"No Electric for You" !

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Cletis

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Were getting so much work now I am pondering a way to basically deny customers that have a hint of PIA in their tone. I know they do it in other professions like skin doctors. If you are not referred by someone you cannot even get in at all. In my opinion, we have a right to do this but I'm wondering if this can backfire. Example, we have had a wave of horrible customers, just ridiculous demands and ridiculous haggling on price (usually after finished) it's not even funny anymore. This week we had a few calls where they were already nasty and demanding before we even went to bid, and honestly I just want to call them back and tell them "No electric for You" like the soup nazi. Has anyone got to this point as well and have actually just told people we can't work for them? Obviously, we have to come up with some politically correct way to tell them we don't want to work for them, just haven't came up with an official verbage for the csr's yet.

Note: we usually just bid sky high on some hoping this will get rid of them but they still want us

Any ideas out there?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2lfZg-apSA
 
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How about "I am so sorry but with our current schedule you are three months out. That will be $2,500 for one additional receptacle." Or give them Dim Bulbs Electic & Check UR Shorts Electric phone numbers.
 
Cletis said:
Were getting so much work now I am pondering a way to basically deny customers that have a hint of PIA in their tone. I know they do it in other professions like skin doctors. If you are not referred by someone you cannot even get in at all. In my opinion, we have a right to do this but I'm wondering if this can backfire. Example, we have had a wave of horrible customers, just ridiculous demands and ridiculous haggling on price (usually after finished) it's not even funny anymore. This week we had a few calls where they were already nasty and demanding before we even went to bid, and honestly I just want to call them back and tell them "No electric for You" like the soup nazi. Has anyone got to this point as well and have actually just told people we can't work for them? Obviously, we have to come up with some politically correct way to tell them we don't want to work for them, just haven't came up with an official verbage for the csr's yet.

Note: we usually just bid sky high on some hoping this will get rid of them but they still want us

Any ideas out there?
Click to expand...

Text was blued by me for highlighting purposes.....

Well, sure they will still want you no matter what the bid was if their goal is to beat the price down later.
 
It is getting bad. I am doing a job right now, a 2 family that was started without permits and shut down. The owner took my price after some haggling, didn't get any other prices (one of those jobs no body wants, but he liked me). So I had an inspection the other day and the EI told me the owner had called him to ask if my price was "price gouging". Do you believe it! The inspector told him it wasn't and that he had no idea how much work was involved. But I hear what you are saying, no one respects our hard work and our license.
 
I don't understand why customer is arguing price after job was done, didn't they know up front what it was going to cost? This has only happened to me a few times, more often caused by me not being clear up front what price would be.

But in general, difficult customers have been the more profitable ones for me.
 
GerryB said:
It is getting bad. I am doing a job right now, a 2 family that was started without permits and shut down. The owner took my price after some haggling, didn't get any other prices (one of those jobs no body wants, but he liked me). So I had an inspection the other day and the EI told me the owner had called him to ask if my price was "price gouging". Do you believe it! The inspector told him it wasn't and that he had no idea how much work was involved. But I hear what you are saying, no one respects our hard work and our license.
Click to expand...

Honestly, I'm getting real angry and bitter about the whole thing. What you just said and others on here backs me up. I've been doing it for 25+ years and I feel like me and all my guys (all 20+) years are getting treated like low life Home Depot parking lot predators who just read wiring 1.2.3 I have the equivalent of a PhD and getting the respect of a 2nd grader car salesman. WE DO HONEST TOP QUALITY WORK FOR A FAIR PRICE AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE!!
 
Had A bad rash Also

Had A bad rash Also

Same here. Can you meet me a 10:00 am 60 miles from here to give a bid to rewire a occupied house??

I can usually hear (PIA) customer over the phone, and give them the high ball park figure and tell them it will be two weeks before I can look at it.

If they Haggle at the price, NEVER back down to match price, argue "quality and scope" of job

You live and die by "can you get here now??"
I have often turned down a PIA job and 15min later, a gravy job appears.

I finaly told one guy..
" LOOK if the job is $1100 if you din't like that price, Then call another electrician, he will beat the price by $100 , then call another , he will beat that price by $100. If you get 10 more bids, then you can get the job for free" and then walked off.

Another instance..

The Used car salesman with high maintenace wife, pestered me enough to add a recept under the panel for a tanning bed.
we agreed on $200 over the phone. I asked him the 20 questions in order to bring the correct parts to complete the job in one trip.
Turns out he lied about what was needed. I also had difficulty getting to the panel because of all the high dollar toys(quad jetski, mustang convertable, etc)in the way. I informed the wife(he was away), that I needed to goto the store to get parts. He calls me and tells me he only has $150 budgeted for this job.....??? and thats all he will pay....
AAARGH
I went drove back to the job, put the panel cover back on and told the lady I could not do it for that price....

I wonder what was for supper for him that night???

It was a big game for him.... He probably spent over 40 hrs on the phone trying to get "the cheapest job" done.

The Best answer can be " I'm sorry please call some one else"
 
This probably doesn't apply, but the used car salesman bit reminded me of this story.

I used to own a shop that did electrical work on cars. One of my customers owned a used car lot and was a steady customer. He was a bit of a PITA, but steady customers keep the lights and heat on.

One day he dropped off a Seville with a power seat that was messed up. I didn't realize until about 8 pm that it was really, really screwed up. It was going to be a 250-300 dollar job and I couldn't get in touch with him to OK a high bill. I had other jobs to do and by the time I got done with the Seville it was about 2 am. I figured I would just charge him the usual 90 bucks for that type of repair since he was such a steady customer.

I get in the next day at about 10 am and my employee told me that the customer started calling at 8 am and was mad because I wasn't there. I didn't open the store. My help did. They got to go home at 5 if they wanted and I stayed as long as it took to get the work done. I called car guy as soon as I got in the store and he started crabbing about me not being there when he wanted me there. He also crabbed about the 90 dollar price.

I told him I would be right over with the car. When I got inside he asked me (after arguing with me over it) what the price was going to be. I told him to write me a check for any amount he wanted, and if it was one penny less than 90 dollars, he was never to call me again.
He wrote me a check for 90 bucks. When he handed me the check I told him that it was a good thing he paid me what I asked and then told him what I had been through and how late I was up working on the car and that the amount should have been more like 300 bucks. The dealer would have charged over 600 dollars.

He never crabbed about my price again.

I got so tired of people and their antics I got to the point where I had my customers, all commercial, and I would not take on any more as the ones I kept were the ones that didn't give me a bunch of BS.

If a person that had a car problem called me, I told them which of my commercial customers to bring the car to and I would fix it as a sub and they would have to pay my regular customer's price, whatever that would be.

My company didn't grow. I didn't care. My stress level was way low and I realized that owning a car repair facility wasn't for me. So that's how I got into being a 'real' electrician.
 
Cletis said:
Any ideas out there?
Click to expand...

"i'd really like to help you, but right now, i'm working 7 days a week till thanksgiving...."

it's the truth. i have been trying for two weeks to get over and change out a timeclock
that is defective.... it sits in the van, and i look at it, and i don't have 40 minutes to drive
over there.... sign has been on for two weeks. maybe this week......

passenger seat in the van is piled with papers, tools, empty apple juice bottles, material
receipts... if i don't have the time to clean the trash out of my van, your needs are not
going to be met. sorry.
 
Fulthrotl said:
"i'd really like to help you, but right now, i'm working 7 days a week till thanksgiving...."

it's the truth. i have been trying for two weeks to get over and change out a timeclock
that is defective.... it sits in the van, and i look at it, and i don't have 40 minutes to drive
over there.... sign has been on for two weeks. maybe this week......

passenger seat in the van is piled with papers, tools, empty apple juice bottles, material
receipts... if i don't have the time to clean the trash out of my van, your needs are not
going to be met. sorry.
Click to expand...

You fix wife's bathroom GFCI and I clean out you van.

Deal?
 
You have to develop a knack for spotting PITA's. I haven't mastered that art yet myself.:happysad:

Putting off or high-bidding bad customers probably won't do any damage to your company but putting off a good customer might come back to bite you somewhere along the line. Wish I could give you better advice than what was already given.:(
 
I had a customer on a bid job who conveniently had to leave before I was finished with his job, asked me to lock up before I left

Then called me on the phone try to haggle me down on the price after the work was done. I told him the time to try to negotiate on the price is BEFORE you say yes. After about 30 seconds of how it was too high, he could have found somebody cheaper, etc, I simply said:

Look, man. You hired me, knowing the price. Now the work is done. I'm not trying to hear anything from you except "Your check is ready".....got it?
He said "Your damn check is ready" and hung up.



One time I gave a guy a bid, and he asked me if I could come down on the price. I thought about it for a few seconds and told him it wouldn't be fair to him if I came down on the price. He said "Huh? What's that supposed to mean?"

I told him that if I came down on the price, knowing that my bid was fair, I would leave his house feeling like I had been beat. So knowing I just got beat, I'm not going to be all that anxious to get it scheduled. Then I'm going to try to find cheaper materials than I would normally use. I'm just liable to try to find some $9.00 an hour guy to do the work because I can't afford a quality guy after taking a beating. Then when something quits working 10 months later, I'm not going to be all that anxious to get back for a warranty call. So in short, lowering the price would be a major injustice, and my conscience won't allow it.

He said he had never heard anybody put it that way, and it actually made him chuckle. I didn't get the job
 
Had a guy once try to talk me down over the phone I told him "no, sorry, can't do it for that", and hung up the phone. Two minutes later the phone rings and he says "you hung up on me", "no I didn't, I thought we were through talking" and hung up again. Third phone call "ok, how much did you say?" Thank you for your business.
 
Cletis said:
Honestly, I'm getting real angry and bitter about the whole thing. What you just said and others on here backs me up. I've been doing it for 25+ years and I feel like me and all my guys (all 20+) years are getting treated like low life Home Depot parking lot predators who just read wiring 1.2.3 I have the equivalent of a PhD and getting the respect of a 2nd grader car salesman. WE DO HONEST TOP QUALITY WORK FOR A FAIR PRICE AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE!!
Click to expand...

Relax!

Tell them that you charge $250.00 to come out to give a bid. If you choose to work with them you will apply that $250 as a credit to the bid.

If they say yes let me do your bidding for you!!!!!
 
It's A Good Pain

It's A Good Pain

Being busy can be painful... but it is a good pain... I have been in various service business for most of my life. I have thought of most ways to deal with Price chiselers and settled on this way. I would just tell them I am too busy to take any more work at this time and that if they couldn't get their problem cured in a couple of months to give me a call back. I don't like shooting a high price because it could put a bad taste in a potential customers mouth. Even if you don't work for them you never know who they are talking to about your bid if you high ball them.
about 30 years ago I had a conversation with an older gentleman after I just moved my business into rural east Texas. He asked me If I was going to charge "Dallas Prices". After pondering that question for a minute I asked him a couple of questions.... I asked if he thought I could get my service truck any cheaper in Dallas. He said probably not... Then I asked if he thought I could purchase my parts any cheaper in Dallas... He answered probably not since most of them had to be shipped from Dallas. Then I asked him if he thought my insurance expenses were cheaper in the country than in Dallas... He said probably not.... So after that - I asked him if he thought I should have a lower standard of living than people living in Dallas..... He hung his head and realized he had no place to go for an answer to support his position. I did his work for years and he never said a word about the price.
I have the business philosophy that a good business man has to manage his business. You have to know what it costs to do things and you need to recover your costs unless you want to suffer death by 1000 cuts. Stand behind your work... admit your mistakes ... charge a price that will allow you to remain in business... and steer clear of customers that what to chisel your price..... And I have one other rule that will save you some head aches..... If work is tight and people are cutting prices to just get a job that makes no money.... Just stay home... let them put themselves out of business. :D
 
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