Episode 9: Customer Relationship Management

In this episode of The Clean Hour, we discuss how to turn one-time customers into loyal customers who come back year after year and recommend your business to others.

Winning a job is only the beginning. The most successful pressure washing businesses build lasting relationships through excellent customer service, consistent communication, and creating an experience people remember.

We discuss:
✅ Creating a customer experience people remember
✅ Building trust through great communication
✅ Turning one-off jobs into repeat customers
✅ Generating more reviews and referrals
✅ Following up without being pushy
✅ Spotting customer red flags before they become a problem
✅ Using simple systems to stay organised and consistent

Whether you're just starting out or already running an established pressure washing business, this episode will help you build stronger customer relationships, increase repeat business, and grow through referrals.

🎧 Subscribe for weekly episodes helping pressure washing business owners grow smarter, faster, and more profitably.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello and welcome to the ninth episode of the Clean Hour Podcast. We are racking through them here, and uh today we're all about uh customer management, so client relations, that kind of thing, from the beginning of the journey with them right up to the end and moving forward into the future. So um we're going to be talking about how you handle customers to begin with, how you handle them on the job, the red flags. There's there's loads of things we can talk about here. Um but Matt, you alright? Welcome back, episode nine. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 0:28

Yes, episode nine. Yeah, we are flying through them. All is gold to the season, and these are just around the corner. But yeah, it's been good on it, it's been a good journey.

SPEAKER_00 0:37

Yeah, man. I think there's what's that? Four to go, I think. Yeah, four to go. Um, yeah. So hopefully you've been you've all been following this from episode one because it they're done deliberately in this order as like a journey. Um and we're heading towards the end of it, and then we're gonna have free reign. So I don't know what we're gonna talk about then, but we'll see. We've got a few ideas. Um, but customers today. Um, there's a lot to talk about here, especially red flags, which we'll get onto later on in the episode. I think people will be interested in that because we can share some stories about that. Uh, but I think first of all, let's talk about the customer experience from the beginning, I think. Um a lot of people get this wrong, and uh it can have a knock-on effect, can't it, for the future? Because if you if you start well with a customer, you could have them repeat business for years if you've got pressure washing or window cleaning or gutter cleaning. Um, so what are your thoughts of it? Why is it important to start off on the right foot and uh and and any advice from the beginning?

SPEAKER_02 1:33

Um I I think the very first thing is with customer the customer journey is uh is the very first time they come across you, right? Whether it's a paid ad, a flyer, your van, you're working next door, um that's the first impression they get. They know nothing else about you but what they see straight away. What you're trying to do, especially in external cleaning, right? In external cleaning, where you are looking for the lifetime value of a customer. So the customer journey is really important. If you're treating everybody as a one-off sale and then on to the next, you're missing a massive trick, you know, and especially I I speak to exterior cleaners that have had customers for 10 years. Now, if you think about it, if that customer's paying you four or five hundred pounds a year, so they're paying you 500 pounds a year, right? You've had it for 10 years, that that customer's lifetime value is five grand, innit? Rather than the 500 one-off clean. So, right from the very first uh image they get of you, it's really, really important. And the number of people that miss that, they miss they you know, this goes back to concentrating on being the world's best cleaner once again. Um, and we've spoken of this many a times before. But the customer side of it, the journey, the package you put together for the customer, the value you give them, you know, if you've got repeat services or you need to upsell services, or you know, and you want them to stay with you for longevity, then the customer journey is massively important. And if you can get that right, because the beauty is right, if you if you take a hundred new customers a year, say, and you can convert 50 of them to lifetime customers every year, that's 50 lifetime customers every year. So you don't need as many leads as you go on, do you? Because your client base is going to get bigger and bigger and bigger with your lifetime customers. So if you think about it that way, if you're starting off, you need lots of paid ads, lots of marketing, but if you get your customer journey right, you can reduce that over the years because they're staying with you. That's the beauty of customer journey.

SPEAKER_00 4:10

The easiest customers, the easiest leads to sell to are ones that have already bought off you, is a good thing, good way to think about that. And also with that, remember, comes repeat and and referral. Sorry. So if you add, let's say you take on 50 new clients and then maybe 25% stay on next year, that 25% may then recommend two or three people each to you. And then you've got three or three or three times the amount of leads, then, plus the new ones that you that you're gonna get anyway from your ads, like you just said. So it's it's yeah, it's like I think the first few years are difficult in this industry because you've got no one knows who you are, no one knows you exist, so yeah, you have to spend more and get really get out there. You should never stop advertising as we as we know, but you've got to almost like get over the um the waves to begin with and get out of there. And then when the repeat work comes back, there's way less pressure then. And and upsetting as well, you know, like if you do a driveway in July for someone, do the roof, possibly in October, do the windows, do the gutters twice a year. There's there's so much potential there. Um because I guess there only is a certain amount of houses in an area, isn't there, really? So you can't just keep going one service, one service, and you go around everyone because eventually you will run out. So you've got to keep it going uh and keep upsetting because it's an easy, easy way to make keep making money. Um so let's talk about should we talk about before that you arrive to a job, what can you do with a customer? Should we talk about that? Because we've mentioned before about the rightly or wrongly the uh image people have of exterior cleaners, and we've got to try and break those barriers. We've gone over that before in previous episodes. But let's assume that stigma is still there and people see think we're a bit dodgy or whatever people think about us. What can we do before we actually meet these these clients to start the relationship off on the right foot, do you think? I guess it'd be when the league comes in, isn't it? Or was it before that? I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 6:05

Yeah, well, well, it it's uh I I believe it's before that, right? It it's before they ever inquire. So your very first image they see of you, be on your social media, be your van, be whatever, right? Be you walking down the ice street and you've got a branded shirt on with your details on the back, everything, it's the first time they meet you. Then once they inquire, we know about speed to lead because people live in a busy, busy world and they want it really quick. But it's how you communicate, it's how you communicate, how you package everything, how you keep them informed. I see a lot of people, right, try to baffle them with an email that takes 50 minutes to read and 20 attachments. They're not interested, just be professional, get the value to the front of the email, you know, and respond really, really quickly to them. If they ask a question, get back to them, you know. Um, another good thing is as well, is let's say you're an ex external cleaner, right? Let's say you're going to clean Mrs. Jones's patio, right? How about you have a video, a 30-second video, that you just WhatsApp two days before the clean, and it says, Hi, it's Jim from Jim's Exterior Cleaning. We're with you in two days to clean your patio. Can you please make sure blah blah blah, the gates open, the furniture's move, whatever you want to put in there. We're really looking forward to transforming your patio. See you in two days. Bang. So stuff like that. That is where value is given. She may have booked this three months ago, depending on your lead times. She may have actually forgot you're coming. Because life moves different for everybody else, doesn't it? So just dropping a nice little video, friendly, smiling, in your uniform, you know, out in front of your van, whatever, in your office, a little 30-second video, you know, and then through the day, right? If she's at work through the day, why don't you send uh another little video through the day to her and say hi, halfway through, look at the transformation already. It's gonna be brilliant when you get home tonight. Don't and at the end of the day, send a completion video. That will mean so much to her. She's sat in an office, she's got someone she doesn't know at a property working, even if she's in the property, send her the videos because she might not want to come out because it's all messy and dirty, or the weather ain't grown, or she's working in the home office. Just send her the little videos, you know. You're building this connection, you're building this package, you're building this customer care that it shows that you actually care about them, and it's not just about the money, it's not just a a financial transaction to you as the company owner building the business. You actually care about that customer, they will see that that's how you're building this. So that that's what I'd be looking to do, definitely, because there's so much value in that, and people just don't do it, we just don't do it.

SPEAKER_00 9:21

It's touch points, isn't it? And uh yeah, what you just said about coming onto their property, we've said this before home service-based businesses. It's it's one of the biggest trusts you know that we see is is someone we're asking someone to trust us to come to their property where their family are, where their kids are, where their cars and their most prized possessions are. And if they don't trust us, it's just not gonna happen. You we're uh we're asking people to come to their house basically, and and you know, go open their side gate, go to the tap around the into their garden where they have their family time and stuff. They have to trust us. And that is a really easy way to do it, is send little things like that. I was just thinking um of companies who do it. I was trying to think of some who do it. I was thinking uh Jet 2, I don't know if you've ever been with Jet 2, it's like a holiday somewhere in Europe. Uh they they're like that, they do things like that, they send you um updates, you're flying in this amount of days, make sure you check in, all this kind of stuff. I know most people do that, but that's just Jet2 was I think they're the number one airline agency at the minute in Europe. And it's because they do stuff like that and it and just makes makes you feel a tiny bit important. I think that's what people want to feel. And then they're more likely to then push on someone else and say, someone says, I need my patio doing, oh, I've had uh I'd Matt, Matt did this, and he even did this, and that is when you get your repeat and your referrals then, and that's when you're in a gold mine, maybe 18 months down the line, when it all comes back to you. It's like doing the early work, isn't it? It's planting the seeds, then it'll come back eventually, instead of just starting from scratch every year.

SPEAKER_02 10:47

Uh imagine taking it a step a step further back than what we just spoke about, right? Imagine you go and see Mr. Smith, and he wants his render cleaning, right? You go and see him, you go out your way, you go down, you spend 20 minutes talking render cleaning. It's took you a 20-minute drive, 20 minutes on site, 20 minutes to get home. That's an hour of your time, right? You then you've given the price in the garden, like we speak about, and he said, Yeah, okay, get me booked in. You then go home, you send him the official quote, write in and the date you're gonna do it. He replies back, pays his deposit, everyone's great. Once he's paid his deposit, how about then send him a little thank you? A little thank you video that just says, Hey, really glad you've booked, really glad you've seen the value in our our company. Don't forget to keep an eye on our social media for every day. We're transforming properties just like yours, and put the links in and put the links in. Just that little thank you that will mean so much to him. And then if the clean is six weeks later, then the next video goes out, just says, Hey, we're with you in two days. That's just so so powerful. Yes, it is time consuming, but once you've made that the first video, right? You just keep it on your phone and it's stored and it goes to everybody that books with you. Everybody that books with you gets that little video.

SPEAKER_00 12:17

What I'm thinking there is it might take time, but this brings us on nicely to the next thing I want to talk about is a CRM system, which I'm a huge, huge advocate for. And I think I honestly think if you're not using a CRM system in the next year or two moving forward, you're gonna get left behind because what you can do with that is, and and the top companies do this right. So a CRM system, you can Google this, you can find one, there's loads out there. You automate everything. So with that, you could you let's just imagine you've booked Mr. Smith to do his patio. He's there logged as a customer there on your CRM systems, on your dashboard. You can set things up that maybe you you press one button that says now he's a customer or or uh deposit paid. As soon as he pays the deposit, he's clicked on that, you click that in your CRM. That then triggers a whole automation. For example, immediately a text gets sent out to him. Thanks so much for uh for paying your deposit. Here are the videos and the socials like you just said, Bam. And then it can then you set it to wait, maybe two days before the job, and it says just a reminder we're with you in two days. And you can set it from another reminder one hour before, just a reminder will be with you in one hour. And then you can set another thing after, so two days after the job, here's the review. So everything is automated, and that's when it makes life so much easier. And then everyone's in a uh in a pipeline in your journey, a section, you know, where are they? Have they uh inquired? Are they not interested? Have they uh paid the deposit? Has the job completed? And all of a sudden it's not as time consuming as you might think because it's all automated for you. That's next level for me. That's when you take it to a really, a really top business. Uh because and then that that we've gone to speed to lead in a minute, but that's um yeah it makes your life so much easier and makes you a proper business.

SPEAKER_02 13:57

And if you but and if you buy back into that, I I I agree with everything you've just said there wholeheartedly, right? And then how many times do you see people put a post on the business Facebook or Instagram or TikTok that says, Oh, we're doing a special this month of you know 10% off repointing or render cleaning, right? Well, imagine if that was in video form and your CRM sent that out to everyone who was a customer. Do you know what I mean? Rather than putting it on your Facebook, you can put it on your Facebook, but if you've got if you've got two and a half thousand people in your CRM that have bought from you, trust ya, can you imagine how powerful sending we're doing 10% off render and sending it to two and a half thousand people in the press of a book and you can just so quickly as long as they've bought bought into it and agreed that to receive communications from you, which they have to have to, but you you know you give them the chance to, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:06

Yeah, and there's always a long stuff. Yeah, that's what I mean. Yeah, you you can yeah, you can WhatsApp everyone with a video like you just said. I mean, that's what that's what big brands do around Christmas time and stuff, that they'll always do that, or like Black Friday on Amazon or anything like that, you get them all every time. Easter, Easter sales, New Year's sales, whatever. Ever all these top brands do it because it works. Yeah, it absolutely works. You can pay money on new leads, which are great, you always want new leads coming in. But if half your client base is just sitting there waiting to be sold to again, you've got to take advantage of that. And manually doing that, yeah, you can do it, it's gonna take you bloody ages, and we know that cleaners don't have the time. So if you look at a CRM system, it'll really, really help you and speed things up. Um, which brings us on to the next point of the topic is speed, uh, speed to lead, speed of response. We talk about this quite a lot, but it's that's a big part in the customer uh journey, isn't it? Because said it before, you can get all the leads in the world that you want, but if you're not getting back to them straight away, they're not leads, they're just dead, they're pointless leads. Um, so whether you have someone in the office doing it, which is great, not a very small percentage of companies will have that. So, automation for me is is the way to go. But either way, whatever way you do it, we have to get back to these leads quickly, don't we? Otherwise, they're just gonna move on. We've seen that so many times.

SPEAKER_02 16:18

It it is, you know, like life, everybody. If you think about it not from the business owner, right? Take yourself out of your company, just take yourself out of your company for two minutes, right? And put yourself in the position of a consumer. When you're looking to buy something, whether it's online or it's going out to do it, whatever it is, right? Whatever you do as the consumer, right? Pretty much 99% of the time, it has to be done with speed because the life is hectic. You're trying to run a company, well, they might be trying to run a company or run a business or work for someone, they've got kids running around, they've got school runs, they've got pat lunches to make, they've got the life carries on. People aren't sat in this ivory tower going, oh, I think I'll book an external cleaner today, and I've got the next four days to go milling over all these companies and choosing who I want to use. Life is busy, they've got to the point that the pain of a dirty patio or weeds coming through it or moss falling off the roof is now their number one priority at that split second. So when they fill that form in, their life is carrying on. They haven't got the time to wait for you three or four days later. And there's a there's a there's a fact that speed to lead, 70% of consumers buy from the first company to respond. So if they've if they've gone to you, they've probably gone to another three companies, right? And the first one to respond 70% of the time wins the race. So if you're still on leads for three or four days, you might as well not reply to them, you might as well delete them. Because you're just wasting your time. It is imperative that you uh uh deal with that either personally or someone in an office or automation. If you're not doing that, you need to be doing it really quickly. Because you're if you're paying for leads and you're letting them sit in your inbox because you're on the tools, and then when you get home tonight, you've got quotes to do, or you've got this to do, or the kids' football, or the missus wants the grass cutting, or whatever, right? Because you're a busy person and you go, I'll deal with the leads tomorrow, but then I'm back on the tools again tomorrow. You you just you might as well turn your paid ads off if you're not on them like lightning, turn them off and save the money because you're just wasting them anyway.

SPEAKER_00 19:01

I have a I have a perfect example of this that happened yesterday, weirdly. So um, if Aaron doesn't know, I have my own cleaning business, but the cleaning has been on hold because this agency has taken over massively. But over the past few months I've been training my dad and my brother up, so we've been accepting certain jobs that come in when we can. And then I send my dad and my brother out and we train them. And I had an organic lead come in yesterday, I won't say the name or anything, but it's basically asking, Can you do my drive? Um, so that came in at 5.33 yesterday. At 534, she had an automatic response saying, Thank you very much uh if you're inquiring, blah blah blah. She then said, You're the first person I spoke to. And she was booked, confirmed 12 minutes later. And it's not a cheap price because I've been not charging extra, but I'm making sure it's a fair price because we don't need the cleans at the minute. Yeah, yeah. And that's that's a per that's not I mean I've pop it up on screen but it's GDPR, but that's that's true, that happened yesterday, and that is the perfect example. So she said you're the first person. There you go. I went Birmingham, there's so many people doing it, but she went, bam, sorted, done, booked in next available date.

SPEAKER_02 20:08

That's a yeah, because because I suppose, right, you sensible people, you know, and there is customers that aren't sensible, we know that, right? But sensible people will have a parameter of cost. So if I want my drive cleaning, I'm gonna have a parameter of cost where I think it is and what I'm prepared to pay, unless somebody convinces me differently. So I look at my drive and I go, I need a drive cleaner, it's driving me mad. Right, I'm gonna say that's between 300 and 700 pounds, and I'm prepared to pay 600 quid. Right? That's just me sat here looking at my drive going, that's where it's gonna be. Now I know nothing about it, but I'm half sensible and I know what things cost-ish. So I inquire the speed till he comes back to me, automated, I tell them the information they want because I'm really in a rush. They then come back to me and say it's 550 quid and I can do it in three weeks. Bang, done. Because you're in my parameters, so I don't need to go anywhere else. If it comes back at 1200 quid, then I need to think, Oh, hang on, have I got this wrong or are they taking the mic off? Now I need to wait for other quotes. But if you're if you're 70% of people book with the first person, so if you're in the parameters, then you're gonna get the job, aren't you? Because they've booked it and they're on with the life. That's it, they're on with the life, they don't need to worry about it, and that's why speak to lead is important.

SPEAKER_00 21:52

We um massively needed someone to come around the other month um to put TVs on the wall and do. Light switch and do little things around the house. And uh my wife put it out on like a local Facebook group, and uh this guy came back and was around in about two hours taking a look at it. Uh and I really we really liked him and we trusted him to come in and uh booked him there and then. And what's weird is he couldn't do it for 14 days because he was going away, but we still kept it because I went, yep, book him in, bam, and back to work. And that I think that backs that up, it's a good example of that. I could have probably could have found someone if I'd really looked to come out the next day, but I liked him, he was there, book him in back to life, sorted.

SPEAKER_02 22:36

Yeah, uh and it is it we you know my roof cleaning company were taking book-ins for the second week of October, you know, we're recording this on the 3rd of July, you know, and people are yeah, mate's fine, absolutely fine. Because of we've got the speed to lead, we've got the videos, we've got the package, we've got everything for the customer journey. They see the value, they see what we do, and they go, Yeah, it's fine. Yeah, bookers in, yeah, bookers in, it's fine, you know. Um, and and I and I hear people worry about that. Oh god, you know, people aren't gonna wait, people aren't no, no, no, no. That's your take on it. Customers buy value and they see the value you give them, and you imagine, right? If you want your roof clean it and someone can do it next week, what does that tell me as the consumer? It tells me, A, you're not busy, right? Or you know, uh, you're not busy. Why aren't you busy? If you're that good, you've just stood in my garden telling me for the last 10 minutes how great you are, which you shouldn't be doing, but you have done. Then you ask them, when can I book it in? So I can do it next week. Well, hang on. You've just spent fucking 10 minutes telling me the fucking best things in sliced bread. If you're gonna blow your own trumpet and you're gonna tell people that you're the best thing since sliced bread, the next bit that they follow up, if they believe in all that, when can you do it? Well, there's the bad thing I'm really expensive and I can't do it for three months. Shit. He must be good because you can't that you see the difference in the set of it, and and that's what but it's our own mindset. We've got oh god, I can't, you know. I dread being booked up for three months because people won't book me. They will, they will book me you. You've just got to change your mindset, and they will still continue to book. You know, we're hoping to have October completely booked by the end of July, and then we'll go on again to the next, it's just that's just the way it is, you know. It it's yeah, it's good, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:51

Man, if people people trust you, you make their life convenient by getting bats and quickly, you make the process easy as they'll go with you. You know what the um that's it's all about that, really, isn't it? It's making their life as comfortable as possible and it's stress-free. You know what? I think honestly, one of the best invention is of this of modern times. I don't know if you agree, but I honestly think it's incredible, is the one click purchase on Amazon. I honestly think that changed the world, and if that's dramatic. But you know, where you can literally just buy anything with one click and it's here the next day with Prime, that sums everything up. That sums up where we're at a society now. Need it quick and need it easy, bam, and Amazon clocked that, made that you can get right now. If I want pretty much anything within reason, I could get it by tomorrow with Amazon in about 10 seconds. And it's great. And it's not saying you know, yes, it's some things are cheap and stuff, but what I'm saying is that that they've made people's lives so much easier, don't have to go to the shop, don't have to search around, it's all there, bam. And it's the same it's like test one. It's like Tesco's wash. What's that?

SPEAKER_02 25:56

Tesco's wash is a delivery to your house within 20 minutes.

SPEAKER_00 26:00

Oh, I didn't know that. Well, there you go.

SPEAKER_02 26:02

So you you could be sat on your couch watching the football, run out of beers, go onto the app, Tesco's wash it, and you'll get four cans of Stella in 20 minutes delivered to you.

SPEAKER_00 26:14

Well, there you go. Sums it up.

SPEAKER_02 26:16

That's yeah, yeah, yeah. Because there is an argument for having that in your external cleaning business, right? And I've looked at this. People say to me, Oh, but you're booked up for um three months, right? I can't get my roof cleaned for three months. So there was an argument that we offer a black label um service that were if you want your roof cleaned in the next two weeks, we would do it, right? We would make that happen, but rather than paying a thousand pounds a day, it's gonna cost you 1800 quid.

SPEAKER_00 26:57

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 26:59

Because some people don't want to wait. Do you know what I mean? And there was an argument for bringing that in and having it as like a black label platinum deal, where you can wait three months and have it at a grand, or you can have it in two weeks, but it's gonna cost you 1800 quid. And that is something that we have seriously looked at, right? Because that's the same as Amazon Prime. Amazon Prime is dearer, but you get it tomorrow, so it's your appetite, it's your appetite for waiting, isn't it? If you don't there is people out there that don't want to wait, there is people out there that do not want to wait. If I want my patio cleaned, me personally, I want it cleaned this weekend, and I'm prepared to pay a premium for that. I don't want to wait three months, I don't want to wait three months, I don't want to wait three, I don't want to wait three days for anything. My impatience drives me mad. I want it now. So there is people out there that will pay, and we have seriously looked at that. Then what we thought is because we're fully booked anyway, how do then we logistically get it in? That's the problem. That's what I think slowed me down on it. But I think if you've got ability, if you've got a decent sized team and you can make it work, maybe there is a bit in there that you can put in, you know, a premium platinum service, but you're gonna pay almost double. But some people are fine with that.

SPEAKER_00 28:34

Like uh, another example I was thinking of there, we go to um Orlando quite a lot and go to all like the theme parks that we we do that probably every two or three years. And if you've ever been, I don't know if you've ever been, Matt, but if anyone is listening, has ever been, you the park entry is fucking so expensive. Like you can buy a pass if you're British, but let's just say it costs you $250 to get in there just to one park in one of the Disney parks or whatever. You then can pay like 17 pounds extra a ride or a one-day fast pass where you beat the queues, like a fast pass onto the rides. They sell out, they sell out every day, those fast passes. So it just shows you people are willing to spend probably double or triple that what they were gonna spend just to save on those few minutes and the convenience. The demand is always there, there's always someone to buy it 100%.

SPEAKER_02 29:22

So um well, look look look at the flights, your fast track security, yeah, speedy boarding. Why do you want to get on a plane quicker to sit on it that everyone else is gonna get on? Because people want to get on, get all the shit in overhead locker, get the sandwiches out, get themselves all comfy. That's true, and two minutes later, everyone else gets on anyway, but they're prepared to pay for that. So there is there is you know, anyone that's listening that's looking for something different to add to the the business, if you've got capacity in your teams, it's a little bit hard if you're an owner-operator, right? Because you're not if you're booked up, how are you gonna get it in? Unless you're gonna work a Sunday. Do you want to work a Sunday? No, probably not. But if you've got multiple teams and you can make it work, then maybe that's just something to look at is having this ultimate make it do it in two weeks, or you can wait three months, yeah, and put a real big ticket price on it, you know, and and a way you go.

SPEAKER_00 30:30

It all comes back to what we were talking about at the beginning is the customer journey, and if whatever you can do to make that more easier, uh quicker, or more premium, more convenient, do it because um it's huge. Yeah, it's absolutely huge. Yeah, absolutely. Let's talk a bit about following up after the job. Some of the things we can do. Um, what do you do? I used to do uh when I was um say we were cleaning a roof or cleaning a driveway or whatever, say the job was done and then the rest of it was just packing up and sweeping down and packing the van back up. Whilst before I packed away, I'd knock on the door and show up, give them a walk around and say, This is what we've done in Happy, and they'd say, Yep, brilliant. And then I'd I'd say to them, Whilst I'm packing away, could you do me a massive favour? And I'd just get like this link out and say, Would you mind leaving me a quick review? Just while I'm packing up for 10 minutes, it'd really help. And most of the time they'd say yeah. So you get them there and then and they'll leave you a review. And it's just a that's a little trick that I used to do. But the goal is, I guess, after is touch base them, make sure they're happy, and try and get a review. Would you agree with that after uh follow-up? Anything else? You do anything else missed there?

SPEAKER_02 31:36

Reviews are very hard, aren't they? People don't like leaving them. We've spoken before, you know. You look at your favourite restaurant that you've been going to for the last six, seven years. How many reviews have you seen them? None. We just don't like leaving reviews, and I agree, collecting reviews is really good.

SPEAKER_00 31:55

I think it's you we can't be asked, I think, is the truth of it.

SPEAKER_02 31:58

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, it is, it can't be asked because it's we're in a busy world, aren't we? A busy life. But I I will I've said this before on my social media. The best thing you can do, and it's a really bizarre way of looking at it, but once I say it now, the penny will drop, right? The best thing you can do at the end of the job is ask the customer why they never nearly booked you. Once they're happy with the job, right? And you've walked around, you've done the handout, you've done all the nices, once you're about to say terra, the last thing you should ask them is, can I just ask you why you never nearly booked me?

SPEAKER_00 32:43

Break that down for people listening. So you've told I understand this now, but when the wording's weird, but just explain what you mean by that because it makes perfect sense when you explain it.

SPEAKER_02 32:51

So, so what what you want to know is right, is why did you not nearly book me? Because what we're looking at now is right, you're already busy, you're already three months ahead of books up. So now we're looking for percentages, little tweaks to make it even better. So, if you ask somebody why did you not nearly book me, they're gonna say something that you probably haven't seen, right? And it may be something really, really simple like it it oh god, I don't really know. Oh god, remember I went on your website and I had to search for your contact form.

SPEAKER_00 33:34

You're basically asking why why did you almost go with someone else? Yeah, that's the question.

SPEAKER_02 33:40

You know, and and that and that's it, you know, why did you not why did you nearly not book me? Because you want to it's now we're talking the fine details, right? You're now established, you've now got a market in place, you've now got workflow coming in, you're now doing good work, you're building good socials, your customer journey's good, everything now is on autopilot, it's ticking along, and you're in a good position, right? And hopefully you're starting to get some money in the bank that we call profit, and and life's pretty rosy, right? And you think, I fucking cracked this, I'm the fucking best at X, Y, and Z. Right. So now we're looking at really, really fine margins. So ask them that question. Because they may say something, they may say something like, Yeah, because your website's shite, but your social medias are really good. How many times do you see that? I see it all the time, right? I'd go onto people's socials and I go, Oh fuck me, they're really good at this. They're really good at doing content, really good at talking, really good at before and afters. Oh, click here to see our website. I'd go on the website, and it was like it was fucking built in a dark room by a moron. It's just there's just no fucking comparison. The socials are really good, and the website is absolutely fucking dire. And I'm like that. Is this the same company? And then I go back to the socials and click through again and go, it is the same company. And it's sometimes nothing matches, and it might just be a little thing like that. And when someone says it to you, you go, shit, I haven't updated my website for 10 years, and it happens because we're busy, we're busy, we're busy doing what we do, we're busy being good, we're busy going ahead. Our socials are all because socials are done daily, aren't they? We update socials daily, right? Every day we're updating socials. Websites get overlooked, so it might be the answer you get is yeah, your website was clonky, or you've got too many videos and it took too long to load. And I and then I found you on Google.

SPEAKER_00 35:48

It could be a range of things, couldn't it? It could be like like literally, uh those two of the guys with um 10 more reviews. Maybe those I've trusted them a bit more. Well, that shows you, okay, fuck it, I'm gonna get down now and get 10 more reviews than then. Correct. Or uh, you know, there's anything like that. Yeah, you took a little too long to respond to a couple of people got in before you okay. Now I can improve that. But yeah, it's valuable, valuable based.

SPEAKER_02 36:08

Fine margins, fine, fine margins. That's what you're looking at. You know, once you've got established, it literally comes down to fine margins. When you're building from day one, the fine margins aren't that important because you need a bigger, broad scale to get your week going. But once you get the momentum and you get tuned in, then it comes down to fine margins. Fine margins are critical.

SPEAKER_00 36:35

How do you um sorry, bit uncomfortable here? How do you ask for reviews? What's your what's your process?

SPEAKER_02 36:42

How um at the end of the job, so we roof cleaning at the end of the job. I will say to them, you know, do the walk-round, do the handover, do all that, have the chat, um, ask them, not everyone, but I'll ask certain people why did you not nearly book us? Um, because I want to know that fine margin. And then I'll just say to them, I'll say, look, Tessa will send you the invoice and the review link. If you could leave us a review, I know you're busy, but it really does help. And we don't get the reviews. I think I think we're on 91 reviews, 91 five-star reviews in four years. We send the links out with the invoice, we then send it out a week later, we then send it out two weeks later, and then we write it off. But people just don't want to leave reviews, it's a really hard thing. Um, you know, and and our aim this year is to get to 105-star reviews. Um, and it but it's relentless. We're relentless with it. People just don't want to leave reviews. People start to your face and say, Oh, absolutely, send me the link and I'll leave you a blind review and then never hear off them again.

SPEAKER_00 37:59

People just tend to leave bad reviews, really. Um, yeah, yeah, it's just it's human nature, innit?

SPEAKER_02 38:05

It's really it's it's a really hard process getting reviews, and you don't want to be beggy, you don't want to be beggy, and you don't want to be desperate, and you've got to respect people's privacy because at some point you're gonna tip them over, aren't you? To then telling people, oh, they did a great job, but then they fucking hounded me for a review, and you don't want to do that, so it's getting that fine line, and you've got to just be with it that we we were doing 300 roofs a year, right? Uh and we've got 91 reviews. It's not from not asking, you know, it's just people don't want to leave reviews, it's just fascinating.

SPEAKER_00 38:45

If you picture anything though, uh let's picture um let's picture you're in a pub, right? And you go for a pint, and one time someone pours you a beautiful pint, and you have a good crack with the barman or barwoman, and uh there you go, it's a lovely pint, you sit back down, nice experience, right? And imagine you have another one and you say you can have a pint of Stellar or whatever, and he goes, No, fuck off. And then he gives you half a pint that's uh fizzed up. You're you're more likely to tell people about the second experience than the first one because we remember the bad things. Yeah, of course. That's why that's why you gotta say, I think, take it with a pinch of salt. You know, if you look at hotels or look at anything and there's a couple of bad reviews, it's important to remember that people only leave bad reviews really unless they really, really love something and they're willing to do it. So don't get disheartened if people aren't leaving your reviews, it just means you might have to just work a bit harder to get them. So, yeah, people people say um people focus on the bad more than the good for sure. That's just human nature, I think. I don't know why we do that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:43

What what while we're on the subject of reviews, another thing that really fucking bothers me when I review customers' social footprints is uh we've just spoke for two, three minutes about reviews, is the number of contractors that don't fucking reply to reviews. That that that if I was going to buy from you and I was checking your Google My Business and you're boasting about your hundred two hundred five-star reviews, and I click on them, and you haven't had the decency to reply to them people, then you're fucking off the list. And and it and it and there'll be people listening going, what people don't reply. Go on to Google, go on to any fucking industry, spend 10 minutes going through people's reviews, and you will find them instantly. People just don't reply to reviews, businesses don't reply, yeah, they just don't reply. I mean, a lot do, but they are out there, they just don't reply to reviews. And I'm like, ah, so you've hammered them for a review, they've taken the time to left what leave one, and now you can't be our saying thank you for the lovely review. It was a pleasure working for you.

SPEAKER_00 41:02

Fucking well, responding obviously shows you care. Uh, it it also helps you push up Google because Google likes interacting and stuff, and also you can add in little touches, can't you? Like um, I don't know, if you met their dog or you met the husband or whatever happened, you could just throw that oh thanks so much, it was great to meet, blah blah. I hope the dog's okay. Little things like that can really give you an image online, really portray you in a way.

SPEAKER_02 41:29

It makes it personal. You know, if she if she makes if they make you a fucking cup of tea and they give you a slice of homemade cake, mention that. Mention that if something funny happened in the job, mention that. Do you know what I mean? You've got so much that goes on, it just brings that personal touch, but it shows you care and this is the customer journey, you know. They that that's almost the close of it, in it, is you thanking them once again for their review, you know, and with my customers that they're not lifetime customers, so that literally does close that journey down. But if you're an external cleaner and you want to go back next year, that's really powerful, that. Because next year, right? When you send them a message, you can say, Hey Jenny, it's Mark from Exterior, blah blah blah. Love the cake last year. We're looking at doing your patio again this year. Hope you've got any cake going. Do you know what I mean? It just breaks that ice, doesn't it? It just breaks it for you, and you're in again.

SPEAKER_00 42:36

You know, and it's just the little things like um but where are you cleaning rooms in like a rolled oil book or something? So some home, some homemade cakes.

SPEAKER_02 42:47

But but but we've had we've had numerous people bake cakes, right?

SPEAKER_00 42:54

It's a different world in the cosmore, I'll tell you that.

SPEAKER_02 42:56

Yeah, maybe it is because when you're doing when you're doing you know, fucking three, four million pound mansions, the fucking the maids and the kitchen staff are baking cakes. I don't know. But we get loads of stuff made for us. But so we've made some chocolate brownies for you. Well, how lovely. You know, it's it's just it's just nice.

SPEAKER_00 43:17

It sounds bloody lovely down there, I take it right now.

SPEAKER_02 43:19

It is, it is nice, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:21

Might not get that in Birmingham.

SPEAKER_02 43:22

Fucking ra fucking ra No, probably not, but there you go.

SPEAKER_00 43:28

There you go. Okay, uh yeah, let's go on quickly this episode. Um, let's talk about two things that are important. Dealing with complaints and customer red flags. Let's go complaints first. Um we've had a few interesting ones in my I've got a group in all my clients in. There's been some really picky customers this year. A couple of not for me, I mean them who've done jobs for. Someone said the other day, I won't say who it is, but they um the neighbor threatened to sue. The one of my guys because he uh wore he sprayed down um their property without asking. So it's crazy, but you get some absolute crazy people. Um you get them right. People neighbours are strange, sometimes you get strange customers. How do you I mean have you had complaints? I'm guessing you must have had a couple at some point. Uh how to deal with them and how should you approach it mentally because it can affect you massively.

SPEAKER_02 44:27

You you you always deal with complaints, honestly, and um face them straight away. Ignoring them causes major dramas. You need to face them front on, hit them running, be professional, be courteous, but don't be fucking taken for a fool, right? If you've done nothing wrong and the complaint is bullshit, then in a nice professional way, tr try and you know, try and reason with them that they're being listen, mate, honestly, I've washed it down for you. Just I haven't damaged anything, I'm just looking after your property. But what I will say with complaints, right? Nine times out of ten, if a neighbour complains, it's not about you, it's because they fucking hate the person having the work done. So, absolutely, so what you should always do is the person you're working for, when you do the quote, you ask them, how do you get on with the neighbours? Can I use their drive? Can I put a scaffold on it? Can I put a machine on it? Will it be okay with me going round to clean up, right? Because that's your first indication. And what they'll say is, oh god, no, don't, you know, him to the right is a fucking nightmare. We don't speak. Right. You're now pre-warned that the house to the right is going to be a drama, right? So on day one of the work, your first job is to go to that house. You knock on the door, you introduce yourself, and you apologize there and then for any noise, any mess, and you reassure them that you will fucking clean it immaculate and you'll knock on the door for them to check. That almost, if not 100%, gets rid of them complaining. Because you already know that you already know they don't get on, they're waiting for something to happen to complain. And now, if you don't go and knock on the door and do that, they've got you, and you know a complaint's coming. That that's the first thing. So ask the client about the neighbours, and if they say no, they're fucking lovely and we get on really well with them, still knock on the door and introduce yourself because you might get a lot of people.

SPEAKER_00 46:43

Apologise in advance for noise and mess and stuff.

SPEAKER_02 46:45

Yeah. But if they say they're a nightmare, you fucking need to be doubly nice to them. Because that will stop the complaint. That will stop the complaint if you're doubly nice with them.

SPEAKER_00 46:57

I pulled a job last year. Uh I don't know if I told you this. We last September, I think it was, turned up to do a roof clean with my dad in the morning and um got to the it was a semi-dached property. The neighbour, right? They hadn't had this done when I quoted it, but they had a brand new roof painted, like a brand new roof with the colour on it. It obviously had been sprayed. I looked at it and I thought, oh my god, semi-detached as well. There's gonna be some water and some mess go over it, it's gonna need rinsing down. I thought, oh man, this is gonna be tough here. So I said to him, What are your neighbours like? And he said, Don't get me started on the neighbours. And I said, What do you mean? He said, just I don't want to talk about it. And I went, seriously, and he said, Yeah, and I said, mate, I it's gonna be risky doing this because there's some pressure and some water's gonna go on their newly sprayed roof, they it's gonna happen. And he went, it'd be fine, don't worry, we'll we'll argue about it later. And I said, Nah. And I pulled the job because I thought this is gonna be a disaster in. They're gonna they're gonna come blame me, even though this the dispute is between them. If imagine if I took off a few tiles of newly sprayed paint. Fuck. So I pulled it, absolutely pulled it. But um but I think with with if you're doing a high amount, a high volume of work, you're gonna get a couple of issues at some point. Don't take it personally. If it happens to you, you've got to be professional. If you've really ballsed up, own it and apologize and do what you can to fix it. If if you unless you've destroyed someone's property and there's no coming back from it, you can rectify most things in this industry. And but if you don't address it, if you just fuck off and and and never go back to it, it will come back to bite you one day. Because I I I always think of reviews, it goes back to reviews. I I say I've been saying to my dad and my brother, who have been, like I said, have been training up, I've been saying, you've got to remember this all comes back to how we look online. One bad thing. What if you can't be asked one day or you're knackered or it's too hot or you're tired, one little mistake could lead to someone leaving a review and it's permanent damage to your to your reputation, then you've got to keep people happy and just keep it always remember that I think think of your reputation online because that's something you just can't it's very hard to get back if if it starts to go wrong. Um but yeah, so communication's key. Um should talk about you know what? Um should we talk about red flags? Let's talk about a few red flags quickly. Because maybe we'll do a full episode on this. I think we said we would soon. Um but with uh obviously we talked about keeping customers happy. Some customers you cannot keep happy, and we've both seen this before. Um what's a few red flags you see in customers maybe when you're quoting them, or maybe the job just starts, what you're thinking, what's some issues that you see regularly that you think I can't take these on, or I wish I hadn't taken them on.

SPEAKER_02 49:31

No, I I I think you learn with longevity um customer behaviour, um, and and you understand it when you turn up to quote. You've got to you've got to be able to read people and have a have the old sixth sense of hmm. You can tell by the way of questioning, the way they speak to you, that something isn't right, you know, and you get that. It's a I I I don't think you can teach yet. I don't think there's one thing that stands out that you can say it's that. I think you learn this through speaking and dealing with the public every single day, every single day, and you just learn mannerisms and you learn traits, and you can read body language right. People don't look at you in the eye when they're talking to you. It's all this body language thing, and subconsciously you're going to yourself, this doesn't fucking feel right. This right, uh and everybody's got it to a certain level, and I'll tell you how you know you've got it because the job is a thousand pounds today, and they say to you have you got the price? Yeah, you say it's 1900 quid because you don't want the job, so you've already doubled the money almost because you don't want the job. Your body's telling you something isn't right, something just doesn't sit right, right? And I'll I'll we did a roof clean this year, right? Something didn't sit right, and it was 1900. I said to the blokes 1900 quid. He went, yeah, okay. Can you get it booked in? I said, Yeah. So we sent him the quote. He then came back and said, Oh, Matt said on site that it was 1900 quid, including the VAT, not plus the VAT. And I was like, ah, fucking knew. I just knew, right? I knew. Anyway, I said to Tess, we'll just fucking do it. It's not even a day's work. Flat tiles will be out of there in four hours. So we're still gonna get fucking 1500 quid for four hours work, right? So we said, okay, we'll do it. So I was right on my initial quote, then I was right with the first email. We then went and did the job. It was the coldest day in February you've ever fucking seen. It was horrendous, right? They sat in the fucking fucking multi-million pound house. Watched you. We smashed yeah, watched us from their kitchen while they drunk fucking tea and coffee. While we fucking froze, we did the roof, cleaned it all up, everything was the flower beds. It was a big riding place, right? The flower beds are all full of all shit for manure around the roses. Some of the moss had gone in there. We weren't fucking picking through all shit, it'll just wilt down as manure dust, right? Everything was done. Then we tried to get paid.

SPEAKER_00 52:27

Oh my god, I can see where this is going.

SPEAKER_02 52:29

Yeah, we tried to get paid, and it was a fucking nightmare. He he he said you've left fucking moss in the flower beds. I said, Oh yeah, because the fucking it's full of or shit, and we're not picking through the ore shit to get rid of it. Oh, and one of the oh, there's a bit of moss left on the roof. I said, Which I told you that, we take 95% off. And he sent a picture, and it was probably the size of your thumbnail, right? Because flat tiles, it all comes off. There was a little bit the size of your thumbnail, and he said, You've knocked a piece of gutter in out of place and an end cap, and I don't think we had. But I said, Okay, I'll come back and do it. Anyway, wouldn't reply, wouldn't reply. Short story. I went back, I could see the red, they wouldn't open the gates. So I sat on my Jeep outside the gates for about an hour, and then he texted me and said, You're intimidating us, can you please leave? I said, mate, why don't you stand to your door? Why don't you stand to your door? I could have sought your problems and gone away. Anyway, we ended up giving another £200 to settle the bill. Fucking costumes like that. A multi-million pound house, you know, and I've been back past it now, and the roof looks fucking amazing. Yeah, so there is twats out there that are just out to do that.

SPEAKER_00 53:43

You'll know, you'll know D Down asking for discounts, um, watching you, your sorts, yeah. You'll know. We'll do a we'll we'll do a deep dive episode on this, one of the ones the next season I want to do because it's a big one. Yeah, um, right, couple minutes left. Questions. Let's let's do one for you. Um biggest most difficult customer that's taught you a lesson.

SPEAKER_02 54:10

Um can I tell you another quick job that went wrong, massively wrong, that taught me a massive lesson. In my maintenance company, my big maintenance company, we had a job to remove the asbestos roof from 30 car garage, you know, your normal car garage on your drive, two blocks of 15, and we fucked it up. Oh mate, and it we got it all in place, all the safety, everything was done, but we and then we had to put a new roof on, right? And we installed it fucking wrong. We ripped it, honestly. We ripped it off, we installed it again, and they still weren't happy, so they didn't pay us. That job cost me 45 grand. I was fucking beside myself. So I guess, I guess for me, you know, um, shit does go wrong, and you need to own it, you know. You don't get everything spot on. Um, and that was a massive learn for me. And the learn from that was don't take on fucking jobs, you don't know what you're doing, because it will fucking bite you in the ass massively, massively. Um, yeah, yeah, slightly off track.

SPEAKER_00 55:28

You gotta go through, you gotta go through those mistakes to get to you. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 55:32

Um, yeah. Question for you. Um on this podcast, what's something you've learned today from this podcast?

SPEAKER_00 55:46

From this particular episode, yeah, from this episode.

SPEAKER_02 55:49

Something you think, I like that, I'm gonna install that. Have you learned anything from it?

SPEAKER_00 55:54

I think it's not maybe not that I've learned, but something to hone in on is is touch points. Um touch points. I think when I thought of when we mentioned Jet 2 earlier, uh well, I mentioned Jet 2, uh, and all the automations they have, all the touch points. I just remembered how important they are and how I could apply it to my agency and and the the cleaning company moving forward.

SPEAKER_02 56:20

Um little and it's how it makes you feel, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 56:24

It makes them feel special, it makes you yeah, how it makes you feel yeah, exactly. Yeah, 100%. Yeah, and yeah, yeah, it's that it'd be that. It would be adding more touch points before the job, I think. Because then you know what it does as well. If there was a really good uh journey up until the job and anything ever went wrong on the job, it makes it damage imitation, isn't it? It makes it so much easier. If it's great that they love the they love you when you when you quote them, they love you what the information you give them, they love them when you get there, and you break a flower pot or something happens. If if you hadn't put those steps in at the start, it might be harder to deal with. Uh, but by doing that, I think it yeah, it makes it easier. Absolutely. 100%. Yeah. Question, one question from a listener. Uh, it's not really to do with what we spoke about today, but I'm just I told him I'd answer one. Um, as someone starting out, I'm trying to present myself professionally, but I don't yet have years of experience. Should I stick firmly to my prices or be a bit a bit flexible to keep the diary full instead of having empty days, or does that become a race to the bottom? That's what he's asked.

SPEAKER_02 57:36

Ooh, good question. Um, it's all to do with personal circumstances, isn't it? You know, you you you've got to get the balance right. Sitting at home not earning doesn't pay the bills. Going out building a portfolio of social media proof, building trust, getting reviews, you can always put your prices up as you get going, but don't don't enter if if you're gonna price for a patio and you're saying you need to earn £400 a day, right? And you go there and she says, Oh, but James will do it for £200 a day. Can you match that? No, tell us a fuck off. Because you ain't you're not James. There's a reason why you're £400. If she wants £50 off and she's got a book with you there and then, then yeah, absolutely, you can move it while she's starting off. You don't want to be point blank, nope it's £400 quid, £400 quid, because you're trying to build your reputation, your name. Don't don't be people can tell when you're new, right? Because the way you act and the way you conduct yourself, but don't get dragged into doing the same work for someone else's prices. Because the reason why your price is your price is because you're better than them, and that's why you charge that. So don't get dragged into it, but be sensible, but just be sensible with it.

SPEAKER_00 59:07

There's a time and place for it. I think when you're just starting out, it's okay to be a little bit cheaper. But if you say to yourself, I'm only going to be cheaper for the first five jobs or ten jobs, and then we're back up to normal prices. I think there's something in that because it allows you, like you said, to get content and then you can justify these prices. Um, but if you stick to those cheap prices because you're winning the jobs, then that is when it is a race to the bottom. So hopefully that has uh has answered that for you, my friend. Um cool, end of the episode. That went quickly, I went very quickly. Thank you for joining me uh again, Matt. Next week is risk management week 10. Next week, episode 10, we uh risk management. So um yeah, hope you all enjoyed that episode. Uh like I said, we're gonna do a full episode of red flags because I think that'd be interesting. So sorry we didn't get too long on that. Um but yeah, hope you enjoyed it and we will see you all on episode ten.

SPEAKER_02 59:55

Yep, see you on the next one. Thanks for having me again. Take care. Bye for now.