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Re: Free Estimate.
No free estimates,advice on the phone as to best and worst scenarios but minimum charge from £25 plus vat, going up with extra mileage.
Important question also is “is it built in”? if it’s yes then as you don’t know which Tom,Dick or Harry has fitted it,it could be another £10.Re: Free Estimate.
spimps wrote:
Important question also is “is it built in”? if it’s yes then as you don’t know which Tom,Dick or Harry has fitted it,Its rarely Tom or Harry, nearly always a Dick. :rolls:
Re: Free Estimate.
stop doing free estimates
a very hard hurdle to get over , but worth whilewe used to do free est ..and i hated it although we screened calls and there wasnt many jobs we lost.
i really de-tested giving some jumped up engineer (info) to repair his own app. ( info was always vague )
got the odd call back to say theyve tried motor and wm still not working..
oh did i say motor to you ..i meant module you must off not heard me ??i now take great pleasure driving to customers who want to pay us for our services..
we dont even flinch now when we loose some scag bag who wants a free estimate now.. and like squadman says..
let our competitors run around wasting their time/money on them..admitedly we get most of our call fee from intigrated app and american f/f,s…can be worth while specialising in a particular area of the market..
dont know if k could do a page etc on free estimates and post in customer forums… the more joe public get educated the better for this industry..
ally
Re: Free Estimate.
I’m finding more & more chancers taking advantage of a diagnosis you might give them over the phone. Had two fairly recently, one phoned my mobile when i was half way to the job, apparently i was right about his cold fan oven :rolls: (clever i am) & he just wanted to buy an element now.
Still, at least he had the decency to call, turned up to a house last week only to be met with closed curtains, no answer to door, no answer to phone, hav’nt heard from them since.
I can only assume my advice that a simple blockage on her Hotpoint was likely, was correct 😯 I’ll call again to try to extract the callout but i dont rate my chances frankly.
I dunno what to do to combat this trend though, you try to be open & helpful & a minority ruin it by taking the absolute p*ss 🙁Re: Free Estimate.
squadman wrote: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 !
Sorry for going off topic, but i just thought the point was worth making.
In answer to your question – definately not – never have – never will.
Andy 😀
Re: Free Estimate.
I will do free estimates, but when i do the quote i give also incurs the call out charge,cheeky i know,but i don,t work for nothing,like everyone else here its our bread and butter. 🙂 🙂 🙂
Re: Free Estimate.
This thread has certainly put my mind at rest… because frankly i was getting so fed up of it i was gonna go shelf stack at tesco on nights…were i do not have to deal with the public!! lol.
Plod on i will. 😉Re: Free Estimate.
LJDomestics wrote:because frankly i was getting so fed up of it i was gonna go shelf stack at tesco on nights…
If there’s an Asda in your neck of the woods I would advise trying them ‘cos apparently their pay is better, hours are shorter and you can keep up your day job too…a win win situation I reckon. 😉
Myself, I’m considering promoting FREE ESTIMATES, NO CALL OUT, FREE ADVICE, SAME DAY SERVICE 24/7 – 365..FREE DELIVERY & NOTHING TO PAY FOR 5 YEARS AND ONLY THEN IF YOU ARE COMPLETELY HAPPY WITH THE SERVICE I PROVIDE?
………..nah!…..It’ll never work………..many punters will surely figure out that…… “there must be a catch?”:rotl:
Re: Free Estimate.
Excellent idea Martin got 10 machines for you to fix, why aren’t you here yet? :rolling:
Re: Free Estimate.
He won’t come now.. hes heard theres only 9 as u managed to fix no 10 urself.. lol
Re: Free Estimate.
i will give a free estimate over the phone after all an estimate is surely only a guess and i list everything from timer,p/switch etc they generally get me ou and i charge a fixed labour charge if job is done or a £20ber fee if they decline the repair.i find i lose very little when i quote the £20ber fee and the ones you lose you would have lost anyway when they found out what was wrong and then fixed it themselves.
cheers chris 😀
Re: Free Estimate.
I’m going to tackle two things in this post, possibly more, as they are all intertwined…
To be quite blunt, I get sick of the whole debate about whether we should offer free advice to the general public or not on a faulty product. Or free calls or free whatever.
You see, to me, it’s an irrelevance. I just help people. I have no care whether they are trade or a member of the public, to me it makes no odds.
You don’t see someone collapsed in the street and walk on by because you can’t be bothered to stop or, if you do, then I feel sorry for you as much as the person you ignored in need of help. Now, how would you feel about a doctor that did that and ignored a person that was in that sort of need?
In America that may well happen because, if the doctor doesn’t get paid then he doesn’t help. We’re thankfully not slaves to that sort of system and nor is our medical services.
I appreciate it’s not quite the same thing but the point is made.
We are supposed to be professionals. We purport to be and therefore we should act as such in my opinion.
Free advice. Free Help. Free… free… free…
Nothing is free.
Free things are worthless.
Free things negate the true value.
The free callout brigade are cowboys, how preposterous is that?
Free advice is from idiots and cowboys, again how preposterous is that statement?
Heard them all and subscribe to one. I don’t believe in free callouts. I believe that if you take the time and incur the cost of actually going to see someone then there is a cost attached and that that cost should be met by someone.
More often than not though, free isn’t really free at all, it just doesn’t have an upfront cost, that’s all.
And yes, I know that it may seem contradictory. It’s not really, you just have to get your head round the concept of “free” and the business models that utilise it as a promotional tool.
For example, have any of you that do free calls thought about offsetting the cost of that, at retail value, against taxation or VAT as an advertising cost? In six years of UKW I’ve yet to see someone even mention it, why? It is advertising, promotion, whatever you want to call it or frame it you do it to attract business, why not get back what you can from it?
Many years ago I used to do some spares distribution, albeit on a small scale but nonetheless, I ran a promotion whereby we gave away free Hotpoint carbons with a certain order value. I claimed the VAT on the purchase (obviously), didn’t pay the VAT on the “free” sale and claimed the cost as a tax deduction since it was considered a promotion.
Now, I’ve no clue if the rules are still the same but, damn tooting, if I was giving something away for free that was tangible, I’d be finding out if I could offset it somewhere to reduce my costs. And, I’d be doing that at the RETAIL value!
But getting back to the whole advice thing…
What if you considered it a promotional tool?
You see, I do consider it in that way. I think that offering some advice, even to people not in your area, actually makes you more attractive as a prospect if the person looking for a bit of advice or guidance comes across you.
Person thinks, “Look at that, that guy actually offers help and advises for free so he’ll not rip me off and from what he’s said he knows is stuff.” To be politically correct you can substitute another gender if you please.
The point is, you have the customer’s trust before you even get the call. They think you’re there to help and they don’t think you’ll rip them off.
But free to call… where’s the catch? I don’t know about you but I’d always be wondering where that catch was, how much it would cost and how many free estimates will I pay for. Because, after all, we all know you get very few things in life for free… except advice so long as it’s not from a solicitor or suchlike.
In other words, you may be free, but you’re under suspicion before you walk through the door.
There’s some food for thought. 😉
K.
Re: Free Estimate.
Ken takes tin opener to can of worms……….
At one level, this is a very simple arguement. You won’t find a plumber in Leeds who will even cross your threshold for less than £60. Any of them….. I don’t know if they run a little cartel or not; or whether they are sufficiently savvy to know that they can’t work for nowt.
Ken’s got a little calculator on the site (I can never find it….. 😥 ). Last time I filled it in (with honest data), I found out that it costs me £19 and some pence to ring the customers doorbell. I’m an independent with relatively low overheads, so how it works for some of the multi-engineer businesses with full-time office support can only be worse and the further south you go, the worse it’ll get.
So – no free call-outs, no free estimates from here. You’ll get some info on the phone if you ask, you’ll get some estimated prices on the phone if you ask. If you want me, it’s £35. If I’m working and fixing, it’s £45 instead of the £35.
I have to say that Quality Washer Repairs is a well established business (16 years) with a large data base of customers who know what they’re buying into and the level of service they’re going to get. I do not mean to be facetious in any way, but I’m struggling to keep up at the moment.
Then you have the on-going conundrum of UKWhitegoods….. Free info for all the trade, be it tech, gossip, spares or banter. Oh, and the public. They get free advice too, from those who can be bothered to spend a bit of time in the Public Forums and offer some safe, sensible advice to those seekers of knowledge. Some just want to know where to get help from. Some of us even benefit from being signed up to the Repairs@ facility. There are some who want to do the fix themselves. Sorry, personal opinion, everybody ought to be able to clear a blockage. There are idiots who will fix it themselves, regardless. There’s one in the Washing Machine Forum with an AL130 right now! Completey bonkers in my opinion but the advice offered so far has been sensible and he hasn’t killed himself. He’s also saving his local UKW repairer a fortune by not having to turn up and try and sort out the mess. Some are just best left to get on with it. Even if he fails, he knows that UKW tried to help him.
It looks good to anybody else looking in.
As for being under suspicion with a new customer, I do hope not. I have my WTA card to hand if a customer wants to check me out. Mores to the point, almost all my new work comes through referals, which is just great. The only advertising we carry now is a small box ad in Yellow Pages; mainly for the benefit of dotty little old ladies who lose the business cards.
You all need to understand that we all benefit from this remarkable free resource. Quite how Ken keeps it afloat is a minor source of wonder to me. Presumably the high level of posts (primarily from the Public Forums) keeps the site up in the rankings and will interest commercial sponsors.
Use it, then you won’t lose it…..
Penguin45.
Re: Free Estimate.
I agree very much with Ken. As the saying goes; what goes round, comes round. If you help people where you can it eventually pays off.
If it does not cost me anything then why worry, so although i would never make a visit to someones home for free i will help them over the phone if its something i think they can sort themselves.
For instance if someones washer is filling with dirty water I will instruct them how to prevent the water from the sink from entering the machine. Or check the timer is on manual if their oven does not work. Customer phones up saying “I cannot believe that you helped me for free, thank you so much! This is now a customer for life AND they can’t wait to tell thier friends and relatives. Why because they now TRUST you!
OK there are some who will say that this is crazy and i am losing money but I have not advertised for 22 years (apart from a free one that mysteriously appeared in the phone book) and i have never been short of work while over the years many others have come and gone.
IMO its all about trust. People are generally scared stiff that someone is going to rip them off bigtime, especially older people. If they feel that they can trust you, will be the one who benefits in the long term.
Its simple really, just treat others how you would like to be treated yourself.
Andy 😀
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