Customers generally do not apprectiate when a technician does not charge for his time. If someone is willing to give his expertise and knowledge away for free then why should they pay for it.

I am guilty of this. Last night, I was doing a theater for my customer who mentions that his neighbor wants to see me because he can not get his new Sony DVD recorder to record his HD Tivo. It takes me 20 minutes to check things out and to reconnect things, I add two RCA audio Y cables and get things working. He says how much do I owe you? Now how much do I charge? I walked over to his house so I can't charge him a service call. I've spent 20 minutes and supplied $10.00 in parts. So, I said $10.00 thinking that he would give me more. He opens his wallet and I can see loads of cash but he pulls out these ones and counts them. He then says "Here's $11.00". A frigging $1.00 tip. I gave the big $1.00 tip back to him and went out the door. I was pissed at him and pissed at myself for being so stupid and not telling him my rates when I walked in the door and charging him like any customer for my time and materials.

I hope that I remember this the next time that someone wants me to stop in and fix a small problem for them.

Dave

A successful businessman once told me....

Charge for your time....even though it's not necessarily your time they pay you for....it's your knowledge.

When customers blow a nut over your 75.00 charge for that hour minimum....explain to them the 100's of hours you spent earning the knowledge to do that job in 15 minutes.

We do nothing free of charge. We may undercharge a bit for some better clients, but we never do anything for free. Will they work for nothing so you can get a better deal at whatever it is they do?

We did a "trade out" with a flooring contractor once. Spent hours with him on design, layout ect. When I presented him the pricing for what he wanted...... he asked what "his" price was...

Our price on his labor? Full price.

So much for working relationships.

Everybody wants as much as possible for as little as possible... ESPECIALLY the people with the extra means. That's HOW they have the extra means in the first place.

Doesn't matter if you walk next door, or drive across town. It's a service call.....


You most definitely should have been pissed at you....No reason to be pissed at him, he just paid what you asked.





Basic service call (Getting there) = $85.00

Service work (The actual work) = $85.00 per hour, with a 1 hour minimum.

Meaning the first hour runs $170.00

If you "feel" especially giving, you can forgo the service call fee, since you "just walked next door". But why?.....lol

Dave,

I'm going to be as nice as I can. You acted like a friggin moron. You'll be broke in a year with that mentality. I charge an $85 service call. For that you get travel plus 15 minutes. If it takes 2 minutes - $85. If it's 30 minutes it's $85 plus 1/4 of $85 an hour. IF and ONLY if you want to be the nice guy/superhero, tell the guy his 20 minute job is $95 plus material but you feel nice and since your in the neighborhood you'll give him 20% discount.

Look at it this way, if it was someone else's company and you took 20 minute to do the job and you collected $11 what would you boss say? I wouldn't even get mad at you. I'd tell you that there should be $100+ in the til and you can make the difference out of your paycheck on Friday. THEN you won't make the same mistake twice. I GUARRANTY with the time it took to talk, research walk over to and back from it took longer than 20 minutes.

Do you really want to stay in business?

THEN DON'T LET IT HAPPEN AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!

Your are absolutely right, I was a moron. I should know better. I won't let it happen again.

Dave,

The most important thing is to
A) Not dwell on the event AND
B) Learn from it AND
C) Not fall into the trap again.

If you learn from this, the $80 you gave up is a cheap class from the school of hard knocks!

If you would have been a little more quick witted, you could have said when he counted $11 singles, "I said $110 not $10" That usually fixes their ass when they insult you with a $1 tip. Usually if I feel the need to drop my pants for PR, FREE is always better than insulting yourself by quoting silling low prices.

That's what I was going to say - this guy knows who you are, and the first time his DVDR doesn't work right he's going to call you. At least if you did it for free, you don't owe him anything at all, and have a leg to stand on when you say " OK, I'll come over, but this time it's going to cost you $xx.xx"

You did the ONLY thing I wouldn't have done - I would have done it for free, and hoped to never hear from him again, or charged him full pop.

Don't worry - as mistakes go, this was a really tiny one... Worry about bigger stuff...

My .02

Norm

There is a motto told to me that I always remember. I don't know who originally said it. But, I live by it.

"If you don't value your time, no one else will."

Charge your labor accordingly in the future and learn from your mistake. I may discount equipment to stay competitive but except for the closest friends and family I never discount my labor rate or hours.

Bob

I installed 4- 42 inch plasmas 10 feet up on a wall and homre ran the cable to a nextron switch with a cd player as the source. I charged 250 for each plasme and 200 for material. I tried to be nice by not charging for the cable runs. I completed tje job in 7 hours and had greif about getting my money. That is the last time I will ever be nice when it comes to this game. People only respect you when you charge them. They only feel that you know what you are doing when you charge them. I do not move a finger unless it starts at 85.00 when I walk in the door. I charge 85 plus 50.00for travel. Or I do not go. After 2 hours I give the customer a chance to re negotiate the situation in writing.

If you do a small job for someone on the cheap, when it comes time for them to spend the big bucks they won't call you. They will percieve that you are not in the league of the person they need. Even if your better than who they went with, you won't have been given the opportunity. This works the other way too. If you charge more than your competitors the client may well percieve you as being superior to your competition. Of course if you charge more, you had actually better be worth it or you may find yourself without a cheque.

Wouldn't it be great if we could throw a switch from our offices to shut their systems down, until we get paid in full!!! Hmmm (I think you can with Crestron & AMX?!?!?!).

I'll bet the customer thought you could do each one in an hour!!

You can indeed do it with Crestron, i've done it myself.

That's hilarious!!! Awesome!

There have been some many times I'd like to have had the ability to do it...(holding out a $19,000 final payment, because they keep forgetting what macro button to push is one of them)...