Who here has dropped their prices?

[Bob Foster]

.

 

[Chris A]

I haven't lowered my prices, but I am offering specials until spring, as I usually do to try and get s o m e business in the winter.

 

[Rex Tyus]

I prefer to call it options for the customer. Still firm on the minimum. Mine was never high to begin with. I just schedule like a bug truck (pest control).

 

[hogjowl]

I've lowered my prices by offering specials and I am pushing my basic more than I normally do.

 

[Jack May]

No price change here, although it is the middle of summer.

4 months and the approach of winter and another 4 months of seeing which way the economy will start moving in will help me decide which options are best.

I HATE price decreases, but I'm not beyond it if that's what's needed. Probably the reason why I hate decreses, is because I'm slow on the increases too, so when most others are hiking, I'm holding them as long as I can while still remaining vvalueable and profitable.

I've been crunching numbers to see where we are at (closer than normal) and then do a few predictions on various scenarios and then we can monitor more effectively and hopefully respondmore efficiently.

John

 

[Larry B]

In March we are raising prices on everything.

 

[Bob Foster]

.

 

[Brian R]

I am offering some deals for my regulars because some seem to need it. It comes with a strict understanding that this is a one time deal. I try to leave with the "I'll scratch your back now and you scratch mine later" idea in their head.

 

[Warren Wallace]

I have not lowered my price and I don't plan on it, but I can see the change in customers mind set(not good)

 

[davegillfishing]

i crossed my fingers and raised my prices by .05 last oct. no problem and not one complaint.
i would think it would be hard to raise your prices back to where they were or higher in a timely manor if things start to turn around. it would make you look bad in my opinion.
just stay consistent and pound the streets find the ones not affected by the economy and go after them.

 

[Jay D]

My prices went up a little with the gas prices, just like everything else. I am not that high priced anyhow. Gas prices went down but food and everything else keeps going up. 5 piece chicken strip meal at mcdonalds is $6.99 and theres one less piece of cheese on a double cheese burger on the $1.00 menu. Everything goes up and it suxs. I Have a sale for regular customers cuz of winter but my everyday price stays the same. (Right Now)

 

[-JB-]

i crossed my fingers and raised my prices by .05 last oct. no problem and not one complaint.

Dave if you don't mind me asking what percentage was that?

 

[davegillfishing]

dont mind at all..we went up 15%. to new customers. 7% to anyone that used us in the last year (so it would not be to much of a jump at once) and 10% to customers that have not used us in more than 12 months (same reason as above). we have about 30% of our customer base that is cleaned every 12-18 months or longer.
it sounds complicated but is really not that big of a deal with the customer management program we use. we know when and what the last cleaning was to the last sq ft and penny.
dave

 

[BRSUMMERVILLE]

I'm thinking of volume pricing. The higher the square footage,the lower of square fo0t price.

Bob Rock

 

[hogjowl]

Bob:

Uh ... how do I ask this ... did you just NOW thing of that?

 

[Guest]

LOL

I just raised my sq ft price.

 

[Jim Martin]

My prices are the same....but we did put the truck on a limited schedule...If the week is not booking up we compact every thing into a 4 day work week..If it is booking up then we just fill in the extra day....

 

[Ken Snow]

LOL Marty

 

[-JB-]

dont mind at all..we went up 15%. to new customers. 7% to anyone that used us in the last year (so it would not be to much of a jump at once) and 10% to customers that have not used us in more than 12 months (same reason as above). we have about 30% of our customer base that is cleaned every 12-18 months or longer.
it sounds complicated but is really not that big of a deal with the customer management program we use. we know when and what the last cleaning was to the last sq ft and penny.
dave

So rather than discounting based on frequency, they all just get charged differently?

That does sound complicated, so you must have a good customer management program, what is it?

 

[Ken Snow]

JB~ any CRM, spreadsheet, or accounting package software should make it easy as they are either:
1-New at highest price, or
2-Repeat within last 12 months, or
3-Repeat after 12 months

If ya can't tell that about any customer within 10 seconds of answering the phone ya's got to change how your doing things.

 

[Guest]

Raised Prices Slightly in August; For commercial after certain Sqft. price goes up for larger jobs.

 

[Walrus Gumboot]

Raised Prices Slightly in August; For commercial after certain Sqft. price goes up for larger jobs.

isn't that bass-ackwards?

 

[Ken Snow]

Rickie~ that's one of those things that makes me scratch my head and go, huh?

 

[-JB-]

T
Let me play devils advocate.

You bust on the "guru guys" for being elitists and charging too much.

You bust on the "multi-truckers" for being "hacks" or running sweat shops and charging too little.

What do you feel is the best business model? Seriously?

 

[-JB-]

thanks.

 

[Ken Snow]

I think I actually agreed with pretty much everything T said, cpt I wouldn't put down the pople who sell marketing or business advice to cleaners. Many people have no clue how to run a business or how to run a marketing campaign, and even those that do (me) have learned a lot of things for just a very minimal time and money investment from some of our industry "gurus" as well as from other non-industry specific instructor and consultants.

Business, like life is aconinuing journey and I hope I never stop learning and growing. If I can speed up my learning by reading, paying consultants etc. vs learning everything via the hard knocks (often more expensive ) way then that's what I do.

Ken

 

[Larry Cobb]

We have not dropped prices, but we have changed to a more liberal freight policy for orders.

One good thing is that raw material prices for some chemicals have finally started to go down (after a year or more of increases).

Some cleaning industrymanufacturers are still increasing prices in this soft market.

I think that decision is a bad idea.

Larry

 

[Jay D]

TerrSanjay could'nt of said it better. :roll:

 

[renegade_cowboy]

I raised my prices late last year by $10 a room and havent had any issue at all. I just wonder how much can I really get for my services.

 

[davegillfishing]

dont mind at all..we went up 15%. to new customers. 7% to anyone that used us in the last year (so it would not be to much of a jump at once) and 10% to customers that have not used us in more than 12 months (same reason as above). we have about 30% of our customer base that is cleaned every 12-18 months or longer.
it sounds complicated but is really not that big of a deal with the customer management program we use. we know when and what the last cleaning was to the last sq ft and penny.
dave

So rather than discounting based on frequency, they all just get charged differently?

That does sound complicated, so you must have a good customer management program, what is it?

like ken said we know in a matter of about 10-15 secs who is calling and what they have had done in the past and when it was done.

everyone will be on the same scale in time but to not shock people that get work done every 2-3 months we went with a smaller increase and scaled it like that.
it is really easy to handle and raises no questions at all from customers.
and we use principal focus to manage our customers. we love it
dave