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I told a customer what part was needed to fix his cooker, he had already changed the element himself. I’ve ordered the part but now he is avoiding my calls. It’s a good job I told him the wrong faulty part.
Re: Should of got a deposit.
And to think I spent most of Thursday morning explaining at length to someone,why he should use independents to repair his products…
Re: Should of got a deposit.
Never tell the customer what has gone wrong before the repair, give them a price for repairing they’re machine. Once you’ve completed the job & the machine’s been tested is the time to tell them & then put it on the Job card / Receipt. Don’t understand why you’d tell them the wrong part though.
Re: Should of got a deposit.
You should tell the customer exactly what is required to complete the repair, you do not need to give them part numbers etc. in over 35 years self employed I have never taken a deposit from a customer for parts I have to order but have always given them a full breakdown of what is required, including mentioning that in some instances, other parts/faults may be needed or become apparent on strip down, the cost for which they will be liable for.
The number of times that a customer refuses to accept a repair after first agreeing to it will be very small indeed in the grand scheme of things.
To refuse to tell them what parts are required or to deliberately misinform them is very shoddy practise indeed. 🙁
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Re: Should of got a deposit.
I think you should be honest and tell the customer exactly whats required and how much. How is the customer supposed to make an informed decision about wether a repair is worth it, or if the cost quoted is worth it, if they dont even know what your quoting for???
Re: Should of got a deposit.
Totally agree with you: Misinforming the customer is not good practice & just ends up getting the trade a bad name. As for telling the customer what parts are needed then unless specifically asked I don’t anymore, I’ve been caught out too many times with customers deciding to fit their own parts or get a mate to do it & I’m not into losing money. I give the customer a quote for parts & labour & advise them whether the repair is viable / cost effective.
Re: Should of got a deposit.
i dont generally tell them to the last detail ie part nos etc , but if specifically asked i will , we charge a diagnostic fee anyway so if customer wants to do their own thing that fine we take the fee for our time and let them get on with it ,
we very rarely get customers doing this, but were are in difficult times and customer will try and save money doing diy repair if they think they can do it ..best not to go in and start advising easy job and heres the part number etc .
lesson learned i suppose ,
Re: Should of got a deposit.
When i first started out on my own, I did not charge for estimates and had no call charge, that soon changed.
I got called to a dishwasher that was filling with clean water when not in use.
Told the nice Indian man it needed an inlet valve, he said I will let you know and I left, and he did not call back for the repair.About 4 months later the same man phoned asking advice about his Hotpoint washer sticking on wash. He said you have been to me before, I asked for his address and remembered I did not repair the dishwasher, I asked did you get a new one? he said
“No I got a valve and fitted it myself”
I then realised he was fishing for tips not a repair. I was not going to let that happen twice.
He said he thought it was a timer are they easy to fit? The machine was an old 95130, going back a bit! I told him it was easy but did not say it would fix the fault at any point.
I just said it could be the timer. He hung up a happy chappy, I just laughed to myself thinking it was payback time for taking the pi**A week later he called again moaning I had got it wrong, it still sticks in wash, I must come out and fix it free of charge as he had spent money on a timer that was not needed, blah blah blah. That’s when I told him I no longer did free call outs and advice also cost money, in his case a timers worth. Never done a free call out since. The cheek of some people.
Re: Should of got a deposit.
Guys: A fee for diagnosis or estimates is all well & good if you can get it, unfortunately down here i’m competing against a lot of other repairers & every bugger is advertising FREE callouts & estimates. I tried charging for callouts & estimates but in the end gave up, 1st thing most of them ask is if you charge to come out & give an estimate. If your lucky you just get the phone put down or in a lot of cases you get a slagging as well, that’s why I don’t tell them what parts are needed. I’ve had too many where I lost money doing so.
Re: Should of got a deposit.
We have always worked the same way,
we charge for the call out on the 1st visit, this includes all the engineers time and labour and the customer pays for the part only on the return visit.Re: Should of got a deposit.
Call I had earlier just proves the point for me. Went like this, Him: My washing machine is dead can you come look at it. Me: Yes no problem, I can look at it for you but need the make & model first. Him: Hold on I wan’t to know if you charge for callouts & estimates first, if you do then i’ll call someone else. Told him no I don’t charge for callout or estimate locally & he says ok you can come & look at it.
Re: Should of got a deposit.
and if when you go diagnose it for him for free and he either:-
a) goes to one of your rivals because they undercut you once he told them your quote, or
b) does it himself after buying the item off fleabay etc,
what do you do, and how do you make sufficient profit to keep you going during the lean times, and be able to do a decent job when a paying one comes up?
As the old saying goes, busy fools and their money are easily parted.
If you really can make it work good luck to you but I would rather get paid an set labour charge per job and give an honest answer to a customer, than worry about paying for tomorrow’s diesel.
If that means just 5 jobs a day, so be it!
Jackal
Re: Should of got a deposit.
Hi Jackal: Don’t know where your based mate but it sure is’nt the Welsh hills, most of the people down here won’t pay call out charges because they know they can go to the other firms & get free Callout / Estimates etc. As for 5 jobs a day, i’d happily settle for 5 Domestic Appliance jobs a day at the minute but there just aren’t that many of them around here. That’s why I repair Catering equipment, Garage equipment, Industrial power tools & Machines etc as well. It keeps things going & Commercial / Industrial customers know they have to pay if they want to keep running, if I relied on just appliances then i’d be jacking it in tomorrow.
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