Charging for travel time

[ramsy]

So, yeah, the service person needs to keep his mouth shut..

I'd be fired several times over.

Clients that apologize for causing rework, after changing their minds, are thanked for paying me by the hour.

Clients who accuse me of changing the price are pointed to invoice rate, sitting in front of their face, then sent rate by TEXT message for Dementia Patient Reference.

Keeping the facts straight is hard enough. Telling it like it is wont remember secrets.

 

[sosuaveone]

Find out what your cost is for the crew you send and what you need to make off of them to make your set income or what you want that number to be. My average 2 man crew costs me $65 per hour. Every single operating business expense (excluding my wages)is factored into that. If I want to make $150k a year with 3 crews, then I need each crew averaging $90 per hour in a 40 hour week. How you determine spreading that out is your choice. Thats obviously a perfect case scenario and we all know business aint that easy, but you have to make sure you cover your actual cost and not what you think your cost is.
We charge a higher rate for work outside of our typical service area. The folks that call us in these areas know we are worth it, so theres never an issue.

 

[sparky1118]

I always charge travel time regardless if the customer is in my town or not. As soon as I head to their residence they are on the clock.

 

[Besoeker3]

Most of our customers were 24/7 production plants. For service/breakdown work, we charged by the hour and at a premium rate for out of normal working hours, weekends etc. And we charged so much a mile for travel.

A related tale. There was a notice in the electrician's shop in a paper mill. Down time costs £77 a minute. That was in 1979. Probably around $200 at the time.

 

[paulengr]

We charge by the hour for road time BUT we do it as per google maps. That way it’s fair. And there are no surprise travel time charges. So if I have to make a run to the next state and back, I can’t really fairly charge a local customer for road time, that belongs to the remote customer. At the same time we make a little extra if I get say two out of state calls in the same area. Also that way if I make a stop at a restaurant on the way home or a parts/tools/delivery run the customer is not paying for “my time”.

A related issue is if your service techs drive the trucks home and/or they are scattered. Then consider do you estimate road time from the office or from hone, especially for “local” customers.

Another way we used to do it is we charged a pure daily or half day rate and charged overtime off the daily rate too based on a 10 hour day. We still estimate this way but bill hourly at actual time. Plus a fixed $200 for overnight travel since hotels run near $150 and food runs around $50 a day. So a $100 hourly rate is $500 half day, $1000 full day. Overtime (12+ hours) and weekends becomes $1500, or $2000 for Sunday’s and holidays. No fuel surcharges, no goofy mileage, no haggles over why the tech took 2 hours to arrive with parts in hand (an hour of supply house counter time). We only started doing it by the hour as a means of making our prices more competitive without having to revisit the way we estimate which is working good. That’s with roughly a 4-5 hour service territory. We are near the coast and barrier island travel times can be brutal.

 

[hbiss]

Many do it that way, don't think there is any rule that you can't make compromises on those kinds of things.

What is not fair is to have a service call for something that probably only takes one technician, but the crew is on their way to or from a job when they show up and customer is charged basically four times as much because there were four guys riding in the truck.

I agree. You can't do that.

-Hal

 

[sanjana01]

In my opinion this is the perfect to charging because I always do this.

 

[brantmacga]

They don't want to pay big price for you to come out and then you say "lets try this and see what happens" they want a pretty good idea that solution is going to work the first try.

*My neurosurgeon has entered the chat*

Oh look, there's my attorney also.

And they don't even make house calls! How many times have you been to the doctor to have them say, "if this doesn't work, come back and see me in a week."? They're just troubleshooting.

 

[kwired]

*My neurosurgeon has entered the chat*

Oh look, there's my attorney also.

And they don't even make house calls! How many times have you been to the doctor to have them say, "if this doesn't work, come back and see me in a week."? They're just troubleshooting.

How many times you heard of someone returning to a doctor multiple times and they keep trying something different and then they go to some other doctor and that one identifies the problem and immediately starts a treatment plan that works. Probably cost more but maybe was still less than the first one after going multiple times.

I am maybe too lenient at times when I can't figure something out right away, or even if I need to make second trip because I didn't have something on the truck (even if something I maybe should always carry on the truck). Some service professionals hammer you good on the bill for such second trips even if it is their own fault they even needed to make a second trip.

But then there is other times when someone else couldn't figure a problem out, billed them an arm and a leg for doing essentially nothing useful, yet when I look at it, it is obvious to me right away what is wrong. Do I charge them equivalent of half day labor when it took me 15 minutes to solve the problem? Is it fair the other guy charged them what they did yet solved nothing? Have to do whatever you think is fair I guess. If you are fair you are more likely to be called before the other guy the next time, something else to consider.

 

[hbiss]

I am maybe too lenient at times when I can't figure something out right away, or even if I need to make second trip because I didn't have something on the truck (even if something I maybe should always carry on the truck). Some service professionals hammer you good on the bill for such second trips even if it is their own fault they even needed to make a second trip.

If I have to do that customer gets charged for the travel time once, plus the time(s) spent on the job. I wouldn't charge for travel to the supply house or to go and think about something. If it's one job ticket, normally there is only one travel time.

But then there is other times when someone else couldn't figure a problem out, billed them an arm and a leg for doing essentially nothing useful, yet when I look at it, it is obvious to me right away what is wrong. Do I charge them equivalent of half day labor when it took me 15 minutes to solve the problem? Is it fair the other guy charged them what they did yet solved nothing?

Really not your problem what the customer paid to somebody else. But in this case, since you know the customer was taken advantage of, in the name of "good customer relations" I would charge a discounted rate and let the customer know about it.

If I can't solve a problem, normally I wouldn't charge.

-Hal

 

[brantmacga]

How many times you heard of someone returning to a doctor multiple times and they keep trying something different and then they go to some other doctor and that one identifies the problem and immediately starts a treatment plan that works. Probably cost more but maybe was still less than the first one after going multiple times.

I understand. I would say for me at least, if it’s something I can’t figure out in one service call, it’s not an average problem. It’s rare that I can’t give an answer, but I have no problem billing in that case.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[paulengr]

I agree. You can't do that.

-Hal

This is why you have to have a fixed consistent system. Say charge for travel time to and from the business address in terms of hours calculated by google maps which you can print out. Another way is closest “office” which might be your crews houses for service techs.

So if the tech is ten minutes away but the office is 2 hours away or happens to be working another job in the area, you pocket a little extra. On the other hand if that guy isn’t available and you have to pull someone from farther away or 4 guys are riding together, you eat it. Also if you send the tech that likes to stop at the gas station to fill up, take a smoke break, and eat a dozen donuts and two cups of coffee, with 3 bathroom stops on the way, it’s a little more fair.

 

[hbiss]

I understand. I would say for me at least, if it’s something I can’t figure out in one service call, it’s not an average problem. It’s rare that I can’t give an answer, but I have no problem billing in that case.

Like with many things, it depends. The most common example we can point to today is AFCI tripping. Sometimes we can find and fix the problem, other times we can't. It's not our problem that the breakers are, in essence, faulty. If we make a good faith effort and fail there is no reason the customer shouldn't be charged.

On the other hand, you are called to do something that you clearly know is over your head. If you decide to attempt it anyway, I think the fairest thing to do is advise the customer before hand that you'll try, but if you can't fix it you won't charge.

-Hal