How much do you charge for a service call
- Thread starter jmsbrush
- Start date
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boboelectric
Senior Member
- Location
- Eighty Four,Pa.15330
$60 an hr.
bradleyelectric
Senior Member
- Location
- forest hill, md
K, Thanks for letting us know your service charge. How do you structure how you charge to do the job?
Curtis4President
Member
- Location
- Near Seattle
130 trip fee, 55 per 1/2 hr on the job plus material (with a mark up of 15%), the way it is now you have to charge for a call out. Most HOs figure out that it actually costs money to do electrical work, and wont mind paying you for your time. There are always the ones that say " why does it cost me money for you to do your job", to this I use the supermarket example. If you go into a store and want an item you know your going to pay for it, right? Why should it be any different for our profession?
Im in the business of making money , not losing it.
Im in the business of making money , not losing it.
Mr. Wizard
Senior Member
- Location
- Texas
Regarding the portal to portal charges, how is it explained to the HO that even though we were at her house for one hour, she owes for two hours (maybe more, depending on drive time) for labor that wasn't performed at her home? I can certainly see an EC's perspective charging portal to portal, and the more I think about it, the HO could call someone closer, more reasonable, etc...etc... Celtic, I guess it could be summed up by calling it a "trip charge". Sounds O.K. to me!
bradleyelectric
Senior Member
- Location
- forest hill, md
It can be explained by telling the customer if they ask "We charge drive time to the job, but not back to the shop."
- Location
- Chapel Hill, NC
- Occupation
- Retired Electrical Contractor
I'm sorry but I charge $85 for that info. Are you interested?
As long as it is explained honestly... "Time starts from the moment we leave the previous customer's property, until the moment we leave your property" ...or any other variation.
I've always been a fan of "going deep" first... furthest drive is the first stop ~ all other jobs leading back to the shop.
jmsbrush
Senior Member
- Location
- Central Florida
Yes I am. Would you like me to pm you my cc information or email you?
macmikeman
Senior Member
- Location
- Planet macmikeman
$1,000 dollars a day plus any materials. I'll slice it and adjust it any way I can just so long as I hit the goal. I try to remain flexible in my approach to reaching that daily goal, but focus on hitting it non the less. Before I established that goal for the day, service calls usually ran under $150 and maybe I might make as much as $500 for the day if I was lucky. They were unfocused and served to only act as fill in. They run about 350-400 now, and I stll get about the same amount of them in a month. Changing my goal changed my approach to the whole service call concept. They used to be a pain in the neck and disrupted my "regular" work on small commercial and houses. Now they take priority and return me equal or better than the "regular" work.
Very nicely stated.
Fulthrotl
~Autocorrect is My Worst Enema.~
- Occupation
- E
thank you. this is the number i, and a few people i know in this area shoot for.
how much per day do you need to clear to make putting up with whatever
you put up with, worthwhile.....? that is the real question....
this is going to sound silly, but i'm going to post it anyway. here is how i do it:
i have a goal for how much net income i want to have show up during a
calendar month. that number is determined at the start of that month, not
at the end of that month.
i know how much money i need to have come in the door, because i keep a
written inventory of exactly what i spend on everything i spend money on,
so i know what number i'm looking for... if you don't know what to ask for,
you won't know if you've gotten it or not.
for march, 2009, the number, for me, is $10,400, net.
what i do, is make a label in 3/4" clear ptouch lable material, that says :
March = $10,400
the letters are outlined, rather than solid, so they do not obstruct vision.
i put that label on my windshield of my work van, just above the horizon line.
so i'm looking thru it, all month long, as i drive around. once the information
get's past the critical, arrogant part of my ego that says.... "this is such b.s."
and reaches the subconscious, circumstances, and "random" coincidences
occur which leave me at the end of the month with the stated amount.
it doesn't all come from electrical work. truth be told, it comes from god
knows where, but it comes.
once you set it in motion, then you have to pay attention to what's going on
around you, or you will miss the coincidence that leads to the money.
when i first tried this, years ago, i couldn't see past about $4k a month,
but this was 15 years ago. it took about 9 months to get my income up to
$12k a month, a bit at a time.
it's very important for me to be aware of what i choose to accept as my
reality, as this simple fact has been echoed for a couple thousand years,
and stands the test of time:
"It is done unto you, as you believe"
if you don't believe this, then you get the experience of it being false,
which proves it's true....
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bradleyelectric
Senior Member
- Location
- forest hill, md
I've learned, as you have stated, if you believe in a price, you will get it. If not, you wont. That doesn't mean you will get it from every customer. Not everyone is your customer. It means if you believe you are worth an amount, you are right.
CopperTone
Senior Member
- Location
- MetroWest, MA
I would not pay any contractor for an estimate. A GC tried to charge me $500 for an estimate for a $150k remodel of my house 2 years ago - I told him to pound sand. The GC that did the work was honest and reputable, no estimate charge - did a great job, came in on budget, and now we are his EC.
It is a good point about EC's that strictly do service work and EC's that sometimes do service calls. The "sometimes" guys seem to mostly not charge a dispatch fee. The strictly service companies most always use a service call fee, dispatch fee, whatever you call it - on top of a repair fee.
The service companies probably do lose a lot of work due to the initial phone call where someone figures out that it will cost them soewhere in the neighborhood of $200 for the first hour a guy is there. But with advertising and volume they make up for that. If you do service calls all day you need to charge this way or you won't make enough money. You can't pay a guy to run around for 8 hours doing service work and tell him you only billed 5 hours so I am only paying you for 5 hours. Dispatch or call out fees, or service fees have to be used.
My refrigerator was broken last month - I called GE - they said $79 service fee plus $70/hr payable at time guy shows up - he'll be there tomorrow morning - I had to pay - didn't have a choice - i needed my ref. fixed.
It is a good point about EC's that strictly do service work and EC's that sometimes do service calls. The "sometimes" guys seem to mostly not charge a dispatch fee. The strictly service companies most always use a service call fee, dispatch fee, whatever you call it - on top of a repair fee.
The service companies probably do lose a lot of work due to the initial phone call where someone figures out that it will cost them soewhere in the neighborhood of $200 for the first hour a guy is there. But with advertising and volume they make up for that. If you do service calls all day you need to charge this way or you won't make enough money. You can't pay a guy to run around for 8 hours doing service work and tell him you only billed 5 hours so I am only paying you for 5 hours. Dispatch or call out fees, or service fees have to be used.
My refrigerator was broken last month - I called GE - they said $79 service fee plus $70/hr payable at time guy shows up - he'll be there tomorrow morning - I had to pay - didn't have a choice - i needed my ref. fixed.
bradleyelectric
Senior Member
- Location
- forest hill, md
quoting a $150K job and a $500. job are 2 totally different animals.
brian john
Senior Member
- Location
- Leesburg, VA
Was it an insect or a rodent that shorted the relay?
High efficiency furnace for the 15th time the gas ignitor went out.
peter d
Senior Member
- Location
- New England
Oh, but I thought nobody would pay a dispatch fee around here?
It's funny when it's something like appliances the deal is always the same. But electricians are all over the map.
CopperTone
Senior Member
- Location
- MetroWest, MA
sure - but I wouldn't pay $30 for a $500 estimate either. I just wouldn't pay for an estimate. Most people where I live wouldn't either - for any trade.
Charging for estimates does "qualify" your customer as being serious about spending now. If you have tons of work this tactic I believe will actually land you more work because your chance of getting the job from a fee charged estimate is higher. Someone may only pay for 2 or 3 estimates so your chances of getting the job are 33%-50%. If someone gets 5 -10 free estimates then your chances of getting the job are 10% -20% (0% if they decide to not do it after all because it was way too expensive in the first place)
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CopperTone
Senior Member
- Location
- MetroWest, MA
Oh, but I thought nobody would pay a dispatch fee around here?
It's funny when it's something like appliances the deal is always the same. But electricians are all over the map.
only 1 GE - about 200 EC's within 20 miles of me - probably more. If I was the only EC for 20 miles - they would call me "mr golden wires"
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