5 min read5. Pricing, Money and ProfitsOn The Phone

How to Deal with Price Shoppers & Cheap Competitors in Your Cleaning Business

Tips on How to Deal with Price Shoppers & Cheap Competitors in Your Cleaning Business

Summary

This lesson is also available as a video. Watch here.

Daisy, founder of Digitool, is an expert in dealing with cheap competitors that threaten your cleaning business. In this lesson, she shares her tips for dealing with price shoppers and what her ‘script’ is for when a customer calls and says “I’ve had a quote for someone to clean my house for HALF THE PRICE”. 
This one is going to help you charge more and make more profit for your cleaning business.

HOW TO DEAL WITH PRICE SHOPPERS & CHEAP COMPETITORS

Competitors

How to deal with your cheaper competitors

Wherever your cleaning company is based, there will be someone who will work for a cheaper price than you.
It is natural to be worried about the company who offers a cheaper price than you. But, how do you deal with the competitors that are undercutting you on price? It is really simple. You stop competing on price. There are so many businesses selling products or services where there is both a cheap version and an expensive version available to buy. Take cars for example, there are cheap ‘first time buyer’ cars being bought everyday… that doesn’t put Ferrari out of business.
How do you stop focusing on price? You need to decide what is your unique selling point (USP) and focus on selling that. A USP is going to be different for every business. What you really need to do is just have a think about what sets you apart from all the other cleaners in your industry.
What is your unique selling point? Are you a family business? Do you use environmentally friendly products? Do you pride yourself on amazing customer service? Are you professionally trained and certified?
Think about what your USP is and start to promote that on all your marketing material. The people that are less drawn to price and more drawn to your values e.g. they care about environmentally clean products, they want to support family businesses, they value that you have been professionally trained will be drawn to your adverts and choose to call you. Already you will be attracting less price shoppers and more customers who align to your values.
Listen to the difference when you promote your USP rather than promoting a price:
“We are a 5 star rated, local family business” vs “5 rooms cleaned for £10”.
You are shifting the conversation from price to value. You are establishing what is good about your company and people will buy more into that than the price. When you shift the focus onto value you will get less people calling you up asking straight away “how much is it?!” This will allow you to sell your cleaning service more, you can have a genuine conversation about your USP and why they should trust you to clean their home.

CompetitorsWhy you need to stop worrying about your competitors

Stop worrying about your competitors, you truly don’t know anyone else’s situation. Someone can look fantastic online or someone can seem really busy but you have no idea what is going on behind closed doors. There is no positive outcome from stalking your competitors or spending time getting angry about their cheap prices. Use this energy to focus on growing your own business. Here’s a few reading materials we KNOW serve you better than looking at your competitors Facebook page:
E-myth by Michael Gerber
Referral Marketing Ideas for Your Cleaning Business
Killer Advertising For Cleaning Businesses: The Hitman’s Guide

Why you are the secret sales weapon to your business

People will always buy from people (it is an age-old saying, but it is true). If you go into a shop and you have a bad experience, even if the price is right, you are not going to go back to that shop. And if you go into a different shop and you have a really wonderful experience, the price might be slightly more, but you’d be happy to pay it.
Get in front of people, by networking events for example. They are much more likely to choose you as their cleaner than someone that they have just picked up the phone. When you are in front of someone, people will see the passion in what you offer and not even considering ‘shopping around’ for a cheaper cleaner.
However, we appreciate you can’t be in a million places at once and there is only a certain amount of day that you can be in front of people selling your cleaning company’s USP.
A great way of maximising your time and getting in front of as many people as possible is use videos. Film yourself talking about your cleaning company’s values. This will help set you apart from your cheaper competitors as your viewers will really feel like they know you and want to buy from you (not the price you offer).

CompetitorsWhat to say if a customer says “I’ve got a cheaper price”

We have all been a position where a potential customer has called and asked for a price, when you tell her the figure you’re met by this disheartening response “I’ve been quoted way cheaper than that….” You know whatever you say you’ve lost the customer because you can’t possibly compete with that price. Here’s our trick for turning this conversation to one stuck on price to an engaging chat about your values and a chance to convert them into a customer WITHOUT having to drop your prices.
When a customer says “I’ve been quoted cheaper than that”… you want to put a seed of doubt in your customer’s mind by highlighting you unique selling point and pointing out that your competitor does not have this USP. You can do this by asking the customer “did the other company who quoted you offer [insert your USP]?” Here’s an example:
“Was the company who quoted you half the price fully trained and certified by the National Carpet Cleaning Association? We have to take extensive exams and prove we are fully insured to get this certification. This means you can trust us in your home as we are fully educated on how to best handle your carpets and should anything go wrong we are covered by our insurance for your peace of mind”.
The powerful thing about asking the question “did the other company who quoted you offer [insert your USP]?” is you are not insulting your competitor, which can be seen an unprofessional. Instead, you are moving the conversation away from price and onto your fantastic values.
A word of warning, this script will convert a lot of people but won’t convert EVERYONE. There will always be some price shoppers out there that don’t care about what makes your company special and are only focused on price. You can’t win them all, however from my experience, people that are solely focused on price are the worst customers who you will typically have the most trouble with. They won’t appreciate the things you value but that’s OK they are not your ideal customer. For those few price shoppers, move on and focus on getting customer whop get you! You are convincing a customer that was so set on price, that price is not the important thing.

 

Tags: 5 min read, 5. Pricing, Money and Profits, On The Phone

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Fill out this field
Fill out this field
Please enter a valid email address.
You need to agree with the terms to proceed

Recent Posts
Discover More

Join our Facebook Group

Join over 1,000 business owners just like you…which are sharing how they win new customers. Click here to join

More Similar Posts

the cheshire clean van
Case Study

600 new carpet cleaning leads

The Cheshire Clean is a professional cleaning company based in Cheshire. They offer a range of cleaning services to both…