TrashCanBossPro Blog — Recurring Plans

Summer vs Winter: Adjusting Trash Can Cleaning Plan Frequency by Season

Trash cans do not smell the same in January as they do in July. Heat speeds up everything that makes a can unpleasant: odor, bacteria, flies and maggots. Cold slows it all down. A bin cleaning business that ignores the seasons either under-serves customers in summer or loses them in winter. A business that plans for the seasons keeps them all year.

The Season Changes the Need

Add-ons like those in Pad Cleaning and Deodorizing Add-Ons for Recurring Bin Cleaning Plans help in summer, but sometimes the real fix is simply cleaning more often. Many customers who are perfectly happy on a monthly plan in spring will find their cans smell again two weeks after a cleaning in August.

The opposite happens in winter. In colder regions, a monthly cleaning may feel like more than the customer needs, and that is when cancellations creep in.

Summer: Offer More Frequent Service

Summer is the best time of year to move customers up a plan. The smell does the selling for you. A few ways to approach it:

• Text monthly customers in late spring and offer every-other-week cleaning for June through September.
• Offer deodorizing on every visit for the hot months.
• Add pad cleaning for customers whose cans sit on a sun-baked slab.
• Remind commercial accounts, especially restaurants, that weekly cleaning is worth it in the heat.

In TrashCanBossPro, moving a customer from monthly to every-other-week means changing the address's recurring service from 28 days between visits to 14. From the next completed cleaning on, it comes due on the shorter cycle. The price line on the plan changes with it.

Winter: Keep Them, Even If Less Often

Winter is when bin cleaning customers think about cancelling. Their cans do not smell much, money is tighter around the holidays and nobody wants to put their cans out in the cold. A customer who cancels in December often does not come back in May.

The better move is to offer a lighter winter plan before they ask to cancel. Some options:

• Move every-other-week customers back to monthly from November through March.
• Drop seasonal add-ons like yard waste cans or summer deodorizing.
• Keep the monthly plan but remind customers of the holiday weeks, when cans fill fastest.

Changing the recurring service from 14 days back to 28 takes a minute. Keeping the customer is worth far more than the difference in revenue for a few months. More on this in Keeping Trash Can Cleaning Subscribers Year After Year.

Weather Days

In some areas, winter brings days when cleaning is not possible at all: freezing temperatures that turn wash water to ice, or snow piled where the cans should be. On those days the tech taps Skip with a reason, and the cleaning stays due. The office can see every skipped stop and push the route to the next workable day.

If you know a cold stretch is coming, a quick text to the affected customers from the office goes a long way: “Freezing temps tomorrow, we'll clean your cans on the next trash day instead.” Two-way texting means their replies come straight back to you.

Plan Your Crew Around the Seasons

Seasonal frequency changes do not just affect customers. They affect how much work is on the Waiting List. Summer upgrades mean more cleanings come due each week, which may mean longer days or an extra trailer. Winter downgrades mean fewer, which may mean shorter routes or time for other work.

The Waiting List makes the shift visible early. If due pins start piling up in June, you know you need more capacity before customers go overdue. Tags help here too: tag summer upgrades as “Summer EOW” so you can find them all again in the fall.

Make the Switch a Routine

The easiest way to handle seasons is to put them on your own calendar:

• Late April or May: Text the summer upgrade offer to monthly customers.
• Late September or October: Move summer upgrades back to their regular plan and confirm by text.
• November: Offer a lighter winter option to anyone at risk of cancelling.

Climates vary a lot. A company in a warm southern market may keep summer frequency almost year-round, while one in a northern market may slow way down. Adjust the calendar to your weather.

Match the Plan to the Weather

Selling more frequent service in summer and lighter service in winter keeps customers happy and keeps them on the books. For more on running recurring plans, visit the trash can cleaning subscription software page.