- This topic has 13 replies, 7 voices, and was last updated 21 years, 5 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
As many of us do, left home with a full day, all contract work, paying £37.50 for a completed call, 12 calls booked. Two mornings, 7 anytime and 3 pm after 12’s, utopia. So how did I lose £37.50…easy one was not in…..a note on the door saying back in 5 mins. How long the note was on the door I do not know but I waited 20 mins for them to return and they didn’t. So 10 miles away(almost at my next call) a call from the office …you guessed it they’re back, can you guess my response?????
So 9 completed, 2 to order parts for and 1 not in…..not a bad day in the end to lose £37.50
KevinThere’s an interesting one actually.
I was being told that some people in London especially charge the customer if they get a no-access call, every time. I don’t, it’s a two-strike rule with me, then they get charged for every wasted trip thereafter.
What do you lot do? How do you deal with no-access calls as it is a total waste of time and money?
K.
Heh, that opens up another debate I wanna have at some point too…
What do we all do about non-payment of small debts? How do we deal with it?
If someone would care to start a thread on that one as it could be very interesting indeed.
K.
Re: yesterday I lost £37.50
as most of us are owed money by Nesn I’ll leave it for a.n other to start it.
kevinRe: yesterday I lost £37.50
Kevin, Sorry to say, you got your figures wrong on this call mate 🙁 I figured a breakdown of your costs as follows :-
Travelling time to and from ‘Out Call’ ………20 mins (minimum)
Waiting time in van for a ‘No show!’…………20 mins
Total time therefore……………………………..40 minutes(@£20 per hour) = £13.33
Travelling costs (including Fuel/Tax/insurance/Vehicle Maintenance/tools/stock holding etc) estimated at around £1.79 per mile ( X approx 8 miles) = £14.32.Grand total of loss so far = £27.65.
Then you have to return to complete the call when the customer decides to be at home. That will then be another 20 mins travelling time of £6.66 plus another 8 miles travelling costs of £14.32, add to that another 20 mins to complete the repair @ £6.66. Total of £27.65
Therefore on this one example your costs were £27.65 for the first visit, add plus the other £27.65 making a sub total of £55.30.
You may have noticed at this point that I haven’t included administrative costs here, all that extra paperwork and phone calls but lets just suppose a blanket costing of around say £1.50 possibly?
Sub Total brought forward £55.30 plus £1.50 admin equates to a GRAND TOTAL OF ….£56.80!!!!!!!
Sorry to upset you even more by informing you that your losses are likely to be much greater than you first imagined 😥
MartinYeah Martin we know only too well that every abortive visit made either as a no-access or a spares call is an instant loss situation, hence the importance placed on the first-fix rate. Also the reason that many of us now pre-diagnose and before even going try to jump the gun and get the spares in first, when it works its great, saves the customer hassle as well as us. Sadly it doesn’t always work.
Containing the losses is the trick here.
Now, when we’re asked to do an inspect and report call for anyone I close the call and bill it. Ditto if the customer refuses the repair and it could have been done there and then especially, but many a manufacturer seems to think that we’ll run back, often weeks later and carry out the repair for free under the original call. At which point I often ask them if they travel to work and do their job for free as well. 😉
K.
Re: yesterday I lost £37.50
True enough Ken, and the reason behind my posting was to reinforce the case for a more money. 😈
If Kevin takes full account into his actual costings he will find I am not far out with my calculations sadly 🙁
Martin
Re: yesterday I lost £37.50
Abort calls. If under guarantee or Insurance, we leave a bill in the letterbox. £24 + vat. And there are NO concessions. There is a strong chance they will be back as they are tied to our service. If chargeable call, we leave a note and see what prevails before we consider any penalties.
We take a mobile number in all cases if possible, then when faced with a no access we phone the mobile to find out where the customer is, if round the corner, the engineer will wait or do another job if he has one in the same area. I know it costs, but that works very well.
Wev’e had them crying down the phone, swearing as well all the excuses we can dream of. The most popular is the “I had to rush my child to hospital”. In real life how many times does that really happen? We had 3 of those in one day once. I’ve had insurers ask us to re-consider as well as manufacturers, I will not unless they are daft enough to cover the cost of their customer’s recklessness.
I know it sounds heartless, but it costs me £26.95 to put an engineer on the doorstep, and the makers won’t pay us if the customer chooses to “pop out” for 3 hours. My dentist will charge me £12 for a no show, and he hasn’t left the surgery. I usually find the no access customers happen on a day that we turn away a few chargeable calls that want same day service & we could not oblige.
I have relented on the odd occasion, but it was very rare.
Alex
Re: yesterday I lost £37.50
Thanks for the detailed breakdown Martin, you may well be close with the costs.
However whilst these out calls are a pain…..it was a good day to get one in so far as I completed 9 @ £37.50 out of 12. As Ken says 1st time fix is the key and it helps to accept that WP’s force us to accept these costs for their customers being out.
As I can’t see this situation changing…..I’ll concentrate on the 1st time fix rate and trying to up the completed call rate to £40.00.
Oh and by the way, my staff have told the customer we won’t return and he can complain all he likes to the insurance people.
Kevin
Re: yesterday I lost £37.50
😯
Have you considered “opportunity cost” ?That is the £37.50 you would have earned if you had taken any other call instead ! Plus the £37.50 you would have earned had you been able to do any other call on the day you go back as a recall !
‘Customer not’ in or ‘failed to complete’ is far more expensive than it first seems.
Re: yesterday I lost £37.50
CJ you are absolutely correct. It does indeed cost one lost call and one that was not done, so in effect it’s a double loss.
With the first time completion rates that most of us are on it’s no surprise that we’re not making any real money and merely scraping a living.
K.
When we get an “out”, I ring the office to see what we can squeeze in instead – customer usually delighted, so few problems getting paid. The “out” usually gets one more chance, or NFS – No Further Service.
Mind you, being an overworked sole trader means I squeeze the jobs in however I can. Our system is slightly different – we tend to work to timed appointments (Julia is a perfectly capable negineer and can work out an appropriate amount of time for each call) – I get told off for being 5 minutes late!
Still it’s a living….
Chris.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.