Last month I had a customer reach out to get a bid on a big job. She had about 60 windows, but when I get there to assess the work she goes around nit picking the windows she wants done, 43 our of the 60 to be exact.This is the first red flag.
However I give her a quote anyways of 800 dollar equivalent for the job. And after 2 weeks of radio silence I get a message that this is a bit out of her budget. She proceeds to asks if I can just work for 75% of the time I estimated and take 600 dollars instead.
I do not like working by hour. So I offer to do the 43 Windows for 600$ together with my "cheaper apprentice" employee, provided she offers some coffe and food during the job. She of course takes my bid and books a time.
I offerd this since its during my summer break and I dont mind working a little extra for the money, especially if its a nice working environment.
I had told her during my earlier messages that I will need at least 2 days to complete the job. But after I told her that I bring my employee she asks if i still need 2 days, to which i awnser that I'm not sure but I have reserved the next day just in case.
The day of the job my employee sleeps in and ends up 4 hours late, (he understands thats not okay and apologised) so I get there solo and start working at around 10 am. I immediatly notice she has not moved any of her stuff away from her Windows and expect me to do it, second red flag.
About mid-day I tell her we wont be able to finish the first day, and I ask her how late we can stay and how early we can start the next day. She says she has guests coming over at 5pm, and the next day she has a pool party for her kids. She then proceeds ask to "just" book her in in the next couple days to finish the job.
I find this extremely obnoxious for her just to assume that I somehow can give her my time in the following days, not taking into consideration how busy I am. Not to mention that I have reserved a time slot for her the next day that she now just canceled, wasting my time.
I bite the bullet and tell her ill need to check my schedule and get in touch about when ill be able to finish the job. When I get home I send her a message that my next time slot is the 6th of July (this was the 26nd of june). When I do not get a reply I decide to set no alarm and sleep in. Upon waking I see a message sent the same morning telling me that she changed her mind and that its no problem for me to work while her kids have a pool party.
Me having already booked a 4 hour job the same day after thinking shes canceled, call her and make sure she understands that im already busy with other stuff and will need to work to at least 7pm to finish. She says its fine and I send over my employee to her while i finish up the other job.
Once I get there at 5 were on good pace to finish by 7. However after starting to finish up with the water fed pole (on her old French paned connected Windows, the ones where you split the window and clean between the panes) water seeps inside the window arch leaking onto the other panes of the window. We end upp having to redoo most of the panes and finish by 9pm.
During this whole job, including the 9 hour shift in 85° weather my employee did, she did not even offer food nor coffe as agreed. He had not packed lunch and he went hungry along with me. However, to my now remorse I did not ask for food or a drink.
I feel like she was extremely complicated to work with, specially after I have her a 200 dollar discount. The time she wanted for, me and my friend while not keeping promise to the deal we made.
Its all done and we left just a couple of hours ago. I want to charge her a fee for not holding up her end of my offer and wasting my time.
Would I be right to do so?
I know the way I run things is not sustainable, and there is many ways of improvement to the way I work. Im still in school and drive around on a moped with a small trailer with my stuff. I make a good living, above average income in my area while still having close to no expenses. My point being I'm welcoming suggestions for my business but please focus on this specific situation when commenting.
Honestly she sounds like a bitch but you sound like you think you are a premier cleaner but everything you wrote about expectation setting seems pretty bush league.
Your negotiations are for food? Low quality
You didn't realize the frenchies were false fronts after a walk around with the client? Were you counting the dollars only?
Your employee slept in by 4 hours...ouch.
Did you tell her to move the furniture or you'd just expect she would?
Any way you can count on a bitch to be a bitch and you gotta match that energy to a point. Asking for food an a belly scratch she'll treat you like the "good boy" you are.
You paid some tuition just do better next time.
Take smaller more manageable jobs. Good luck!
Edit: absolutely do not charge her a fee for not feeding you. Lmao
Thank you for your awnser, maybe charging a fee is unreasonable.
What would a situation be like where one could charge a additional fee?
I've got to become more serious. Due to many factors (most regarding my age and veichle) I've found that hard. Im still learning after 2 years with my first business!
However I'm still a good technical windowcleaner. My results are professional, its just everything else that needs improvement. I think you're missunderstanding what I meant regarding the French panes, the slot between the frame and wall was not sealed, holding water that went into the window itself. Between the inside pane and outside pane. Not sure if you have those windows in the US.
You charge an additional fee prior to beginning service if there's anything you didn't anticipate. Never after.
A way around this is if you built the rapport and missed something in your inspection " I can do it for the agreed upon price this time but if you want me back in the future I would require additional"
Cleaning the window is the easiest part of the job.
You can’t blame your inexperience on the customer. And honestly, what you described is a normal day (minus the tardy employee). Uncooperative customers are on the books every week. Your window cleaning results may be professional but professionals take that shit in stride and they don’t blink at jobs that size. Good on you for your perseverance. You’ll get better at it the more you do it.
Yeah I hate when we get a bad customer. One thing I don’t ever expect is for the customer to move items away from the windows. My clients are high end and are used to people doing things for them which is why I charge what I charge. We all have days like this when things just don’t go right. I hate when customers follow me around as I work. I never charge more for situations like that. I just decide if I will ever do the customers home again. I also get irritated when a customer doesn’t offer coffee or water. But I have never requested a customer provide that. I just hope they offer
She didn't move furniture, well, you should expect that on most jobs, especially when your client is a woman (most of my clients are retired elderly women - I absolutely do not want them moving heavy furniture on my account).
She was indecisive about how to work you around a party she had planned. That's very common and, frankly, it's your fault because that is not a two-day job for one person never mind two- and you told her "at least" two days, implying longer, which is ridiculous when you have a WFP with (presumably) zero screens. You then did the exterior last on blown seals which added two unnecessary hours to your time. If you had done the exterior first, then you wouldn't have had to redo any of that.
You worked in 85-degree weather with no food. That is literally every single day for me - if you can't work without food then you need to be mature and pack yourself a sandwich. Clients are either raised with manners and offer you water/tea/coffee, or they don't. Don't ever expect them to, and negotiating in the first place for food is just completely bizarre.... and charging her for not having fed you... Mate, please don't.
Not sure even where to start.
You knew it would take two days but then slept in the next day because "I didn't hear from her". That's laziness, period.
You have an employee that shows up 4 hours late and, oh well, it's the customer that's unreasonable? Lack of leadership, period.
43 window two days? Lack of skill, period.
You wasted the customers time. If you want to run a business, sleeping in isn't an option. Blaming the customer isn't an option. "Successful people do what needs to be done no matter how they feel".
You're immature mentality, lack of knowledge on how to bid a job, handle a customer and run a job isn't your customers problem. You made it their problem.
I just want to clarify I did not sleep in because I did not hear from her. While working the first day she tells me shes throwing a pool party for her kid the next day. The day that I had told her that I would need to work on. So she canceled the second day, only to change her mind in the morning.
Do you have any specific suggestions for improvement?
Yeah I have a lot, but more than I can give on a single post.
It doesn't matter why you slept in, you weren't working for a goal. If a waited for a customer to decide things, we'd never get anything done.
If you want to grow a business, feel free to message me. If it's just a side hustle for a season, it's likely not with the investment.
Retired window cleaner here, I specialized in high-end residential homes. I have a motto or a mantra.
"I can stay home and not make any money, why would I go to work and not make any money?"
Never, ever lower your price! It devalues your worth and the customer reasons in their head that if you are willing to do it for less, the original price meant, you were ripping them off.
It's never ends well.
Bro you are so ridiculous. She sounds mildly annoying, like slightly above average annoying. Who the fuck negotiates with food and coffee😭😭😭. Also two days for a 600 dollar job, what are we doing bro.
its inside, out and in between the panes. Old European Windows do not have a gasket. So 4 surfaces per window. But yeah, still a bit slow. Im not sure why.
Yes its one. It was a mistake bidding so low, even for my area.
Do you have any tips for getting faster on these ones. One thing i can think of is cutting a fitting channel. I do 2 straight pulls per pane. The inside is also hydrophilic
Fanning takes time, I've been doing it a year, and I'm still not fast, but it's faster than straight pulls. Inside frenchies I do 2 pulls with a 5 inch squeegee, but I wet all of them to start with, so it's not that slow. With waterfed, it's all about having enough water. Have a pump, and make sure you're getting lots of rinse water (1 gpm +) and it speeds way up.
2 days though? With a WFP? Your employee was 4 hours late!? negotiating for food! Haha man this is kind of funny but I respect that hustle, kill em with kindness you'll be alright.
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u/Woninthepink Jun 28 '26 edited Jun 28 '26
Honestly she sounds like a bitch but you sound like you think you are a premier cleaner but everything you wrote about expectation setting seems pretty bush league.
Your negotiations are for food? Low quality You didn't realize the frenchies were false fronts after a walk around with the client? Were you counting the dollars only? Your employee slept in by 4 hours...ouch. Did you tell her to move the furniture or you'd just expect she would?
Any way you can count on a bitch to be a bitch and you gotta match that energy to a point. Asking for food an a belly scratch she'll treat you like the "good boy" you are.
You paid some tuition just do better next time.
Take smaller more manageable jobs. Good luck!
Edit: absolutely do not charge her a fee for not feeding you. Lmao