Do a window cleaning company’s home clients book year after year?

Ask for a customer list with the date of each past job. Pick a sample of names and trace them across recent years. How many appear every season, how many have gaps and how many vanished? Check how the repeat jobs were set up: a standing plan, a reminder from the company or a call from the customer.

Then ask why customers return or leave. Has the company lost clients to a rival, to price or to a missed appointment? Look at how it follows up after a job and whether it asks for feedback. A habit of a friendly reminder before the season often does more than any advertising.

Finally, check how much of the repeat business depends on one person. If one crew leader knows every home, a change of crew may affect rebooking. Ask for a few customer names you can call, with the seller’s agreement. Your accountant can compare the pattern with revenue. If much of the income is new customers each year, weigh that against the cost of finding them, and build a plan for keeping the loyal ones. Also ask whether prices rose in recent seasons and how customers responded. Steady rebooking after a price change says more about loyalty than steady rebooking at an unchanged rate, so look for that evidence in the records.

Key takeaways

• Trace a sample of customers through several seasons of invoices.
• Find out whether rebooking is standing, reminded or customer-led.
• See how much loyalty depends on one crew leader.