When and Why You’re Most Likely to Lose Customers

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Introduction

Hello everyone, welcome or welcome back to the Filthy Rich Cleaners podcast. I am your host Stephanie from Serene Clean and in today’s episode, I want to talk about the topic of danger zones for clients dropping in our cleaning businesses. And this topic is inspired by a fantastic conversation I had with one of you, Chelsea, last week.

She is just in the process of getting staff members in place. And she was very, very concerned about losing clients when she switched from her cleaning to a new hire cleaning. And we talked about it and the new hire is doing great. She gave me an update. So Chelsea, great job on biting the bullet and giving your new cleaner some faith to test it out.

But what our conversation actually triggered me of was, gosh, there is a lot of danger zones where clients are most likely to drop that I have seen, I have experienced nearly all of these causing me to lose residential clients. And some of these definitely apply for commercial as well. And so I want to share with you guys these danger zones so that you can think about this and you can hopefully prevent and mitigate as much as possible. Now, some of these, there’s only so much that you can do, but really for the most part, all of these, you can take action. A lot of it just comes down to communication, of course, and really keeping a finger on the pulse of your business.

So without further ado, let’s talk about these danger zones.

Switching Between Cleaners

So the first one that is most likely to occur, I believe, is switching between cleaners. So when you have one cleaning tech on a client and you have to, for whatever reason, switch to another one.

That is a very, very primo spot for you to lose clients because they were very attached or enamored with their current cleaner. That cleaner leaves, you have to fire them, their schedule changes, whatever, for whatever reason, you need to change the cleaning tech that goes to that house. And especially if you do not have very standardized expectations in place, or your cleaners are doing a lot of little extras and little special somethings, but they’re not communicating those things to you or putting them in the notes. This is where it makes it really hard for a new person to come in, even if that new person is great, and do the same job that the old cleaner was doing. And a lot of times it’s not even necessarily quality, it’s just how they behave in the home or they always, you know, the little stuffed animal arrangements, or they know that the client wants X, Y, Z just so. But again, that’s never been communicated to you.

And this is why the biggest thing that we can do to prevent this particular drop, there’s really three things, right? You need to have standardized cleaning checklists that your cleaners are following, even if they don’t leave them behind, you just, we do all of the same tasks. Because I have had it where cleaners were basically what they thought went above and beyond, but were doing tasks that we do not do. For example, I had cleaners climbing on top of countertops and cleaning the tops of cabinets. Of course, huge no-no for insurance policy, and we don’t climb on top of furniture, but now all of a sudden that is going to, and that cleaner I think was doing it on purpose, so she would stand out, and I can understand that sentiment. However, one, we don’t do that. Two, what that does then is when you do things that are totally outside of your typical scope of work and then you’re not noting it, meaning your cleaner isn’t letting you know that that’s happening. And then somebody new comes in and they do the correct scope of work, all of a sudden there is a difference here and it’s not the new person’s fault, right?

So that is why it’s so important that we are communicating to our cleaners, they must follow these standard things. And of course there can be little specials and putting your personality into it. But if all of a sudden they are deep cleaning the garage every single time and you don’t know that, and then the new person comes in, well of course they’re gonna be disappointed because all of a sudden there’s a huge discrepancy in what types of tasks are getting accomplished. So just making sure we’re communicating effectively with our cleaners that they are to do this.

And there is a difference between personal touches and doing outlandish tasks or anything that is completely outside of our typical scope of work, right? And if they are doing anything, it’s good to put those types of notes in there. Additionally, if a client communicates that they’re particular about something to a cleaner, make sure you bring that up on a regular basis to remind your cleaners, hey, if your client wants anything special or whatever, put that into the client notes in ZenMaid so that anybody who fills in for you can be successful.

And I really bring it back to the team when I’m talking about this, all right guys, we are a team. We are getting all of these cleanings done, even if we’re working individually, we are collectively tackling this load of work, right? And so when one of us is sick and another person has to fill in, every single person on the team has had to do, we want to set our team up for success. We want to give them the layup or whatever other sports terminology we can use here. I’m not a sports girly, but you know, we want to pass them the ball so that they can slam dunk it in, right?

And so that means really great extensive notes on what that client’s situation is, what are the pet’s names, all of these little details, just so that new person feels more comfortable and is able to accomplish the same level of cleaning. Because a lot of times it’s not necessarily quality, it’s those little things that stand out to clients the most. And they’re already being typically hypercritical because there’s a new person in the house and they were used to somebody else, right?

So the second thing that we really want to do, third, I don’t know, whatever, to prevent this, is we need to be checking in pretty much immediately after that first cleaning with the new cleaner. So you have to send a new cleaner, you are either quality checking in person on that cleaning, that first cleaning that they’re on, and or you are reaching out to the client saying, hey, is there anything different that happened that we need to take note? We just want to make sure that this transition is as seamless as possible because the other day, all your staff are gonna leave eventually, right? Whether it’s through leaving or death. So we need to be prepared for that. So we know that this is going to happen and because we know it’s gonna happen, that means we can plan for it and we can put things in place. Just really checking in with and just being blunt with the client, hey, I know you have a new tech, I just want to make sure everything was great on this first one. And even the second one, if they are a newer staff member, it’s not a bad idea to be doing those check-ins at that danger zone of losing them.

That would be something, and especially if you are having to switch cleaners a lot on a client, I mean, you need to be kissing their ass and making sure that it’s perfect because if you’re changing cleaners a lot, they’re gonna get super frustrated, which is kind of a secondary note. But just in general, switching between cleaners is going to be one of the biggest reasons somebody is going to drop.

This comes down to standardization, comes down to communication, and it comes down to quality control, right? So if we do those things, one, that’s good for business, that’s good for our systems and our processes and our scaling, but it’s good for this very specific scenario as well.

Switching Off Owner Cleaning

This kind of ties into number two, which is what Chelsea brought up to me of, you know, I have been cleaning and now I am bringing somebody in to my business for the first time and I’m so nervous to be giving them my clients and I’m so nervous about the quality and all of that. And what Chelsea and I talked about of course was, again, coming back to very standardized extensive list of tasks because that sets your cleaner up for success because it’s really hard as a newbie coming in and I say, go clean this and let me show you, but you don’t have something to reference when I’m gone.

Because all of a sudden I’m gone, you’re relying on their memory too much. We need that security blanket is the checklist, it’s the cornerstone. So even if they don’t leave it behind, which I strongly recommend that they’re at least filling it out so that they’re practicing that and getting the typical, that’s a weed whacker. What is going on outside? Even if they’re not getting the full checklist left behind, then it’s all right because at least they’re still practicing it. Though I am a big proponent of filling out checklists for accountability or using the digital checklist feature in ZenMaid. Side note, Serene Clean’s actual cleaning checklists, they’re in there as a template. So you guys can see exactly what we use if you are a ZenMaid user.

And so the other thing I told Chelsea is exactly what we do when we’re switching between cleaners and we have notice. What I mean by that is say a cleaner puts in their notice and we are gonna be putting a new cleaner on and we have time. What we’re going to do is we’re gonna send the new cleaner with the old cleaner so they can show them the ropes, ideally twice in that home, but minimum once if we can get away with it. So the goal is if we are, this happens a lot for us, not even with turnover, it’s specifically when we need to change the schedule because somebody’s availability changed. Hey, you know, summertime’s over, I can’t work on Wednesdays anymore.

So all of a sudden those Wednesday clients need to move to a different cleaner. Well, what we’re going to do, let’s say we have Haley and Jamie, two of my cleaners, right? And Jamie is, I can’t work Wednesdays anymore, but that will start in a month. Because when you’re a rock star like Jamie, you give us notice with those types of things. And that does happen. And so what we do all of a sudden is for the next, say she’s got two bi-weekly clients on that Wednesday and so we’re gonna send Haley with Jamie to those clients twice ideally and then now they’re handed off to Haley and it’s a very incredibly seamless experience for the client. They don’t even notice it a lot of times. They love it because they’re seeing that attention and care.

Now you can’t always do this but when it comes to you cleaning versus somebody else cleaning, say you’re an owner and you are just getting into hiring, you can do what I just described, right? So I would suggest with all of your clients going at least twice to that particular home with the new cleaner, if you can manage that, at least once is the minimum, but the goal is twice. And then on that first time that they clean by themselves, go quality check it, go quality check it. Because I know that, you know, you’re frankly, your training might not be the best right now if you’re just starting out, there might be a lot of gaps.

You’re nervous, you’ve never had somebody before. It’s just a very nerve wracking experience and I remember that because I was getting screwed over by those cleaners in the beginning. They were doing nefarious stuff, right? And so I’m not saying that’s gonna happen to you. I’m just saying I wish I would have done more hand holding, but I did not have the availability because I was working full time during the day. And so I kind of had to basically what I was doing, I was checking in with the client a lot or I would QC the house after I got done with my full time job.

And just being in that communication with the clients as much as possible. But that’s how you get, that’s how you get your clients off of you. And if you make it clear, listen, I’m trying to grow my business and that means I cannot be cleaning and I am going to be hiring cleaners and they’re gonna get, you know I want you to get the same level of service and I know we love each other and all of that good warm fuzzy stuff, but this is what needs to happen. And so you are just in good communication, you are utilizing standardized checklists, you are quality checking, and you are doing that transitionary period. You don’t just say, here you go, here’s your full client list to a newbie, right? And they’re gonna have issues, they’re a new person. So we need to be catching that and nipping it in the bud.

So Chelsea actually emailed me and she said that she let her clean for the first time herself and she did fabulously. So what a win. That is awesome. So switching off of the owner is gonna be one of those danger zones that I know you guys are very nervous about, but this is how we actually go about that and make it successful so we don’t lose clients.

Price Increases

The third danger zone, of course, is the most obvious one, price increases.

Price increases are a very likely spot that we are going to lose clients. And frankly, I see it as kind of the goal, not necessarily losing a lot, but we’re trying to, if you guys know what a controlled burn is in a forest, in forestry, they will oftentimes light the brush on fire so that new trees and plants can take root and grow and get to the sun because the brush is all in the way of everything growing and whatever, I’m not a firefighter person. However, I know what a controlled burn is. And so that’s kind of how I see a price increase is we have to sometimes burn away the brush, i.e. the lower paying client. So if you do a price increase and they drop because of it, well now we have spots for people to come in at your new higher price, right?

The thing is, is we don’t want to burn the entire world down. We want to do it by section, right? So I highly recommend if you have more than 10 clients, say you have 20 clients, right? I would do it in two batches or maybe even four batches. Do a price increase on five of them, see what happens. Then the next five, then the next five, then the next five, right? You can stagger these so that if there is an effect of dropping, then it’s not all at once because you are gonna freak the hell out if you lose five clients all at once. You’re going to, I know you, okay? I know you’re gonna freak out. So how do we prevent this is we stagger the price increase.

The only reason that we would do a non-staggered price increase is if you are so backed up on leads and you have a wait list a mile long, that’s fine. And or it’s really not that big of a price increase. So you don’t think that that’s going to be a big drop. So for us, this year was the first time we ever did across the board price increase on all of our residential clients who were still at $45 an hour. We brought them up to the $50 an hour mark and we did them all at once. And I think we only lost four or five clients and some of them were going down in frequency. So maybe they were a bi-weekly client, they went to monthly.

So the reason I felt confident doing it then in one fell swoop is because we had such a staffing issue and a wait list a mile long where I’m just, we need space. We need to get as much revenue out of our current clients as possible because we can’t bring any on, okay?

I would say that you just need to be aware that most likely you are gonna lose some, but it’s not gonna be as many as you think depending on how big of a jump. And this is why it’s nice to start out lower so that when you do your price increases, it doesn’t feel you have to be doing big jumps. I have historically only ever done three to $5 per man hour on my price increases. And of course, for you guys who charge flat rate, you can do a percentage or however you want to do it. And you really just need to look at your numbers and what makes sense for you, where your clients need to be.

If you have somebody who’s, it turns out you’re making $25 an hour, they need to literally nearly double and you want them to drop. Because even if you bring them up reasonably, meaning to 30, that’s still not enough. The opportunity cost of that client spot is too high. You’re not making enough there and you cannot pay a staff member at that rate. So that is the only instance where I’m, we pretty much want them to drop, right? Unless you are doing a heart string clean and this is about not the finances at all, you’re making an exception for this person. But if you got 10 clients at this, well, I mean, you’re not making anything there anywhere. So that’s where we need to be okay with dropping some of them.

So mitigating price increase clients dropping is staggering it as well as, you know, I get to give proper notice as well. So at least one month, if not two months ahead of time so that they can adjust to it.

I know that you guys are getting really nervous about price increases and I know that everybody has different opinions on how to go about that. I did an episode on that in the past couple of months, I believe, where I talked about, I feel that it’s all right to list legitimate ways that you are improving the business or, you know, just vaguely commenting on cost of business going up, that type of stuff. We don’t want to over explain, but I think it’s okay to say, prices go up, instead of just, this is your new price. You can do that too, and I have done that in the past as well. We give a little bit more reasoning now that we have really established clients. Both can work, right? Both can absolutely work.

So point being is that just communicate early enough so it’s not, hey, your next cleaning is at this new price, right? It just feels you’re kind of pulling the wool over them unless it’s literally in a month. Then that’s okay, but if it’s, hey, you’re cleaning tomorrow, it’s gonna be at this new price. No, don’t do that. Don’t do that. They’ll really be pissy with you. So that is how we deal with avoiding or at least understanding what’s about to happen if we do a price increase.

First Quarter of the Year

So the next danger zone of clients dropping is going to be the first quarter of the year. Okay, people are broke as hell.

All right, they have not got their tax returns. They just overpaid for Christmas time and everybody’s depressed. So because it’s cold and dark outside. So if that is the case, very likely you’re gonna lose some clients during that first quarter. It’s typically the most slow season across the board in our industry. I will comment though, for about the first three to four years of me being in business, I saw no difference between first quarter and any other quarter other than summertime being very super duper busy. But honestly, we didn’t see a drop or anything.

Now that we have a more larger client base, I definitely see, we do see that first quarter drop every year where we lose a couple clients because they’re tightening the reins on the budget. And so I just want you guys to be prepared to offer perhaps some type of budgetary clean, whether that be, hey, could we do a partial clean? Could we go down in frequency just so we don’t lose the client altogether? I would much rather take a bi-weekly client to monthly and keep them than losing them altogether. Or take an entire house clean that maybe takes six hours every visit. Well, can we just do the kitchen and bathrooms? How can we make this work so it still makes sense for you?

So those are the types of things that I would suggest if somebody came to you. I would also really suggest because it may be the slower time, just be really attentive to your clients. Be checking in. Ask, is there anything else we could do better to help serve you? We want to make sure that we are as high value seeming as possible and top of mind of that value. So even having your cleaners take extra time on their little note that they leave behind or just really talking about with your cleaners, nailing it. Because if they are looking at their budget and, okay, what is valuable enough to keep in the finances?

And all of a sudden you’re being really inconsistent, having quality issues or canceling on them a lot, they’re gonna be, the cleaner can go, right? So we just really need to focus on being consistently high quality and just really, really professional and just checking and touching base. I would say right after Christmas, really ramp up your communication with clients and having a lot of touch points so that they feel more honestly emotionally tied to you guys as well, but just making sure that the quality is there so it’s not an obvious cut for them. And of course, no matter what, people’s finances are their finances and they get to make that final decision, but they may not be aware that they could do a partial clean. They may not be aware that there’s maybe a more budget friendly option for them still using your company though.

So keep that in mind that this is normal at the first quarter of the year for the entire industry, however there are things that we can do to try to mitigate those losing clients.

Policy Changes and Enforcement

The next danger zone that I have lost clients on is policy changes. And this doesn’t happen often, but I have had it happen with particularly snotty clients, I would say, and one comes to mind, I can picture them perfectly and how sassy they got when we were doing an audit and realized that they had not signed client guidelines. This is before we had all of our processes in place and they got so offended by us coming back and being, hey, I know you’ve been a client for a while, but we just realized you never signed these client guidelines. And they were so offended. They’re, we pay our bill on time. We don’t have insects in our house, why are you asking us to sign these guidelines that reference all of these things? And it’s, because that’s the policy, we need, we cannot work with you unless you sign these. And that client dropped. That client dropped us basically enforcing our policies or really, not even enforcing it, but getting him to sign the damn thing. It was pretty wild to me also considering what business this client was in. I’m not gonna say anymore. It was pretty ironic that they refused to sign our client guidelines, especially because there was nothing, there’s nothing in our client guidelines that’s obnoxious or over the top. It just explains what’s going to happen in different scenarios and we need to have all of our clients sign them.

So that was surprising to me to experience that, but honestly, that was a power struggle is what that was. That person was very much trying to say, you don’t tell me what to do here. I’m the boss in this scenario.

No, you’re not. I’m the boss, okay? I’m the boss in this scenario and it’s my business. And obviously we have to be respectful of our clients. We have to listen to them. But when it comes to something as simple as sign our client guidelines that you agree, this is what we’re agreeing to, to work together. And a lot of that is protective language for them as well. It really just spells out exactly what’s going to happen in different scenarios. It was really shocking to me and it gave me such a bad taste in my mouth of, wow. You’re very arrogant, you’re incredibly arrogant and this isn’t about the policies at all. It’s about this dynamic here and they were very wealthy and had a beautiful home. And I mean, we have lots of wealthy clients who are the nicest people and super kind and super chill. But that was just, it was really interesting for me to experience.

So when it comes to policy changes and how do we prevent people from dropping? Honestly, screw that guy. If you’re gonna have that attitude, I mean, something would have happened with him. I guarantee it would have been a bad experience down the road. So I’m not mad that they dropped at all. I think that was incredibly unreasonable. So I just want you to be aware that people might push back and I think it’s just making sure that your guidelines are clear, put them through ChatGPT. Do they feel fair to everybody involved?

And even when you’re enforcing a policy, that oftentimes is when people drop too. The first time you enforce your cancellation charge policy, you may have somebody drop and you might have them drop anytime you do this because people do not like getting called out on their bad behavior. They do not like when all of a sudden you are enforcing the things that they agreed to, right?

So for us, we are not psychos about cancellation policies, if people are sick or their kids are sick, because we want that flexibility too. It’s a two-way street. If our cleaners are sick and we don’t have anybody else to send for whatever reason, we’re working together, we’re humans. But if you are consistently canceling on us last minute for no good reason, nobody’s sick, you just, you didn’t forget because you got the reminder emails and reminder texts from ZenMaid automatically going out at the increments that I decide because that’s how it works when you use ZenMaid, you got the reminders, okay? You just decided it’s not a good day for you to have the cleaner in and it’s, okay, we’ll let that slide maybe once. But on that second one, and I make it very clear of, you are affecting your cleaning tech’s income when you do this and we can’t get another client in that very short notice.

Well, that is actually negatively affecting somebody else’s paycheck. And if they don’t give a shit about that, and if they’re, I still don’t want to pay, well, they’re not a good client anyway, because that’s just a real asshole move. And so honestly, as soon as I say, well, you know, this cancellation fee is to cover your cleaner’s lost wages from this last minute cancellation. And again, we’re only doing this in situations where it really should be happening, and they throw a fuss and they signed and agreed to that as well in the policies. Well, I mean, you can be a crybaby poopy pants and not be our client then. It’s just, it’s so silly when you hold people accountable to what they agreed to, right? And they throw a tantrum.

So that’s what this is, is just expect some tantrum sometimes from full grown adults when either you have a policy change, you’re putting in a new policy, or you’re holding them accountable to a policy they agreed to, this can happen. And so just stand firm, just stand firm, be kind, be professional, you are the professional. Here, I’m not speaking very professionally in this episode, right? But in this scenario, of course we’re gonna be professional and just stand really firm. And I will literally send them, well, on August 12th, 2022, you signed and agreed to these. And here I’ll highlight the policy that you agreed to. Actually, can you help? Do you have any other confusion that I can help clear up? And just calling them out and referencing, you agreed to this, oftentimes we’ll get them to have no issues and go forward a little bit more with humility. And again, this is not, I’m not trying to put people in their place or this isn’t me trying to lord over anybody. It’s, no, this is a mutually beneficial relationship where we’re respecting each other. You as my customer, me as the service business owner. And if we can’t work in the rules that we agreed to, well then we can’t play the game, right? And so that’s what it’s about. Don’t be disrespectful, but also just stand firm, okay? This may happen and that tells you that that was not an ideal client. If they throw a big old fuss about something that’s completely reasonable and completely normal if you’re working with a cleaning business, not an individual cleaner, right? And even individual cleaners, please, if you’re an individual cleaner, and you never have a desire to have employees or anybody working for you, still do these things, right? Still have policies in place to protect you because I, you know, it’s just a nightmare when you have to deal with this stuff, right?

First Clean Disappointment

Okay, the next danger zone is going to be first clean disappointment. So I see first time cleans as our Super Bowl, right? We need to just show up and kill it, right? We not only from the cleaning side, but we want to show them what it’s like to work with us.

We want to show them our amazing communication. We want to show them our professionalism. And we just want to wow them to show, this is why it’s the price it is. This is why I’m paying for this. This is why they’re so highly rated. We basically want to confirm all of the things that we have promised to them prior to us stepping in the house, right? It is game day and we need to show up.

So, if they are disappointed on that first clean, then a lot of times it just, it really sets a bad taste in their mouth. And so there’s a lot of ways to prevent first clean disappointment or at least fix it if it does happen. And the first again is communicating scope of work very, very specifically. So for us, they sign our client guidelines coming in so they know what to expect with how things are gonna go. We’re gonna tell them, you know, what to expect and how to prepare their house for their first cleaning. And then of course, we are actually sending over the scope of work in the form of our cleaning checklist for them to review and approve. So they understand what’s about to happen in their house.

And then of course, you show up on time. If you are gonna go over on time, we need to communicate that way early in the clean or at least halfway through to get more time approved and we need to give reasons. So do not wait till the end of the clean to be, gosh, we didn’t get it done yet. Can I have more money please? Don’t do that, okay? We don’t want to do that. We want to be asking at least halfway through or as soon as your cleaners get there and they’re, whoa boss, this is gonna take way longer and this is why then we can go to that client. Because even then, that’s showing proper communication and that you have a system in place for dealing with this particular problem, right? And because again, we don’t go, we go inside unseen. So we are going off of what they report and what we are used to with our production audits on homes of similar size and reported condition, right? So if we show up and it’s way different, we need to get more time approved and or cut some things off of the cleaning and just work off of a particular priority list, right?

So even all of this, we need, we’re managing these first cleans in a very specific way and really checking in of, how are the cleaners doing? What’s going on, whatever. And then immediate follow-up, immediate follow-up. And also if you are in quality control mode, first time cleans are the ones to do it, right? Or first time and really second time, that first maintenance clean is a great time to do those QCs as well. And it really shows if the client’s home and you’re doing QC on that first time clean.

Yeah, they’re gonna just be blown away. So these are how we prevent these disappointments. And then by doing that quick check-in, and if they’re, yeah, you know, they kind of miss this, it’s, great, we can be back there tomorrow to touch up those areas once it convenient for you. And a lot of times they’ll be, no, just get it the next time. I just wanted you to be aware, right? And then make damn sure that we nail it the next time.

Repeat Complaints

So I actually don’t have this on my list. That takes me into a danger zone. Totally didn’t think about till right now that is one of the biggest reasons somebody drops. I can’t believe I didn’t think about this because it’s such a big one. This is a very likely time for a client to drop. They complain once and you’re, so sorry, we’ll make sure we get it the next time. Next clean rolls around, you mess it up again. Done, done, they are done. All right, because they told you once.

They already noticed it, you’re, I’m so sorry, I’m gonna get it. And then you don’t get it. It’s just the triple threat of, they’re gonna drop, they’re gonna drop, they’re very likely to drop. So if you get a complaint, all right, I typically will have our cleaners, we’ll literally have our cleaners take pictures or video of that particular area or task to showcase, hey, this was done to the best of our ability. We’re putting it in the ZenMaid notes. There was a, we literally say there was a complaint on the shower grout. Make sure the shower grout is perfect and take a picture and send it to us before you even get done with the cleaning because we really, really want to make sure that we are getting that area up to snuff so that they are not having that same issue. And then just always having that note of they have had a complaint on this specific task. So it’s not just the next clean, but say two cleans from now and then we’re screwing up the shower grout again.

They’re gonna be pissed off. So anytime a client has complained about something once, that should be the last time that that complaint ever is possible to be had for that client on that particular task, right? It should be super duper paid attention to at every cleaning after that and just making sure that that doesn’t happen. You, honestly, that’s of all, of everything I have listed here.

That is probably the number one reason somebody is going to drop is because of that. It’s just, it’s such a frustrating experience of, I took the time out of my day to let you know that you screwed up. You told me you would fix it and you screwed it up the next time. So frustrating, right? So just, if you guys get a complaint on somebody, either go quality control that house the next time to make sure it’s perfect and or be having this communication with your cleaners and having them have that proof and evidence that, we paid particular attention, it’s great, this is what it looks like. And I know that seems a lot of work, but deal with it, right? If you don’t want to lose a reoccurring client, I mean, that is the way to lose them and get bad word of mouth too, right? This is how we manage it. And this is when we are out of the field, this is our job to manage these types of things. And losing a reoccurring client is just, it’s such a, it sucks, you guys know what that means. I mean, that’s thousands of dollars in a year. And depending on how big the house is or how often you’re coming, this is a lot of money that we just lost. And again, the negativity of it all, because you don’t know that they’re gonna go tell their neighbors that you suck, but they very well might. So it’s just, really important. If we make it right and we make it right so good that they’re, wow, they really nailed it the next time and then we maintain it.

That’s a big one guys, so really be paying attention to that.

Schedule Changes and Cancellations

The next danger zone is going to be changing the schedule or canceling too often on the same client. So as time goes on, every single one of your clients eventually is going to have to be rescheduled or canceled on. That is very likely to happen and we of course in our client guidelines explain what that looks like and you can always give a discount on the next cleaning for the inconvenience.

And really being aware of which clients are quite flexible and which aren’t. Meaning some are, no, it needs to happen. If you don’t come, they’re gonna cancel kind of thing. You guys know who those people are and you know which ones are really flexible. Typically the ones who cancel on us a lot or reschedule on us a lot, we know that they’re willing to give that back because they’re, I do this a lot to this company. I need to be flexible as well. So we keep that in mind.

However, I do want you guys to be aware of when you went, say, okay, say we got 20 cleans today, right? Okay, that’s a lot for most people. We’ve got 30 cleans today, but that’s a lot for a lot of companies. So let’s say we have 10 cleanings today and we have two cleaners call out. So you are gonna go clean two of the houses, but two clients still have to be either rescheduled or completely canceled on. And you’re looking at, okay, this entire day of the schedule, what can I do with this? Who can I move? And we want to be very aware of who we move the last time this happened. Let’s say it’s Tuesday and it’s all the Tuesday clients that you’re looking at of, should I, who’s least likely to get pissed off basically? What can I do with this, right? And so we want to be really aware of the last time that we had to do this, who did we do this to? Because if you are having to continually reschedule on the same client, then that’s not a good look. Even if they’re really patient, it’s gonna get really frustrating on them.

So for us, if it’s, we have no choice, we have to cancel and or reschedule, we actually double check on the clients that we’re considering. Honestly, we just know in our heads too, when you just know your clients and who you’ve had to reschedule on, we are gonna be very aware of who we ask this time and we try to kind of rotate it, right? So that we’re never asking the same client multiple times to reschedule. That’s just not a good look. Or if I’m, okay, I’m gonna go clean, I’m gonna make sure I clean Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Johnson’s house because the last Tuesday we had to do this, it was those ladies houses that we did this to, right? And so the only other caveat is some clients, they’re only want this particular cleaner, I don’t care if they’re sick, do not send anybody else unless it’s you, they might be okay with it. But if it’s not possible for you to go clean or you need to be somewhere else, then those are the clients I’m, hey, you said that you only want Tina and Tina is sick today and she was sick a month ago, so do you, what do you want? Do you want us, if Tina’s got a cancellation, we’ll put you on the cancellation list, otherwise she’ll see you in two weeks. And that’s how we handle that.

So just be aware of who you’re doing this to and kind of try to spread it out amongst all of your clients or at least the ones that are flexible about that. And in an ideal scenario, we never have to do this, right? That’s the goal and we’re pretty good about that, especially now that we have built-in fill-in time and times that we can push and reschedule, we build those into the week, which I would highly recommend that you guys too. So instead of canceling, you can just push, right? Or maybe you do that move out clean on Thursday and Friday so that you can do the regular clients today, right? You gotta get creative every single day when you have to make schedule changes. However, it’s just something that we want to make sure, you know, this is gonna happen. You are gonna have to do this to clients at some point. It just is what it is unless you have the most perfect situation in the world, which is probably not the case. So we just need to have a plan and be aware of who we’re doing this to. And even if you want to leave a note on the, again, coming back to why having a scheduling software is so valuable because it’s we can put on Mrs. Johnson’s client notes rescheduled and or canceled whatever, August 14th.

Do not do this again or just even the note of when it happens so you’re looking at all the clients you’re, nope not Mrs. Johnson not Mrs. Smith. We just did that right so leave yourself notes. Don’t put it all in your brain. So that is the next danger zone.

Long-Term Clients Feeling Neglected

Okay two more danger zones, last two. Long-term clients feeling neglected and you putting way too much energy and attention on getting new folks in and then kind of having a set it and forget it attitude to your long-term clients. So we need to continually show them again the value. So when you start having clients that have been with you for four, five, six years, even one plus year, well, sometimes it’s really easy just to take them for granted and be, yeah, we’ve had them, they’ve stuck around for a long time.

They’re people and they can have different things occur where it’s, yeah, we’re questioning if we want to keep it cleaner or they’re in a different season of life than when they first hired you. And if you’re not continually doing things to showcase your value or that you’re paying attention to them and most importantly, thanking them for their loyalty, they’re not gonna feel any particular urge to stick with you, right? And over time, every single one of your clients who get to that three, four, five year mark, you’ve changed cleaners on them. It’s almost impossible for you not to have, it’s very unlikely that that’s the scenario. Say, you know, we get in, we’re three years into this client, we’re not doing anything special for them or really paying attention to them in any particular way. We changed the cleaners on them twice and they’re just not feeling it anymore. You know, they’re kind of looking for a change. So it’s, we have to be really aware of our longest and most loyal clients and really call it out, okay? And again, I know that this is more work, but this is the beauty and the power of the business that we’re in is building this really robust foundation of reoccurring revenue, right? And so we need to be aware, we need to be thinking, and we need to be paying attention to those clients.

And that means continually doing check-ins, using the service rating feature in ZenMaid, reaching out to them, seeing how they’re doing, asking your cleaners on a regular basis, hey, is any of your regular clients, does it seem, did somebody have a baby? Did somebody graduate? Was there a wedding? Is there anything that we could send flowers to, or your little card or a note or something that we can call attention to say, hey, I see you and I really appreciate your business. And so for us, that will be yes, sending gifts or sending flowers on a regular basis, checking in with them, making sure that they’re happy, asking them for feedback and ideas often is a really great thing, doing client surveys. Obviously doing things in the community just in general makes you look good to your regular clients because it’s, hey, your money is going towards us doing good things in our community, a lot of people that’s very important too.

And then finally, really what I love about the anniversary feature that got released in ZenMaid this past six months, I’ve been using that heavily. So as I mentioned, what I do, I know it’s really bougie and extra, but clients are loving it, is I record a Loom video. Loom is a program that you can just record videos on, it’s really easy. And I, on basically, I actually have to do this today because it’s August 31st and I haven’t done it for September yet because I’ve been procrastinating because there’s so many to do. But it’s worth it, it’s worth the effort. So I record thank you videos in advance and then we send them an email with the video thanking them for their loyalty. And so it’s a personalized thank you message from me, the owner, recognizing their loyalty and how much I appreciate them and asking them of course for any feedback saying if there’s anything as always just let us know I want this to continue to get better for you. And clients response to this has been amazing. They really, really love it.

So maybe you don’t have the ability to do that right now, right? The video thing, but could you call them up and say thank you? Could you send them a handwritten letter? Could you send them an email? Or even a discount, saying, hey, your next cleaning is gonna be 25% off as a thank you for your loyalty. There’s so many different ways that we can thank our clients for your loyalty. There’s also gifting systems that I’ve seen or programs where, hey, you get to choose a gift worth $50 or whatever from this website. There’s programs for that as well. I kind of the more personal touch of knowing the client or even having a gifting budget every single month where, okay, every month I’m gonna spend $100 on presents for some regular clients, right? So the longer they’re with us, they’re in this roster and I’m just gonna keep track of it. All of these things really showcase loyalty and appreciation for our long-term clients so that if they’re looking at you and perhaps maybe they’re, well, I got a quote and they’re cheaper, but these people know me and love me and they do such a great job every single time and they really just, they’re checking in. I’m not willing to part with that great service and attentiveness.

So this is how we stand out to our clients in the long run. And even if a bright, shiny new cleaning company catches their eye, they’re not gonna leave, right? They’re gonna be married to us. Because they’re, no, no, that harlot. She’s not gonna pull me away from my loyalty to the cleaning company. So, okay, anyways, not that your clients are having affairs by going to another company, but that’s what it feels like. They’re breaking up with us, right? So that would be one that we really want to pay attention to.

Technology and Communication Issues

And then the final one that I want to highlight is going to be all related to kind of the technology use and the communication that you put forth for your clients.

This is gonna be things billing and payment issues or communication frustrations where your systems fail, right? Maybe they’re every single time they try to pay their bill, there’s an issue or the invoice isn’t correct or it’s not sent what they expect or they never get the receipt and they always have to ask you or they said something to you and then it didn’t get added to the notes and so now the cleaner does not do what they said.

Say they reach out to the office and they’re, hey, make sure, I know you don’t usually clean my office, but go ahead and add that office cleaning on this time for whatever reason. And it doesn’t happen. Either you forgot to put it in the notes or your cleaner didn’t see it. Now, they’re gonna be really frustrated. I know that’s kind of scope of work related, but a lot of that’s a communication issue in my opinion. So once we start disappointing or frustrating them with the administrative labor of working with your service, that’s when people get annoyed, because it’s, this is supposed to make my life easier, and I’m really frustrated because it’s actually just adding more to my to-do list. And of course, you know, having a cleaning service, there’s gonna be some level of administrative labor, but how can we make that as easy as possible? Whether that’s having the card on file or what have you, anything we can do and suggest to them or put into place from your side, software and things that, that is a convenience to both you and your client.

And so making sure we’re utilizing our softwares to the fullest, even the appointment reminders, the on-my-way texts that our cleaners send, they expect that now, and it’s really something that they love and enjoy having with our service, whereas if they work with another cleaner or another cleaning service, they are gonna miss all of that kind of technological ease and what that’s like. And so for us, when we tried to switch payment processors a couple months or not, I don’t know, time blindness, man, ADHD. I don’t remember when this was. I say a couple months, it was probably two years at this point. And we tried switching payment processors and there was so many issues and it was so frustrating because our clients were just running into so many errors when we would send them the bill. It was Stax, by the way. STAX, do not use that payment processor. It was cheaper and cheaper is not always better, especially with payment processors. Stick with Square or Stripe or QuickBooks. Anywho.

So we tried to switch, just, was administratively a pain and I got bars today guys, I am rhyming. And so April, my payroll manager who does all of our accounts, she was on the phone and had to deal with so much customer service, so it sucked for us to.

So all of that being said, that was a prime danger zone for clients to drop because they were frustrated with dealing with our basically administrative inadequacies for whatever reason that was. It’s, how can we make this thing as seamless as possible? And this is why even things you may think, okay, having them fill out a really extensive booking form in the first place or having this kind of robust intake process. Well, that may seem it’s an annoyance to your client, but actually what that allows us to do is literally show up and not pester them. We know where the garbage goes. We know how we’re supposed to lock up. We know what the pets names are. We know what the wifi password is so that we have service. We know, we know, we know, because we ask all of these things on the intake form so that then, yes, it is kind of a bit of a legwork to get in with us. But then once you do we’re gonna nail it. Enough said, we don’t have to ask a bunch of questions to them because we don’t want to be constantly pestering. Let’s say we’re at that first time clean, right? And we have to text them seven times while they’re at work, where do you want the garbage to go? Where’s this? What do you want us to do with that? All of these things, right? Or what did you say, room you didn’t want us to clean? That’s annoying. That’s really annoying and you’re actually making it aggravating to work with you. So if we can have that really great intake process so that we know all of these, and then give those notes to our cleaners so they can do their job well, then all of a sudden, they don’t have to communicate with us at all during the day, maybe just one question at most, and then they show up and it’s beautiful, and then it’s just that wow factor, right?

And so that’s what we’re really trying to avoid is just frustrating them or being annoying. We don’t want to communicate overly too of calling them every single time after every cleaning. That’s gonna be annoying as well, but it’s really more so in these high impact danger zones that we do want to be communicating really effectively because I know, I know guys, this is our world, right? The business is everything to us. We are but a small little grain of sand to our clients. All right.

The cleaning service is supposed to make their lives easier and not put more mental load on them, right? So even though we’re, my gosh, all of this stuff, this is our business and we’re obsessed with it, the client isn’t, nor should you expect them to. So we’re trying to make it so they don’t really have to think about it except in positive terms, right? So just keep that in mind of don’t take it personally when maybe a client doesn’t, you know, respond as quickly as you would or whatever. Obviously again, we’re working together and it is a business and we expect mutual respect on both sides. However, stop taking it so personally when the clients do not take your business as seriously as you do. Nobody’s going to, right? Literally the only people who care as much are the people listening to this episode right now, right? Nobody else. So if that’s the case, we just can’t take it so personally, but.

Conclusion and Call to Action

Yeah, those were the danger zones of losing clients that I could think of off the top. Is there anything that you guys can think of that you’ve lost clients over that you can leave in the comments for others and what you learned from that and how we can avoid that in the future? I would love to hear any reason that you guys have lost a client. Don’t be shy, don’t be bashful. I’ve lost clients basically because of all of these things. Maybe not all of them, but most of them I’ve lost a client over. So it’s nothing to be ashamed of. We just learn from it we put things in place to hopefully avoid it in the future or know what to do when it does happen.

So, all right guys, we are now off of the highway to the danger zone. I just had to say that. I’ve been wanting to say that the entire episode. So hit that subscribe, hit that like, leave me a little leaf, leave me a little leaf in the comments to show that you made it all this way. Join the ZenMaid Mastermind.

Sign up for the Maid Summit. All right guys, it’s coming up fast. It’s literally almost here in September. Go ahead and register. It’s completely free. It’s gonna be so fun and educational. You’re gonna learn so much from so many great people in our industry. And all that being said, I’ll see you on the next episode of Filthy Rich Cleaners. Bye guys.

Note: This transcript has been edited for clarity and readability.

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

• ZenMaid
• ZenMaid Mastermind
• Maid Summit
• Loom
• ChatGPT
• Square
• Stripe
• QuickBooks

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