Fuel, water filters and insurance have gone up. Your prices haven't
It has been a few years since the last rise. Your costs have gone up. You know you should increase prices, and you have a figure in mind. But the round has hundreds of customers, on different prices, some cash, some Direct Debit, some commercial. Telling them all means cards through doors, texts, conversations at the door and updating every price in your app.
So you put it off until spring. Then summer, because it is busy. When you finally do it, you print cards, hand them out over a cycle, and update prices as you go. Some customers never got a card. Some prices were not updated, so they are still paying the old price months later. One customer says she was never told.
A price rise is a campaign that has to reach everyone
The rise itself is a simple decision. Carrying it out is a round-wide communication and data update, and doing it by hand makes it feel so big that it is postponed.
- Notices are handed out over a cycle, so some customers are missed.
- Prices are updated one by one, and some are forgotten.
- There is no record of who was told and when.
- Direct Debit customers need advance notice of new amounts, which is easy to get wrong.
- Customer replies, including cancellations, are not tracked against the rise.
How much to charge is your decision. We make the rise reach every customer cleanly.
Putting off rises costs more than the awkwardness
Every month without a rise is a month of working for less than your costs justify. Rises done badly leave customers on old prices and others feeling ambushed. And not knowing who cancelled because of the rise means you cannot judge whether it was the right level.
A price rise run from start to finish
We build a price rise tool on top of your customer records.
- You set the new prices: a flat amount, a percentage, a rounding rule, or new prices by house type, with any customers you want to exclude.
- The tool shows every customer's old and new price for you to check before anything is sent.
- Each customer gets a personal notice by text, email or printed card, in your words, with their new price and the date it applies.
- Direct Debit customers' notices meet your provider's advance notice requirements, and the new amounts are set from the right date.
- On the change date, prices update in your records automatically.
- Replies are logged: fine, questions and cancellations, with a list for you to follow up personally.
| Price rise task | By hand | Price rise run |
|---|---|---|
| Working out new prices | Customer by customer | Rule applied to all, checked by you |
| Telling customers | Cards over a cycle | Personal notice to every customer |
| Direct Debit notice | Easy to get wrong | Built into the notice timing |
| Updating prices | One by one | Automatic on the change date |
| Knowing the reaction | Guesswork | Replies and cancellations logged |
A rise that takes an evening, not a season
You set the prices, check the list and send. Every customer is told on the same day, with the same notice period. Prices change on the date you chose. You can see who replied and who cancelled, which tells you whether the level was right. And because it is no longer a big job, you can review prices each year instead of every few years.
Smaller, regular rises are often easier for customers to take than a large jump after years of nothing, and the tool makes that rhythm practical if you choose it.
The day after the notices go out, you read a handful of replies, answer the questions, and the round carries on as normal until the change date.
Is a price rise overdue on your round?
- It has been years since your last rise.
- You put rises off because telling customers is a big job.
- After the last rise, some customers stayed on the old price.
- You do not know who cancelled because of a rise.
- You have Direct Debit customers and worry about notice rules.