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Can all the engineers that read this kindly reply with your definition of a free est?
How far exactly do u go before it becomes NOT a free est and how do u get the point across to your customer?
I have had many a call from a town thats 12 mile from me and a lot of these callers are asking me to go and give them a free est!
free to me is over the phone…were its not costing them and its not costing me. ( it doesnt cost them as i supply a freephone number )
I mean we all try to be helpful and keep costs to a minimum but some people want u to really bend over backwards and not charge anything.
Am i just to carry on taking the good with the bad?Re: Free Estimate.
Nowadays they want everything for nothing, had 1 last week that wanted me to to waive my charge because the machine was BER & couldn’t accept that it still cost the same to come out. :rolls:
As for free estimates it’s a minefield, people expect you to come out to the machine & diagnose all for nothing sorry I don’t do that anymore I have a minimum call out charge & if they don’t accept that then they can go elsewhere, it’s hard enough for us to make money in this game as it is.
If they complain about having to pay for an estimate I normally ask if they work for free, only ever had 1 customer put the phone down on me & normally get the work.
You know yourself how much money it costs us every time we go out to a call, so no mate at the end of the day you can’t afford to go out & do free estimates. My definition of a free estimate is the same as yours, done over the phone calling on past experience to make a guess as to what’s wrong.Re: Free Estimate.
I dont do free estimates and rarely give them over the phone.
At £15 to £25 I would like to think this is a reasonable charge for an honest assesment of whether the machine is worth repairing. If the machine is not repairable I advise on a suitable replacement. There may also be improvements required to the household plumbing before a new machine arrives which you would point out to the customer.
I also give them advice on the use of detergents as so many customers are using the wrong products.
A free estimate without any of the above advice could prove expensive in the long term 😉
GrahamRe: Free Estimate.
i agree graham… but if a customer rings with a hotpoint machine and says its really noisy on spin.. surely u can give a rough est over the phone?
I know most of the time ya have to go first with certain faults customers describe over the phone…and afterall ..a EST is surely a EST… if a customer shy’s away at a very reasonable est over the phone…are u then not glad u didnt actually spend time and fuel going their in the first place?
I had one yesterday…rang on a saturday 4pm… can i run 12 mile and give a free estimate..i said yes first thing monday morning… oh i will ring back if i cant find anyone sooner she replied..yet specified about me giving her a free estimate 3 to 4 times within the call..but wanted me there within that very hour it seemed.
I do agree most of the time u have to go look… i have done.. i charge 30 pounds.. if it dont need parts its 30 pound.. if it does and part is a tenner then i say its 40 pound…i take 30 then and once part arrives ( if i dont have it already ) i go back and fit it.. and then take the other tenner.
But my minimum is 30 … i thinks thats VERY reasonable.. 30 + parts ( apart from bearing jobs ) but i dont have a hourly rate, its just plain and simple 30 +parts… machine BER? sorry but u still owe me £30.
If thats too much to people these days then its off to sign on ! 😕Re: Free Estimate.
Customers enquiring about free estimates are usually encouraged to do so by those companies that advertise “No Call Out Charge”. They thumb through the Yellow Pages or Thomson Local and start phoning around. Free estimates and no call-out go hand in hand with some of my competitors I see that advertise in this way, hence the number of potential customers I get asking if I do free estimates – which I don’t by the way. 😉
It is not something I condone. My take is that it could so easily mean that ‘once they have their foot in the door’ so to speak chances are they won’t walk away without money in their pockets.
New businesses very often take the free estimate route in order to elbow in on the action. And years back many of my competitors did business in this way. Fortunately the few that have survived now play fair and charge fixed rates with just a handful advertising no call-out charges. So we have a level playing field now in this part of the world thank god!
P.S. Just out of interest….. looking through my old records to when I first started out on my own way back in March 1973 my call out (fixed labour rate for first 30mins on site locally) was just £3.50 😯
Re: Free Estimate.
I charge a labour charge only – I don’t say “call out charge” as that can alter the customers perception of what’s on offer. I say, “We have an all inclusive labour charge which is fixed at £43; no extras for time + any parts as required; you will be informed of this if any are needed. If the machine is found to be too expensive to repair, then it’ll just be £25 to cover my fuel and time to strip the machine to find the fault.” 99{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} of customers are fine with this as you have set out your stall for them to make the decision.
If they say, “Do you do free estimates?” I say, “I’ll try to give you a rough idea over the phone” or after that initial chat, “So how much would you want to spend on this machine?” If it’s less than £40, we politely suggest that, in THEIR opinion, the machine is BER and decline the call. I will always say to customers that I am calling with a view to repairing their machine hence the labour charge. Most people asking for free estimates in my experience are just getting a nod from you to go and buy new – they just need that extra reassurance that what they are just about to do is OK.
I can do that over the phone for free…… 8)Steve.
Re: Free Estimate.
Be in no doubt there will always be a HUGE percentage of the general public who are more than happy to see you running around using very expensive fuel & not getting paid for it, & thats leaving aside the waste of your time.
No, they expect to get paid when they’re at their work i would imagine, so why the hell should’nt we? 😯
Re: Free Estimate.
if you want me here next year ………and the year after……then you have to pay for the service that i give….so its a big no to Free estimates
i dont have a free van ……derv….insurance…..ect…
no free lunch…..
canufixit
for free please…..NO
Re: Free Estimate.
Never done free visits. Never will.
Mug’s game IMO, but to each their own.
Advice given freely and always has been by me.
I can totally understand why people do it though, however misguided I think it is. The most common reason is that, if they didn’t then they wouldn’t be competing with everyone else in the paper/YP or whatever but I still think that your service should speak for itself, you shouldn’t have to bribe people into using you.
Aside from which, it’s not a business that lends itself to free estimates IMO.
K.
Re: Free Estimate.
I wonder if these same people go to Tesco’s and ask for free food !
There ain’t many things that are free in this life and those that are probably ain’t worth having in the first place:
I leave free estimates and the like to my compeditors, the less money they make the sooner they will be out of business.
Re: Free Estimate.
We used to give free estimates, but stopped couple of years back and haven’t noticed any drop in work.
Only ever had 1 person complain at being charged (even though she had been told over the phone).
Most are happy to pay a small fee to find out whether it is worth having their machine repaired.Brian
Re: Free Estimate.
squadman wrote:I wonder if these same people go to Tesco’s and ask for free food !
There ain’t many things that are free in this life and those that are probably ain’t worth having in the first place:
If you give this some serious thought, you will realise that all the best things in life really are free.
The problem is that most of the time we do not appreciate and value these things. It is only when we are in danger of losing them that their true value becomes apparant.
Andy 😀
Re: Free Estimate.
andy2 wrote:If you give this some serious thought, you will realise that all the best things in life really are free.
The problem is that most of the time we do not appreciate and value these things. It is only when we are in danger of losing them that their true value becomes apparant.
How very profound of you Andy and thanks for sharing that with us.:D
But is that true of some crappy Candy washer dryer on the 13th floor of some scuzzy housing association block in Feltham where the single mum of four wants to know if it’s fixable or not but don’t want to shell out any money? (the washer I mean – steady now 😉 )
Re: Free Estimate.
Sorry I was under the impression that we were discussing this on the basis of a commercial enviroment as opposed to the simple things of life.
Certainly there are many things that we all endear that cost nothing in terms of money, however those things usually require the giving of something in order to receive.On the basis of the original question of Free estimates can any of us really afford to be running around allday for free ?
That is the question to be or not to be !
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