information about coupons – We recently ran 3 coupons.
Coupon #1 earned us a profit (This was a tiny coupon by a new company)
Coupon #2 – We broke even (This was a large coupon but it fortunately sold less than 300 which was manageable)
Coupon #3 – Disaster and we lost a great deal of money (This was a large coupon which sold over 1,300)
I’m honest enough to admit when I have made an error. Running the third coupon was the biggest mistake of my 3 years [now 4 years] in business. I was blinded by the new coupon fad and wanted to hop on the bandwagon. What ended up happening is that less than 1% of those who purchased the coupon were interested in hiring a regular service. They simply want their home cleaned for dirt cheap and I understand that, believe me!
Coupon #3 ended up being a massive failure. Coupons in general do not work for cleaning companies. Never will work to the advantage of cleaning companies. I discovered that the purchasers actually spy the internet in search of companies running cleaning coupons and they snatch up as many as humanly possible. Most who contacted me had no idea what company they purchased my coupon from. The reason? They purchased a ton of them from a ton of different coupon companies (there are now hundreds of coupon companies out there). So as long as they can get the cheap coupons, they will never hire a company. It’s actually not safe to do that because not all cleaning companies are bonded or insured so people have no idea who they are allowing in their home.
I apologize to my regular, full paying clients for running the coupon and I apologize to the 1,300+ coupon purchasers who had to wait months on end to get on schedule. I promise that we will never run another coupon again under any circumstances. We expected this coupon to sell 200 – 300, tops. It sold close to 1,400. We have an entire year to fulfill the coupon and it literally is taking us the full amount of time. I’m literally checking the calendar daily. Upon expiraton (July, 2011) we will be able to return UpperCrust Maids to the warm, personable company that it was created to be—coupon free!
NOTE TO POTENTIAL CLIENTS – We have a separate crew set aside for you so you will not have to wait months to get on schedule. We had to set aside a separate crew; otherwise, the company would have been crushed…so feel free to call us!