Can I suspend my house cleaning service for a couple of months?
Is that a normal thing to do?
We're going to talk about that today.
Hi, there, I'm Angela Brown and this is Ask a House Cleaner.
This is a show where you get to ask a house cleaning question
and I get to help you find an answer.
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All right, on to today's question which is from a house cleaner who has this question.
Speaker 2: Hi, Angela.
My name is Christie.
I am from the Des Moines, Iowa.
I have a question as in, I do have my own personal house cleaning business.
Just from October to January, I've had quite a few clients come up with, "Let's just stop
services for now until further notice."
Is this something at this time of month or this time of the year?
And do you do contracts with customers to make sure that the work is there?
Would that be a recommendation you would make?
Angela Brown: All right, can I suspend my house cleaning service?
Oh, yes, technically you can and customers will.
Now, here's what you need to know.
We're talking about October through December.
October through December are typically the busiest months of the house cleaning industry
year round because we have people that are coming in town for Thanksgiving.
We have people that are going to be having guests and company over and they want to make
sure that their homes are in a delightful state of mind for their guests and their company
and the guest rooms are ready and all these things.
Also, during the course of the holidays, there are going to be lots of things upturned.
People go into their attics.
They pull out decorations.
They get things out of the house.
They take stuff back up to the attic.
They're wrapping gifts.
They're making room in the closet for new gifts that they're going to be giving their
kids and what have you.
There's a lot of turnover in a house, and so there's a lot of reason to have a house
cleaner come.
Also, a lot of people will have holiday parties and so on the spur of the moment, you'll get
a phone call that says, "Hey, can you come over and clean my house?"
For somebody to suspend their service during the busiest months of the year, that's a huge
red flag.
Now, followed December through March, that's kind of like the slowest times of the year
because people have just come off the holidays and they're really stressed out.
They've been overwhelmed by all of these parties and get-togethers and socials and gifts and
family and all the stuff.
Just don't come to clean my house right now.
Let me put all the decorations away.
Let me get everything back to normal.
Let's get back to our normal schedule.
Let's get the kids back from spring break and then we'll go ahead and we will reconnect
our service.
What they're not realizing is that during that period of time,
you still have bills to pay.
One of the things that we recommend is that we spread out the love throughout the whole year.
In my business, we've always sold the spring cleanings for January, February and March
because those are the slowest months of the year.
We want to make sure that our regular customers get their regular service and that also the
people that go in suspension mode for a couple of months that we have filled in those gaps
where they're not going to be available.
We filled in those gaps with other people who want to have additional services.
This is also a great time to be cleaning our garages and attics and you want to defrost
freezers and anything else you can think of that you can add as part of your package so
that your business does not go down because you still have bills to pay and you still
need the money coming in.
Now, if customers and it sounds like there's more than one, but if you have multiple customers
that are wanting to suspend their service, that might be a trigger that something that
you're doing is not quite right with your business.
Maybe it's a level of trust.
Maybe it's a level of cleaning.
Maybe it's a personality conflict.
I don't know what it is but people sometimes will suspend their services and they never
return.
It's their nice way of saying, "We don't want you to work for us anymore," but they don't
know how to just come right out and say that and they don't know how to let you down easy.
Now, you're holding this slot for this person that's going to reconnect their service at
some point and then they never do.
I would rather have right up front, I would rather have a no like, "Hey, we're done with
you.
You don't clean for us anymore."
Great, now I can turn around and sell that spot to someone else.
You asked about contracts.
Do I have people on a contract?
You can have a contract.
There's nothing wrong with having a contract but that's not going to lock somebody into
hiring you on a regular basis.
They can fire you at any time.
Anyone can break a contract.
One of the biggest contracts we have in our lives is a marriage contract and it's broken
all the time.
People get divorced all the time and they're like, "Eh, forget about the till death do
us part.
I'm not doing this anymore."
It's the same with house cleaning.
People break their contracts all the time.
A contract does not guarantee your business.
And so, I wouldn't do a contract because you don't want to be locked into holding a spot
if they're taking a two-month sabbatical.
Two months is eight cleanings or four cleanings that you're not getting paid for.
You need to be able to resell those slots to someone else.
If you can resell them during the year and you can book those months up in advance so
that you have a really good base of clients during those months, it doesn't matter if
somebody takes a two or three-week sabbatical.
That's fine.
There will be people every year that take a two or three-week sabbatical and there will
be people that just kind of disappear from your schedule that told you they're taking
a sabbatical but they're not coming back.
Anyway, so, I'm sorry that this is happening to you.
I would do a deep dive into the way that you're servicing your customers.
Take an honest look about what it is you're providing.
How are your conversations and it might be that you need to go in and reconnect with
a customer that you haven't seen in a long time, because sometimes they just forget why
they liked you and why they hired you.
And quick conversations like, "Oh, yes, yes.
I remember we were friends.
This is fun.
Yes, I want you to still be my house cleaner."
Sometimes you just have to reconnect with your customer on a face-to-face basis.
That might be all you need but it might be your service so take a look at that as well.
All righty, that's my two cents for today and until we meet again,
leave the world a cleaner place than when you found it.
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