CBL EP #153 Stop Saving Clients for close to Free: Why Emergency Cleanings Should Be 2–3X Your Normal Rate

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 1:44

Welcome back everyone. It's Jamie and myself with Cleaning Business Life, and today we're gonna talk about holiday emergency cleanings. You know that last minute my in-laws are on the way. I've made a cooking disaster and their spaghetti stuck to the ceiling. The post party chaos, which ends up being 150 bottles of vodka, and the panicked calls that hit your phone mostly in November, but can transpire in December as well. We're breaking down why these emergencies happen, how to price them with rescue fees, weekend and after hour charges, and most importantly, how to protect your team from burnout. If you've ever tried to cram 15 houses into one week or in a day, and felt like your body shut down, this episode is your permission slip to do it differently. Let's dive in. And today we're gonna talk about emergency holiday cleanings. Holiday, holiday, holiday, holiday, holiday, holiday.

SPEAKER_01: 2:59

But we don't want to burn out your clean, your your team, neither, or even yourself. You don't want to burn because this is the year I've I'm already seeing people posting. Oh my gosh, I worked 32 hours and I did 11 homes and I am done.

SPEAKER_00: 3:16

Like don't do that to yourself.

SPEAKER_01: 3:19

You're you're and or I seen 36 hours of work, and that's a lot of work.

SPEAKER_00: 3:25

And emotionally exhausting, not just physically.

SPEAKER_01: 3:29

Yes, emotionally, and if you're there's no way there, if you're out there doing all that, there's no way you're able to answer the phone and do the scheduling and do this and do that. So don't burn yourself out, you're part of the team, you are leading this ship as well. And we have some detailed expansion on what we're talking about today.

SPEAKER_00: 3:56

Definitely. And let me preface this if you are working 36 hours all at once or you're doing 15 homes by yourself without help or all of the crazy stuff, if you get sick and you go down, the ship goes down with you, especially if you have a small crew. Make sure that you are starting to transition from you to them and that you're not overwhelming and physically exhausting yourself. I've seen people get sick and end up in the hospital with all kinds of crazy things because they have no more to give. So don't do that to yourself.

SPEAKER_01: 4:27

Yeah, your body just starts losing almost kind of like your your it just shuts, yeah. Like you said, it shuts down and you do get some weird sicknesses that will come out of it ending up in the hospital.

SPEAKER_00: 4:40

Yeah, you don't want to do that. So, why holiday emergency calls happen? So, how many I I've I've heard I could tell stories about this, but we're gonna cover some basic ones. Clients wait till the last minute because they have, guess what? I'm coming to visit you, and I didn't say, and I'm here on your front door. Illness, they had an illness in the home and they want you to make it clean and fresh and sanitized. Cooking disasters. I had one of these last year where someone was letting their college-age son who came in with their friends and they decided they're gonna cook a meal for everybody, and something exploded, and then a spaghetti sauce was all over it. Or the bed, right?

SPEAKER_01: 5:23

And oh my god, I'm like flour, they didn't know what else to put out, put it out the fire, the grease fire with right. So I've seen flour all over the the stove, the top of the stove, or or uh salt.

SPEAKER_00: 5:38

I've seen salt all over the right, and we didn't take pictures of the spaghetti incident because they did not want us to, but it was like hanging down from the ceiling. It had exploded somehow, and I'm glad and thankful no one was impaled by glass, but there was spaghetti pieces and just marinara sauce with at first. I looked at him and gave him the stink eye because I was because the cleaning tech's like, you gotta see this. And I'm like, Did you guys get in a food fight? What's going on? They're like, No, pan exploded, and so it was just it had fallen top of the down.

SPEAKER_01: 6:12

I'm sure. Oh man.

SPEAKER_00: 6:14

So another way emergency calls can happen are travel delays, post-party chaos, or I underestimated it was that bad. How many have you gotten of those?

SPEAKER_01: 6:26

Well, yeah, and then you know, I also have been getting a lot of calls from my clients lately that are like they have all and I'm putting this in quotation marks. Oh, can we rearrange for right before the holiday because I'm out of town, or I had an emergency doctor, everybody knows I've shared with you where I live. Our good hospitalization doctors and all that are down in the basically San Francisco, San Francisco area. And so we have to drive about five hours to get good health care.

SPEAKER_00: 7:08

So a lot of the sitcom Virgin River, if you've watched any of those episodes. Have you seen that? No, the river takes up place on the coast of California in a rural town just like yours, but it's actually filmed in Canada and it's it's called Virgin River, and there's all of these things that happen with the small town doctor and all these other like yeah, and they have to go far away too to the hospital, so it really is like to the next one.

SPEAKER_01: 7:37

Get the covered wagon and the horses ready, right? Okay, that's but yeah, I've seen a lot of and and they're letting me know. I'm gonna tell you this, they've let me know well before their 48 hours because everybody knows that if you cancel within 48 hours, we charge for the full price of the cleaning because it can't fill that spot no longer. So these clients that have been with me for a long time get this, and they have been like, hmm, let's go ahead and we are going to the doctor or we're going to something. Can we schedule it for the time right before the holidays? You you don't, but you know, it messes with everything, it messes with everything, and you can't say no and hope that you fill that spot. You can do that too. You can do but these are clients that have been with me for a long time, and I'm just like with everybody else. I'm always I get nervous whenever it's like telling them no. I get ner but I do, I do, I I but apparently not on this situation because I you know they're my longest-term clients. Of course, I'm gonna arrange the schedule down to our busiest time of the year, you know?

SPEAKER_00: 9:15

So you either can do it on your schedule or you can't, and if you you get to the point in your schedule and growth where if they have to drop off the schedule, you can't actually pick them back up because there's too much going on for the holiday schedule. So, what you need to make sure that you reiterate is if you can't catch up to them during that holiday time because you're too packed and full, is that you're gonna charge them more because it's been a longer period of time. I know we've covered this in several podcasts, but I'm just reiterating it here. And I will say when I'm on the phone with them or whoever's answering the phones that day, just to let you know, there is gonna be a slightly higher charge because it's been a longer period of time since we have been there to give your home any love, just to let you know. And they'll say, well, how much sometimes they'll say, Okay, Shannon, I understand, or they'll say, How much is it gonna be? And you can decide if it's gonna be$50 or$75 more or$100 more. And it they then that way it's it's covered, and they're not expecting you to do, you know, a four-week cleaning in a for a two-week price. So I just want to say that. And then uh, you have to understand the panic buyer psychology. So, what Jamie's explaining here is kind of a panicked buyer psychology. They want to make sure their house gets cleaned, but they have an obligation in another location, and this is your opportunity to charge them a little bit more, or you maybe you can simply slide them into another spot on your schedule. Emergency clients have three priorities. It's fast, it's fixed, and it's private. I can speak from experience that when you have an emergency cleaning, you usually, and I discussed this the other day, it you usually will end up eating it on some level because you're trying to slide it in and make accommodations. Their expectations are super duper high. The house is always dirty, dirty, dirty, dirty, dirty because of embarrassment, panic, urgency, whatever the case is. But you want to make sure that your team is going to be able to do a good job. So when you're taking on emergency cleans, know that you're not going to be able to give 100% because your your cleaning techs are already taxed with a full schedule.

SPEAKER_01: 11:21

Right, right. And I and I agree. I and I feel that you know you know, I hear it a lot about they can never clean like I can, and you need you need to drop that down a little bit, especially down the holiday season. I'd say the 90%, be 90% okay with with what your team can do. But yeah, and then whenever there are an emergency cleanings, which I don't know, have I ever had an emergency holiday cleaning? I don't I don't remember. I don't think so.

SPEAKER_00: 12:03

You guys heard me talk about Thanksgiving and how I actually had Thanksgiving dinner with my family and I had someone call me and her cleaner didn't show up. I charged her a thousand bucks. Yeah, I worked four hours.

SPEAKER_01: 12:14

Yeah, well, no, that's that uh that happens. I would we do wedding. Oh yeah, I guess that does uh it does hang on, yeah, it does. I I because I have the church and they're always yeah, I I exactly.

SPEAKER_00: 12:31

So what my my point is is if you're gonna take on an emergency air quote cleaning, you need to have rescue fee structure. So you're rescuing them because they're emotionally stressed out, they're embarrassed, they're panicking, there's a sense of urgency. So you're should you should charge more for the emergency cleaning, and that should be flat off the bat. So if they want like a basic cleaning, which I never recommend doing on an emergency cleaning, it should be 1.5 to 2.5 times your normal rate. So if hypothetically we know that I cannot add while I am doing any of this stuff because I have to use a calculator. So if you had a base rate of 150, right, times 2.5, so it's 150 plus 450, right? 150 times 2.5, 375 plus 150. So your base rate for the emergency cleaning should be 525 dollars.

SPEAKER_01: 13:30

I agree, I agree. I am okay with that. Or if you give them a base rate plus an emergency surcharge of whatever you decide, and then weekend fees, you know, they want they want this done on the weekend. We try to stay Monday through Friday now, commercial, and I have the perfect team to do that that only wants to work those nights and weekends, right? Especially a second job for the whatever the case may be. But for residential cleaning, well, no, even commercial cleaning, I would say, because they have those holiday parties. They have if they want that cleaned up, I think that there should be a totally separate up charge on that as well.

SPEAKER_00: 14:20

If it's on the weekend, and if it's after hours for whatever reason, emergency cleaning, it should be on top of the quoted price I just gave you. There should be an additional 20 to 30 percent. So if I'm giving a 525 price and it's after hours, you should be adding on another 20 to 30 percent. So let's do that. Let's add on the 20% to the 525. So that's gonna be an extra$105. So you're it would be$525 plus 105 for your after hours. That would be your after hours fee. Then there's your weekend fee, and you can that could be an additional$50 to$100. If you're doing short-term rentals, you're not gonna get away with this.

SPEAKER_01: 14:58

No, no, no, no. Short-term rentals is a total that's a totally business structure, different business structure.

SPEAKER_00: 15:03

Right. And then there's the 48-hour turnaround add-on. So if you need it within 24 to 48 hours of, oh my God, Jamie, I need to have this cleaning done by Wednesday. Can you do it? I would add on an additional charge on top of that. So you have a rescue fee or you however you want to call it, you can have an after hours fee, you could have a weekend fee, and then if they want it done within a specific amount of time, like 24 to 48 hours of of the phone call, I would charge them an additional 50 to$100 on top of that. All right, now actually that goes to a thousand bucks.

SPEAKER_01: 15:37

Yes, very. And and and this can all be a line item in your literally a line item on your job, or they it you and they can see it, you know, they can visually see it so that they know like why is it so much? Well, it costs a lot to run a business, and it's really hard on my team. It's really hard on my team, and I want to make sure that they get the they get paid.

SPEAKER_00: 16:07

Right. And you can decide whether you're gonna share the gratis with them or not. Usually that's an incentive for me. So I'll ask, hey, I have this emergency cleaning, I'll split it with you if you do this for me. That's that's the guarantee I'll get it done. Sometimes, especially when we get closer to Christmas, they're like, you know, I don't know. That 30 bucks an hour or 35 bucks an hour isn't that much. I'm having to take away from time from my family. I usually will say, I'll split it with you, and then that is a done deal, right? Right. Because they're gonna earn like 400 bucks and you're gonna earn 600 bucks or however your split is, and everyone's gonna be happy, plus their their normal wages. So, you know, and we can go over the breakdown of that on another time, you guys, or you guys can figure it out. And then there's a weekly rescue slot system. So you're you predetermine whether one to two, three-hour block per week, you can leave that open for emergency cleanings and actually just schedule and anticipate that you're gonna have one. That could be a business practice for you. You can add on a bonus of 20 to 420 to$50 for last-minute jobs and then cap emergency weeks to one per cleaner. I would not give a cleaner more than one emergency clean in any given time period. Like if you do it weekly or bi-weekly, if you give someone too many one-time emergency cleanings, um, it doesn't always go. It's it's a it's a moment of crisis. So it's not something I want to you want to step your foot in all the time. It should be something that you rotate in and out, and you have to have a really strong cleaner to be able to do an emergency cleaning because they have to handle the guest who's gonna be uppity. They're gonna have to handle a lot of dirt because you know, nine times out of ten, those cleaning clients are not gonna say what the condition of the home is. And then you need to build decompression time into the schedule. So don't give them two emergency cleanings back to back. If it's Jamie's turn, then I would give Chris a turn, and then I would give Miriam a turn, then I would give Kayla a turn. If you happen to get four of them in a month, do not give them all to the same person. No decompress, it's stressful, right?

SPEAKER_01: 18:14

No, no, no, no, and and and we wouldn't, yeah. You gotta make sure that they're energized and and okay, because this is starting to, you know, instead of two houses a day, and very rarely we'll do we'll try a short three house a day per cleaner. That's a lot, that's a lot, and whenever you're putting in all the the added these emergencies, it's like uh so yeah. But there's also you got also the there's some teams that there are some of my team members that are absolutely hungry for it. So but after the third third house, I'm sorry, your vision is starting to blur, you're you're you may be hungry for it, but you're gonna cause your your poor cleaning tech to burn out.

SPEAKER_00: 19:16

Definitely, and we don't ever want to burn them out. So you need to prevent chaos in December. So I would go over like emergency notes and CRMs, like if you're in an area that doesn't get a lot of snow, go over what the snow procedures are or ice on the roads. Chronic, make sure you tag chronic last minute clients. So if you have someone in your system that is always a last minute or wants to add on things, make sure that you and your office staff understand, especially the people who are doing the scheduling, that this person is a chronic thing and they need to be flagged so that you can upcharge them. It unfortunately that's just the way it works in business and build pre-holiday prep packages. So make sure that you have an emergency kit that they can go back to the office and grab should they need it. That's an emergency prep package, or you could prep packages, you could pre-sell or slotted out what your emergency cleaning entails versus not entails. And then pre-sell December time blocks in October. So we you've heard Jamie and I talk about this in September, October. That's the time to actually qualify everyone on your schedule for the Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday, Christmas, New Year's holiday. Hey, this is Shannon from made hyphenbroker.com. I'm just calling to check in to see how things are. That's my first question. I want to know the nitty-gritty. And then I want to see if you guys are gonna be taking a vacation this year to Tahiti or anywhere. And they'll usually like laugh and go, oh, Shannon, we're not going anywhere. We just wait for doctors and women's. Or they'll say, Yeah, I'm going to Tahiti. We're leaving on the 12th, right? Right. Yeah. Right. Make sure that you are confirming. And then once it's confirmed, Jamie and I were just talking about this off camera, is you have you'll invariably always have one or two that are like, well, I have this thing that came up and I can no longer keep my schedule. So then if they don't fit within the 48-hour criteria, you charge them for a full cleaning because you're not going to be able to fill that spot at the last minute. It's really frustrating when your cleaning techs are expecting to work a Monday, Tuesday long day, and in actuality they're only going to work a long day on Tuesday, or they can come clean your house. I mean, there's like things you can do to make up for it, but it's just a big hassle trying to be in all these places all the same time. It is right. And then training your staff on emergency scripts in November. So, you know, when you're confirming your schedule, then you're asking them about the Tahiti and Tahiti, Tahiti, Tahiti. I think I need more coffee. Tahiti vacation that you've they know what to say and how to politely say our schedule is full. I can put you on the late late list and there's like seven people ahead of you. Do you want me to put you there? Or if they pull off the schedule, then you're telling them just to let you know because you're skipping when we come next time, it's going to be more money. That way you're setting the press the precedence over I'm oh, Shannon's gonna charge me more money. And it's because a longer period of time has happened. Even if they say their home is not gonna be occupied, invariably there's always a relative, usually a teenager, college kid, who's like, Yeah, I'm gonna live it up. So consider definitely for not burning out and how to handle emergency cleanings. We always look forward to your questions. Please like and share. If you think that another business owner can benefit from our episode, please share it with them. Please consider giving us a five-star review. It tells the algorithm that we are worthy and then more people listen to this the show.

SPEAKER_01: 23:02

And it feels really good whenever we get a five-star review because we love helping you guys.

SPEAKER_00: 23:07

Definitely. This is what it's all about is helping.

SPEAKER_01: 23:10

Happy holidays, everybody. We hope you enjoy. We hope you make every all the money and prevent burnout. Make sure to treat each other kind and with love, and we will talk to you soon.

SPEAKER_00: 23:24

Take care.

SPEAKER_01: 23:25

Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas.

SPEAKER_00: 23:31

If you want a strong, reliable cleaning team, it starts with hiring the right people. The Hire Smarter working interview system helps you identify skills, work ethic, and attitude before you even bring someone in on your schedule. Build better teams, protect your business, hire smarter.