what do you charge for drive time?
- Thread starter zappy
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ohm
Senior Member
- Location
- Birmingham, AL
$50 an hour, same as my regular rate. Diesel it cost me $.50 per mile. May not drive over 100 miles per week.
ohm
Senior Member
- Location
- Birmingham, AL
Sure do and never been questioned for it. Also, same rate for getting parts, eating lunch or cadding up a drawing in the office.
tonyou812
Senior Member
- Location
- North New Jersey
125 to show up at the door or trouble shoot for first half hour. Some might call it dispach fee or to give an in person estimate or walk through. You cant charge from when you show up at the door you have to charge from when you leave your shop or last job. Someone has to pay for drive time and its not gonna be me. Free estimates is silly. Look at some other bigger companies like home theater type's or geek squad, they dont give freebees so why should we?
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everyone offering a free estimate adds 20 to 30% to every job to recover the non productive time, the average working stiff, likes to live in a dream world, free means free, a lottory ticket is an investment, we have had a trip charge for years, and we will never miss the customers that believe in the easter bunny, and the man with the big red coat and beard.
tonyou812
Senior Member
- Location
- North New Jersey
yea but im a one man band that cant afford to waste time driving to Joe Shmoes house in east jabib to give one of 10 free estimates so he can feel better about shopping for the best price. telling people you charge for estimates weeds these bargain shoppers out and IMO give some valitity to being a cut above the rest. Why dont you ask the Geek squad to come to your house for a free estimate and tell me what they tell you? They wont do it because they understand how counter productive it is. besides that most of my work now is word of mouth and GC oritented. I am presently working on some Marketing stuff to increase my service type calls, but I dont think I will ever go the free route again. Ill give rough estimates over the phone for stuff like hanging lights and replacing outlets but thats about it. If someone calls me from a referal I wont charge them upfront for a site visit but it is definatly figured in the total price.
I am presently working on a markenting stagedy to increase my service/cold call work but untill that kicks in im staying firm with No Free estimates stance. It works for me so why change it? Besides for many people 125 or 95 bucks for an estimate is just a drop in the bucket for them and IMO charging kind of gives your company some validity.
ooppps I kind of reapeated myself....oh well
I am presently working on a markenting stagedy to increase my service/cold call work but untill that kicks in im staying firm with No Free estimates stance. It works for me so why change it? Besides for many people 125 or 95 bucks for an estimate is just a drop in the bucket for them and IMO charging kind of gives your company some validity.
ooppps I kind of reapeated myself....oh well
tonyou812
Senior Member
- Location
- North New Jersey
Besides Satcom how do you recover 5 site visits a week lets say, that dont happen to pan out? Do you overchage your other paying customers? and who pays for the drive time on the jobs you didnt get? The tooth fairy?
ivsenroute
Senior Member
- Location
- Florida
The timeclock is ticking for all jobs whether I am standing in line at the parts counter or driving to the job. I do deduct for lunchtime but I normally eat on the run so I am not deducting much time at all.
I agree with charging for estimates in some cases so weed out the bargain hunters but it depends on how the phone call was generated. If it was a referral from a previous customer then usually no charge, you are almost guaranteed the job. If it is a phone call out of the blue then a charge for an estimate is needed.
I agree with charging for estimates in some cases so weed out the bargain hunters but it depends on how the phone call was generated. If it was a referral from a previous customer then usually no charge, you are almost guaranteed the job. If it is a phone call out of the blue then a charge for an estimate is needed.
tonyou812
Senior Member
- Location
- North New Jersey
yea I agree with the referal bit or good repeat customers or customers that fall into the "client" category (steady commercial accounts or triple repeat customers). Since I went out on my own lunch basically consits of fruit, nuts and yougurt on the run. I almost never sit down for lunch anymore unless i have someone working with me for the day, then Ill take a half hour or so and a coffee break just so I dont scare them off for future help.
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tonyou812
Senior Member
- Location
- North New Jersey
You know I hate to admit it but since my work is about 85 percent resi and the fact that I will work untill 5 o clock (a time in which many supply houses are closed) many days Home Depot has become my friend. I get so irritated at some of the supply houses near me. It seems like no matter what i need I always wind up wasting 45 minutes there, while these guys take their sweet time. I like going into Home Depot grabing what I need and being out of there in 10 minutes. And Im quite plesently surprised at the selection at some of them. For some reason the supply houses by me refuse to carry stuff like 3 inch halo cans and trims. I have to order them and wait like a week untill they come in. Very annoying. among other things.
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Tony, I find myself in agreement. Treat your customers right and they will treat you right, treat your help right and they will treat you right. Maybe you could say cost of the estimate would be deducted from the total job cost. If you go right to work it could be covered by the travel time you just performed.
I charge every service call customer a trip charge, plus a basic charge for trouble, or service, and every new work big or small, has a mark-up built in to cover non productive time, we found many years ago, you need to cover all your costs.
"Do you overchage your other paying customers?"
Your not overcharging anyone, your passing on the cost of doing business, something some contractors never learn in a lifetime.
You can't let emotions run your pricing, with good customer thinking, most customers are goog, but they still cost to service their needs.
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G & G Electric
Member
Preach on!! When I was running a service van for an EC here while back I would also get peeved at the supply house guys. Right in the middle of my sale the phone would ring, he'd answer it, and start to give quotes and answer questions as though I've been rang up and am walking out the door. Very irritating. The same EC, when gas prices spiked, added a $10.00 surcharge to all invoices for fuel. Had it itemized on the invoice and all. Never heard so many customers fussing in my life. He removed item on the invoice, but still charged for it. But the complaints stopped.
You bet, itemized billing on service calls will always cause problems, ever since I can remember, we charged a botton line price, some call it contract pricing, and some call it flat rate pricing, whatever you want to call it, it works, and has for many years.
I think the main reason many don't use flate rate, or coontract pricing, is they are week in estimating, and think T&M is a way to avoid having to go thru the estimate process.
tonyou812
Senior Member
- Location
- North New Jersey
I guess you make a good point here. I cant really argue with that. Maybe I got some learning to do yet about buisness.
Power Tech
Senior Member
- Location
- Lebec, California
If you price out every part you will have to standerdise your pricing so as not to get caught charging different prices later. I will never do that. There is no time. I have wached friends go the T&M route and they are not contractors any more. Total Price $-,---.00
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