What's your minimum service charge?

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Rawls007

Member
I charge $65 an hour for service work with a two hour minimum and I explain this upfront to all my customers. The problem is when it only takes me ten minutes to fix the problem they balk at the price and think I'm supposed to cut them a deal since it was such a "small problem", even though they thought the world was ending when their kitchen lights wouldn't come on. Of course I explain to them about travel time, gas, paperwork, how other companies charge up to a $100 an hour, blah blah blah, but they still think their getting shafted.

Anyway, what is your minimum charge for just showing up period? Am I out of line with a two hour minimum?
 

Jim W in Tampa

Senior Member
Location
Tampa Florida
When i was running calls i was told to start the hours from where ever i was at and end it after i finished the paper work.This was fair to everyone.Sometimes it really was too cheap.The job might only be 10 minutes away and take only 15 minutes.We had a 1 hour min..Other times it might be an hour away and take same 15 minutes.This leaves us with no pay for trip back to shop or job site i was on.Charge what you know is fair and dont worry if they liked it.Years ago i was a TV tech and ran many calls for stupid things like adjusting a few knobs that the 2 year old played with.Often this made them upset to get a bill for my service call since nothing was broke.
 
Rawls007 said:
Am I out of line with a two hour minimum?
Absolutely, Free King, out of line! Are you charging $130 for a 10 minute switch change? How long does to take for you to get there?
My minimun is $85 & depending on how far away the job is that's either good for the first hour or first 30 minutes.
If you were to come to my house for a two hour minimun @ $65/hour I'd have you dusting my switch plates, wiping my light bulbs clean, vacuum out the the breaker panel and if you finish early I'd have you pick up the dog mess out of the yard, then mow the yard for the remaining 115 minutes.
If you don't want to do small stuff find a new home builder.
2 hour minimun & you'll never get called back or a referal, and soon out of business.
You know this is a bad business practice or you would not be asking this question...Right?

Remember the marketing rules..... Treat one customer bad & they tell 20 people. Treat one customer good & they tell 3!
 

Rawls007

Member
77401 said:
Absolutely, Free King, out of line! Are you charging $130 for a 10 minute switch change? How long does to take for you to get there?
My minimun is $85 & depending on how far away the job is that's either good for the first hour or first 30 minutes.
If you were to come to my house for a two hour minimun @ $65/hour I'd have you dusting my switch plates, wiping my light bulbs clean, vacuum out the the breaker panel and if you finish early I'd have you pick up the dog mess out of the yard, then mow the yard for the remaining 115 minutes.
If you don't want to do small stuff find a new home builder.
2 hour minimun & you'll never get called back or a referal, and soon out of business.
You know this is a bad business practice or you would not be asking this question...Right?

Remember the marketing rules..... Treat one customer bad & they tell 20 people. Treat one customer good & they tell 3!


Actually, service work isn't my bread and butter nor do I want it to be. I'm mainly a new construction, remodeling type company which is the way I like. My bills bet paid by loyal contractors that keep my busy for weeks at a time. For me to do any service work I have to break off my normal schedule which puts me further back from job completion, ie., payday. To go from one side of town to the other takes at least 1 hour roundtrip plus gas money and wear and tear on my truck. To me, $85 just isn't worth it.

As for picking up dog mess, if it doesn't have sparks flying out of it, I'm not touching it. :D
 

LarryFine

Master Electrician Electric Contractor Richmond VA
Location
Henrico County, VA
Occupation
Electrical Contractor
77401 said:
My minimun is $85 & depending on how far away the job is that's either good for the first hour or first 30 minutes.
Same here, in both hourly rate and minimum times.

Rawls007 said:
As for picking up dog mess, if it doesn't have sparks flying out of it, I'm not touching it. :D
Somehow, I don't see sparks making it any more attractive.
 
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bkludecke

Senior Member
Location
Big Bear Lake, CA
Occupation
Retired Electrical Contractor
We are a service oriented EC. We do new work and remodels but always mix in plenty of service work; it's a good way to make a quick buck and leads to a lot of larger jobs now & then. We charge $95 minimum up to the 1st hour and $75/hour after that. If it's a kind little old lady on SS sometimes it's $20 & a cup of coffee (or less). I find it hard to be a hardnosed businessman in some situations.

There's one little old lady who calls me everytime her smoke detectors chirp and need a new battery, she hasn't got much to give me but she refers a lot of good paying work.
 

ceknight

Senior Member
Rawls007 said:
Am I out of line with a two hour minimum?

You're charging $130 per simple service call, which is quite a bit higher than those "other companies" who charge $100/hr, etc.

I can't tell you whether your 2-hr minimum is out of line for your area and coverage zone, but I do know this: I wouldn't hire any service worker under that condition unless their 2-hr fee was less than or equal to everyone else's 1-hr fee. :)
 

ceknight

Senior Member
bkludecke said:
There's one little old lady who calls me everytime her smoke detectors chirp and need a new battery, she hasn't got much to give me but she refers a lot of good paying work.

I have several customers like that, too. I even have one able-bodied customer who knows his limitations and calls me to change light bulbs in his ceiling fixtures. :) I usually charge those folks a cup of tea or coffee and 15 minutes of conversation about their grandkids, and can't count all the referrals I've received from them.
 

kbsparky

Senior Member
Location
Delmarva, USA
You need to reclassify your charges:

Trip charge: $65
Minimum labor up to an hour: $65

Total: $130.00

Should be easier to swallow, get the same money.
 

macmikeman

Senior Member
kbsparky said:
You need to reclassify your charges:

Trip charge: $65
Minimum labor up to an hour: $65

Total: $130.00

Should be easier to swallow, get the same money.

I had the same method but I flat rate now and don't tell the customer what the hourly charge is. I try my best to figure it out and bid it so that I am really charging closer to 200 an hour for the same job. In any event I tell them no matter what it is $65 dollars just for me to show up and it gets added to the bid total. My pre job paperwork states that if anything discovered is defective, non code compliant, or just plain bad wiring then extra charges will apply.
 

jeff43222

Senior Member
The real problem I see with service work is that it's nearly impossible to figure out over the phone how much time to allocate for a given job. When someone calls me and says something isn't working, there could be any one of a number of different causes. I've had some that were fixed by resetting the GFCI, while others took hours of wire tracing. It's pretty hard to schedule other jobs if I have no idea how much time a service call will take.

I sure hate to leave a morning open for a service call that turns out to be a bad light switch. I also can't just allocate an hour and then charge for that hour even if I don't find/fix the problem.

Personally, I like troubleshooting, but it seems to be more hassle than it's worth. I'd rather install a service or do a remodel job.
 

Minuteman

Senior Member
77401 said:
What if it is smoking? LOL

Okay 77, two questions. First, did you hurt yourself? And second, will you do it again?
rotfsmiley.gif
 
I guess it all depends on your target service area & the concentration of the houses...1000's per square mile?
You can call it a minumun
You can call it a service call
You can call it a trip charge
You can call it whatever you want, they don't care, but the customers can do math & figure out what it cost them per hour for the time you are at their house.
Explain it however you want...profit, overhead, gas, milage, paperwork, Bottom line is, you can only overcharge a customer once.
You can however be expensive & professional many times to the same customers with out loosing them.

Learning the ABC's of being an EC is a lot like learning to swim without lessons.
Are you going to start in the shallow end or deep end?
 

neonjoe

Member
Location
Kentucky
In my trade (signs and pole lights) and in my area, I don't think there's a company that doesn't charge a 2 hour minimum for service. The rates for one man and a truck vary between $75/hr and $95/hr. We charge $75. It can be embarrassing charging a customer $150 to reset a time clock after a power outage.
 

LarryFine

Master Electrician Electric Contractor Richmond VA
Location
Henrico County, VA
Occupation
Electrical Contractor
jeff43222 said:
The real problem I see with service work is that it's nearly impossible to figure out over the phone how much time to allocate for a given job.
Actually, it's easy: just quote your hourly rate plus any materials needed. When they ask how many hours it will take, ask them what will need to be done to make the repair. Of course, they won't know, and they're the ones at the house!

I usually explain that finding the problem and repairing it usually happen at the same time, that you have to do the work to find the problem. If they really insist on a price, I'll explain that they can pay for just the time it takes to locate the probkem, and then I can estimate the repair price.
 

jeff43222

Senior Member
LarryFine said:
jeff43222 said:
The real problem I see with service work is that it's nearly impossible to figure out over the phone how much time to allocate for a given job.
Actually, it's easy: just quote your hourly rate plus any materials needed. When they ask how many hours it will take, ask them what will need to be done to make the repair. Of course, they won't know, and they're the ones at the house!

I usually explain that finding the problem and repairing it usually happen at the same time, that you have to do the work to find the problem. If they really insist on a price, I'll explain that they can pay for just the time it takes to locate the probkem, and then I can estimate the repair price.

I already charge T&M on service calls, but that doesn't solve the scheduling problem. The HO doesn't know how many hours it will take, and either do I.

I think the whole idea behind a minimum time for a service call is to cover yourself for situations where you have allocated a couple of hours for driving/troubleshooting, but the problem turns out the be something that takes way less time.
 
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