our background marketing work properly it will help them with the process. They can write their own paycheck, and they sell it themselves. We have two great techs who are eager and are go-getters. Nothing official, just something I've been chewing on.

Why not offer them a bonus for every program they sell. Maybe like the first months billing or maybe 100 dollars. Reward them for their eagerness.

 

[renegade_cowboy]

I am still hashing one out, but for insight here is what SS is.

Full price for the first cleaning.

The customer then pays upfront for the 3 discounted cleanings that must be used within a year. They also get free protector with the first cleaning if they sign up.

If I remember correctly it works out that the customer gets a free cleaning. Room cannot be transferred.

The beauty about having them pay up front is when you go back and not have to pay, they add on other rooms, uph and protector. They are also a nation wide company.

The flaws:

They didnt do payments.

They didnt call or remind customers about their service contract, so people got burned.

 

[hogjowl]

I am not abandoning my maintenance program by any means, but I AM experimenting with different market approaches lately. How the program will fit in with any new approach is questionable. Another thing I have just started doing with my customer base is the contact marketing that SM does for me. It is, so far having a measurable affect on my customer base.

I hope I can find a way to intergrate both to create a steady flow of work that I can depend on. It would surely be nice to have a preplanned schedule of steady work year round ... or more importantly ... a steady stream of cash flow year round.

 

[Brian R]

Marty,
You can even change your cards info to promote what ever you are doing. Stay Beautiful plan or whatever else.

 

[hogjowl]

I know, Brian ... but I am just about as creative as danny is funny. So, I've stuck with the pre-made cards of theirs, for now.

 

[Brian R]

I'm just saying. :wink:

 

[bensurdi]

we implemented package pricing and a maintenance program from the very beginning. At first we offered a 50% discount if they cleaned within 6 months of the initial cleaning.

We now offer a program called the "always green & clean program" which is the SFS program with minor changes. Honestly- the most difficult part is that for a owner operator like me, it becomes A LOT of paperwork and follow up. You really have to be super organized to successfully run a program like this.

I think that for people who have office staff it would be very simple to implement but for an owner opp it is tricky. I haven't been pushing the always green program lately because of the added stress and paperwork it requires but the first week that I started the program I landed 3 contracts.

Job 1: 989.00 -Monthly payment = 98.90 per month
Job 2: 396.00- Monthly payment = 39.60 per month
Job 3: 750.00- Monthly payment = 75.00 per month

Okay... so now you have these contracts, you need to be processing the payment each month, staying true to the 12 month spot and spill warranty and more. Yes it brings in monthly income that you otherwise would not have but I tend to think years down the road. TONS accouting, TONS of the free 6 month cleanings being done. Well... now to think of it, it does sound good... But for some reason in real life it feels stressful and overwhelming.

My cluttered two cents.