Meetings & Contract Rates

[kwatt]

You know it’s quite good going to these meetings, whether they be DASA or UKW ones as you get to meet allsorts of interesting people and get opinions on and off the record that can often slightly change your opinion on some things.

We’re often regarded as being a bit radical on UKW and, I guess, there’s probably some merit in that view at times and I often cringe when I see some posts and people’s thoughts. And I thought I was a maverick! 😆

But it gets worse, at this weekend’s AGM I spoke to several manufacturers and WP’s that were in attendance and almost without exception they asked the one same question, “Why are you all still doing work at under £35?”. Seems harmless enough until you actually stop and think and put it into context with the rest of the conversation. The question was asked as these guys know that if we just tell the lower payers to stuff off basically they have no option but to pay more, be it through them or by another route. That was very interesting indeed.

It transpires that, from the last UKW meeting and the DASA AGM, that the figure of £35 a call is now really regarded as the bare minimum that should be paid for a call. £40-42 is the current benchmark, £45 on free-standing laundry (Samsung/D&G) a good rate of pay and anything above that is premium rate work and should be regarded as such.

Now, purely by coincidence, I was doing some invoicing the other day and, to AIS and CDA I did invoices back-to-back and both figures for labour were EXACTLY the same. However, for one I had done 17 calls to earn it and on the other I had done only 10, to me that highlights a huge disparity in rates!

That’s how the land lies now, it won’t be like that forever!

We have seen diesel creep back up to over 83p a litre, it was 89.9p a litre on the motorway on the drive home (my Switch card is still in shock) and that will have a direct effect on our costs. If you watch the oil markets and follow what they do, it looks increasingly likely that £1 a litre is not far away, I have to ask, how long can we continue to absorb that cost?

Labour costs are increasing and are set to increase still further in line with inflation.

Training costs, especially in relation to CORGI and the additional administrative costs are set to rocket in the not too distant future, the chap that gave a talk at the weekend’s meeting had figures that frightened the audience, WP/manufacturers included.

So, I have to ask the same question as these guys that are “in the know”, why on Earth are we still running about like fools havign the liquid excrament taken out us and doing work for less that £35.

We’re not stupid, I don’t think.

K.

[Oldtog]

You had to be at the AGM to Appreciate Kens point.

OT

[admin]

Re: Meetings & Contract Rates

It has to be up to the individual business to determine why they work for Less then £35.00 per call.

Some of them will want that work to stand still and at least retain staff in the hope something better comes along. And who can say that that is not ok for a certain amount of time, bearing in mind that the cost to do a call will vary depending on the size and efficeincy of the individuals.

One thing is for certain, you can’t buy work and survive and you can’t stand still for long. All have to train up to the Maximum if you want to be here in 5 years time. You will need to find the funds to invest into training to make yourself available to the work providers of the time.

The ability to do even a simple P&L will bring home to those who don’t do it their real costs per job and without doing it they just won’t know what the score is.

I now have my minimum set at £37.00 per call and this is working extremely well for us. Instead of having space in the system it has been swallowed up by an increase in private work and the contracts I work for increasing their work to me. Whilst the lower paying and late paying networks need repairers it will increasingly be the lesser skill set business that they end up with as the forward thinkers adjust their working patterns.

You’re so wrong Oldtog to say”you had to be at the AGM to understand” this is an old chestnut and more and more business’s are switching onto the problems. As we all look for more renumeration there is a price to pay and there’ll be a post on that soon.

Kevin

[kwatt]

Re: Meetings & Contract Rates

My minimum standard call rate is ~£35 and, quite openly, I will tell you that is for AIS simply due to a long standing relationship with them although some of the demands on reporting are not supported by that rate by a long way.

Two years ago my minimum for taking on anything new was set to £35, now it’s £40 and, you know what? You can get it if you ask, but if you just accept what’s offered then hell mend you really.

Roy Fisher from CDSL summed it up quite well really, as an engineering service we’re quite unique in many ways, we deliver service IN HOME we go to the customer and we do it for less than many similar services that do not do so. Look at browngoods, unless it’s a big item you have to take it to the repairer and even then I recently had to help a friend to get 42″ CRT TV into the back of his car to get it fixed, in a workshop! We have to take all our vehicles to a workshop and then we pay more for the pivilege of doing that. In many ways, we’re off our rockers doing it for the low prices that we do.

What we have to remember is that we are doing these people a favour by providing a valuable and unique service, not the other way around.

K.

[patches]

Re: Meetings & Contract Rates

We are currently doing work at below £35.00 for 2 of our WP’s out of 6. One is our main work supplier, which at present we need to stick with for financial reasons. The other we have tried for several months and have now decided it is not worth the hassle for this pitiful payment and will be terminating this week.
We have previously terminated GBDAR (spit) for similar reasons and one other for general incompetence
All work providers need to look at what back up they are currently providing to their agents. If they have tech info lines and stock ordering direct through them then it is ok to do work around the £35 to £40 per job but if all they provide is the customer then the payments should also represent that and be £40+ per call. Having talked and occasionally also listened to various engineers / companies at the recent UKW & DASA meetings I would say IMO that a mini revolution is happening within our industry and the tail is starting to wag at the dog. K

[Author]

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