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Re: Free Estimate.
If you live in a big urban area and don’t have to travel far to pull in your day’s quota, no call out is a possibility. It’s different when you have to spend time and money travelling.
Mike.Re: Free Estimate.
I can imagine people working in a village or other relatively small area having no problem at all with offering free estimates. I think some of the clash of opinion can be explained by the fact that people are talking from different perspectives.
When I tried free estimates I was specialising exclusively in Hoover & Hotpoint washers and dryers only. That’s all I did, and we needed to cover a large area to get enough work. We covered all of Sheffield (5th largest city in the country) Rotherham, Barnsley and Dronfield. We even covered parts of Chesterfield and Worksop. Clearly there’s no way free estimates can work. It can take 50 minutes to get from one side of Sheffield to the other at certain times of the day and it’s totally impossible to travel for 50 mins, spend 20 mins or so looking at a machine and then be 20 mins at least away from your next job for nothing. Knowing this I suspect anyone happily doing free estimates under such circumstances is probably making a good whack out of enough customers to cover it, or they are talking people into having things repaired that should be scrapped – if that’s even possible these days.
If you have a business that covers enough product range to be able to work a small area then I imagine things are quite different and you could be able to make it pay and be happy without needing to rip anyone off.
So I suppose the fairest thing to say is that Free estimates and no call out charges are not impossible to offer for every one and not soley the tool of cowboys, but for most repair businesses they are just not acceptable as a marketing tool because the economics just don’t work.
Re: Free Estimate.
53 callout
25 labourdid free estimates for a bit when i was a whitegoods engineer and had all sorts of fools asking weird questions like ” i just bought my washer from curries can you install it for free?
i remember a call on a bank holiday come in, i said 15 pound. he said “juyst to come out and look at it”?
i put the phone down.
Re: Free Estimate.
It never ceases to amaze me how often this subject comes up within these forums and also the amount of times that a someone will call up asking for someone to come out to them for nothing !
We have never done free estimates period I just won’t hear of them, how in this day and age can we as a trade run around all day for nothing ??? it makes no sense to me. Sure there will always be someone operating in your area who does not mind running around for nothing but let them I say.
Most of the Free Estimate people in my service area come and go, mostly go due to the fact that are unable to make it pay over the longer term, some of them due to the fact that anything are than simple carbon changes etc are beyond their skill set.Either way they do not affect our business and we always make a charge and have done for the last 20 years !
Re: Free Estimate.
I am also amazed by it too, thing is i think those that do find its a step to get their foot in the door…then i think they tend to let the customer start haggling over prices, then they HIT the next customer who doesnt ask for free calls etc with a huge bill that they wouldnt possibly of if the customer before didnt hum n rrr at the price, I think its a scandal personally that someone who is genuine and doesnt question it gets STUNG because there is tight asses out there!
Re: Free Estimate.
Isn’t it strange how many times this topic rears its head over the years? I remember how heated some of them used to get and how divided the members were on the subject (the good old days). It all seems so placid now with most posters agreeing with one another and posturing over how much work they get!
The thing is really that if you scan the local rags and the Thompsons or yellow pages you will still find quite a number of repairers that are willing to give free estimates to customers and who seem to do quite well out of it, whereas quite a few around here who had a fixed callout charge have gone to the wall and in the present economic situation I would expect there to be more following them. But really the question over whether you do free estimates (on site) is moot really I think it is up to each individual to make their own decision on that score, if they do it doesn’t make them a bad repairer nor does it give them an unfair advantage over the competition it just means that they have more chance of getting screwed by the customer who finds out what is wrong with their machine and then gets the parts and does the job himself; how many of you have been there and got the tee-shirt for that one?
Over the years I have witnessed many bad repairers who have a callout charge that had no interest in repairing a machine just telling the customer that it was BER and getting hold of the call out charge or selling them a reconditioned machine when in most cases there was only a minor fault on the original machine and they have survived and still do the same thing even now, the one that does the free estimate is dependent on getting the job in order to make any money which again can lead to a certain amount of dishonesty.
I think that for a one man band to offer free estimates within a certain area of his home can in some circumstances be an advantage to the repairer as long as he is not having to travel more than about 15 mins to the job it can be worth the effort, but to be fair to the ones who employ others it would be impractical to have no call out charge as they not only have to make their own living but also have to find money for the wages as well.
In all of this I think being honest, reliable and professional will keep customers coming back regardless of whether you charge a call out or not.Richard Scanlon Sr
Re: Free Estimate.
RS wrote:The thing is really that if you scan the local rags and the Thompsons or yellow pages you will still find quite a number of repairers that are willing to give free estimates to customers
If I scan my Yellow Pages there is virtually no one left. Around 10 years ago the washing machine repairs section covered about 12 pages, with about 70{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} of adverts covering half or full page. The majority offered free estimates and no call out charges. Contrast that with today and there is just one full page of adverts and the majority of them are manufacturers.
And this is the yellow pages that covers Sheffield (the fifth largest city in the UK) and surrounding towns.
Re: Free Estimate.
Sadly I think that you are correct regarding the amount of repairers that are now advertising in both the YP and the local rags but as we all know with rising costs all round and the low cost of a new washer (crap or not) it is now a throwaway society why pay a £100 to have a washer fixed when you can get a new one for £150 even if it is a load of crap it is covered for the first 12 months no wonder so many have gone to the wall.
😥Richard Scanlon Sr
Re: Free Estimate.
I have to respond to this subject discussion because, at the risk of being shot down in flames, we still offer no call out charge and free estimates. We have been trading since 1986 and still manage to make it pay without a call out charge for most items. We have debated introducing a call out charge many many times but just as we are on the verge of introducing one, Mrs O’Brady (little old lady) will call and tell you she chose you because “I see you have no call out charge”. Everyone is happy. We get the call, she pays a reasonable price for a repair. I must say it has caused some problems over the years with certain customers thinking “no call out charge” = “no charge whatsover” but that is the way it will always be – some people are idiots! We are based in the Midlands and I’m not sure whether location effects what kind of service you can offer but I can assure you that there are still many repairers offering free call outs here and most do a decent, honest days work for decent money. Just my point of view obviously, but please don’t assume no call out charge equals cowboys. Its not true.
Re: Free Estimate.
It’s simple – don’t say “Call out Charge”. Say “Labour Charge”. We say we don’t charge a call out fee but our labour charge is……
Never had a single complaint. Call out separated from labour means 2 charges to the average Joe fishing for a price. Set labour charge is in effect a “take it or leave it” decision. But those who don’t want to pay the labour charge weren’t going to pay anyway. 😉Steve.
Re: Free Estimate.
i have no callout charge because my main competitor in mt area has no callout charge.
the way he gets round it is when he gets in the door he announces he has a minimum charge before he even opens the toolbox.
whats the difference between callout charge and minimum charge, just clever use of the english language.
i do get customers who think no callout charge means free repair.Re: Free Estimate.
Hi
All our customers get told on the phone when they book the call we have a call out charge which if they go ahead with the repair becomes your labour charge for the job completed so all you pay after that is parts and people and it works. I (with help from kingswood dave 😉 ) have been working on all our trade customers to stop the free est and c/o and gradually they have and not looked back wishing they had done it years ago. Only one guy that i know of near us does free estimates and he’s no busier as a result either. The way i see it is if you TAKE your car to a garage to get looked at then you pay for diagnosis? Yes? But you took your car to them! So if you travel to a place to do your diagnosis how/why do that for free? When you work out cost per job then when you loose a job because you don’t do free est then i just think it’s saved a wasted journey and a loss of X amount. Three of those in a day and big chunk of profit gone.
If your good at something don’t do it for free unless it’s for charity
Nige
Re: Free Estimate.
Charity begins at home.
I don’t even buy from charity shops these days either, the markup on some things you see ya can actually get new cheaper.I buy a poppy once a year thats it!
Re: Free Estimate.
weve never charged a call out fee in over 20 years i think if we tried to introduce one now it would lead to a drop in customers overall. i get the odd person wasting my time but most just want a repair doing at a reasonable price I get a lot off customers tell me that they always call us because we dont charge to tell them whats wrong. nine times out of ten they have a repair done or buy a new appliance off us I believe if i had charged call out fee 20 years ago that my customer base would have been slower to grow and i wouldnt be as busy as we are today .i recently repaired an integ f frz with a blocked filter when i gave the customer the bill for 85 pounds he informed me he had had another company out before me who had quoted 250 quid for a new compressor and when he declined had charged him 80 quid call out 😯 so as i see it each system is open to abuse if your that way inclined .cheers Cras.
Re: Free Estimate.
I always state £20 estimate fee plus £20 more if the job completed. I had 2 this week where machines BER. If they buy a new machine from me they get the fee back so it’s an incentive. It equates to £2000 per year income so not to be sneezed at. The number of customers lost is about 1 in 25 calls maximum, on the phone and I don’t appreciate driving around Dorset, using my diesel for nothing. Most realise we have to make a living and are happy with this arrangement but to each his own.
Rob
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