Crystal clear add-on sale

Our house is tall enough to require long and heavy ladders to clean its windows on the south facade and the main reason why we now some professional window washers to do the job, it that I no longer have the physical strength to handle a heavy ladder and it scares my wife to death when I’m standing on top of it. 

So every year we ask the same company to do the full outside windows washing job. I still do the entire interior. 

This year, after I paid the bill online, I was asked if I wanted to schedule another wash next quarter assuming that I would subscribe to the company’s quarterly or semi-annual washing plan that she was trying to push on its customers, as any one in the window washing business is doing nowadays, following in the footsteps of car washing outfits. 

Sure why not double or quadruple revenues, everyone tries to do it, right? In fact, in the home services industry, window cleaning companies are aggressively shifting toward recurring revenue subscription models. They structure quotes into bi-annual (twice a year) or quad-annual (quarterly) packages. While it's absolutely used to secure add-on sales, it is also driven by a mix of business economics and logistical strategy. 

With a "First Clean" catch, companies usually charge a premium (sometimes 1.5x) for the very first clean to establish a baseline, then drop to a lower rate for subsequent maintenance cleans. If a plan offers a flat discount across all visits, it’s up to the client to verify it’s truly cheaper than booking on-demand. Of course if the house is situated near dirt roads, coastal salt, heavy tree pollen, or an area with heavy construction, a quad-annual program might provide some value, but if the home is shielded and clean, an on-demand, once-a-year clean remains the most cost-effective option. 

So I answered the young lady that called me that way: “You see, I adore watching the dirt gradually deposit itself on my window panes, be it dirt from a heavy rainfall, insects crashing on it, or birds violently colliding with their mirror image on the glass and leaving a mark and a few feathers. For me it punctuates the rhythms of nature and when twelve months later it's time for cleaning again, it has effectively filtered all the bullshit that pour on us daily in this troubled world.” 

Bahm! As I was writing these last words, a big bird just hit a large window that was cleaned two days ago. It was a solid, hollow thunk—the exact tax you pay for keeping the glass flawlessly clean."