Self employed charging to do a call out ?

[steve_s]

So I was having this energetic chat with a guy I know and hes adamant that if you (insert electrician plumber builder etc) and you were called to a job and when you got there there was no fault to be found you should not charge the customer and he said if any tradesman charged him he wouldn't use them again.
As for me I would charge a call out fee to cover fuel


So tradesmen whats you view ??
.

 

[eLuSiVeMiTe]

He's a tit.

No one works for free.

 

[eLuSiVeMiTe]

He's a tit.

No one works for free.

Min charge regardless of work

 

[voipio]

Making it clear there is a call out charge, and that the customer understands that, would seem fair enough.

On the other hand, if the customer wants some work doing and you're there to give a quote but find it doesn't need doing, that's a bit more tricky, but then for bigger jobs, the "cost" of going out and doing quotes will be factored into all the jobs that get done. Simple business sense.

 

[gaz1]

ask them simple question . would .they charge if theyed been there half hour or a full hour whilst trying to find the fault

minimum charge applies but customer informed of this

or fuel charge applies

 

[zx9]

Minimum call out of £x, I had a regular client who would put in call outs when all that required doing was turning on an equipment rack at the mains socket. I say had a client because there was a little disagreement along the lines of the OP, they could not grasp that a two minute job would have the same cost to business as a fifty nine minute job, it cost me exactly the same:
1 & 1/2 hours to drive into Soho.
£10.50 congestion charge
£18 parking
1 & 1/2 hours to drive back

I am not sorry that one came to an end.

 

[RonA]

Regardless of there be no fault, there’s your time, wear, tear & depreciation on your vehicle. You might wave the fee if it was a regular customer to show good will but otherwise I’d charge.
Sounds like the same mentality that would call an ambulance rather than a taxi.
RonA

 

[mike os]

Always charge for callout. ... and an hour on site.

Depends on the customer of course oap's or regular customers might get away with it

Would they go into work to sort the printer out for free?

 

[8ob]

So I was having this energetic chat with a guy I know and hes adamant that if you (insert electrician plumber builder etc) and you were called to a job and when you got there there was no fault to be found you should not charge the customer and he said if any tradesman charged him he wouldn't use them again.
As for me I would charge a call out fee to cover fuel


So tradesmen whats you view ??
.

My view is its all won and lost in the paperwork not the job itself. Words are of no use when discussing rates , far better to have a standard format with all of the variables listed with terms and conditions that need to be agreed/accepted before you set foot out of the door. We have this and also ping across copies of insurances, payment details, certification, and HS bull at the same time. Never have a problem.

Bob

 

[premmington]

He's a tit.

No one works for free.

Only idiots work for nothing...

I charge for every minute of my day.

 

[rtbcomp]

So I was having this energetic chat with a guy I know and hes adamant that if you (insert electrician plumber builder etc) and you were called to a job and when you got there there was no fault to be found you should not charge the customer and he said if any tradesman charged him he wouldn't use them again.
As for me I would charge a call out fee to cover fuel

.

I think he's probably doing those tradesmen a favour.

It really comes down to discretion, there are jobs I haven't charged for, such as the time a regular customer who always pays on the dot didn't switch his monitor on. With regular customers there's always the opportunity to add a bit to subsequent bills to cover "freebies".

I didn't invoice charities either as long as there were no parts involved.

 

[tommullin]

it shouldn't make any difference if you're self employed or working for a business. time is money. no reputable business (small or large) works for free unless its under some kind of pre paid SLA. we bill the customer for travel, hotels, meals and flights all on top of a day rate (min half day). its all up front in quotations and there's never been any real agro.

 

[tommullin]

charities

that's a tough one. but most of the major charities have CEO's earning mega bucks. even those kids who pester you on the street for your bank details for 'just £5 per month' get paid. id be much happier giving money to a volunteer charity (not non-profit) where as much of the money as possible goes to the intended recipient, not admin, management etc. i'm sure a lot of people would be willing to give up some time and work for free (back to the original post) for something like that too

 

[Revs1972]

If it was a regular customer, and you've not spent a great deal of time and money etc getting out to them , then I wouldn't charge them . I would just add the cost to the next job I did for them. I get calls to change things on drawings . Might take me 10 mins to do, so I just put it in the diary and then just add an hour to the next job.

If i was called out of the blue, to go and fix a problem that didn't exist, then yes, I would charge the customer. Min charge 1 hour. That rate would include fuel etc to get there. If the customer expects things for free, imagine how they would try to knock you down if you did any real work for them

 

[AndersK]

he said if any tradesman charged him he wouldn't use them again.
.

Guess he'll run out of tradesmen to call quickly then

 

[bert]

Even back in the 80's my Dad charged for call outs on recovery £45 +VAT. Quite a few times he didn't need to do anything when he got there as the car started on the button. They still paid as it's all time and wear on the truck etc.

 

[julianf]

For repair work, I used to have a minimum charge of one hour, regardless of what's been done. This was made clear before the customer accepted.

I did, at my discression, drop this in some cases, at my offer, rather than that of thr client, but in general it stood.

If you turn up on site, and someone has forgotten to turn the device on, you have still spent an hour of your time doing something they evidently couldn't...

Not at fault - you've confirmed there isnt a fault.

I mean if they could do all these things themselves, what are they doing calling you??

If they need your services, they should expect to fund them. If you drop the charge as a good will, or reduce it, etc. then it's exactly that - good will, not standard practice.

Again, if they didn't need you on site, they could have left you in bed - they needed you, so they called, knowing your terms (I hope)

 

[ajlelectronics]

We have a fixed price for up to 90 minutes on site, regardless. So two minutes or 90 minutes, the customer knows the cost in advance.

 

[rtbcomp]

that's a tough one. but most of the major charities have CEO's earning mega bucks. ...

Agreed, as it turned out I only did 2 or 3 jobs for local charities, so it worked out OK.

The one exception was the Sheffield Marathon connected to the World Student Games in 1991. The Children's Society had the job of doing the competitors registration and they asked me if I could supply an Amstrad PCW (twin floppies) and what software should they use? Clearly they hadn't a clue, so I ended up lending them a hard-disk machine and writing a data-entry system in Infomaster (DataEase). I spent a lot of time on it, the volunteer who was doing the data entry needed training, but at the end of the day they bought the computer off me, took me out to lunch and invited me to the reception at the Town Hall after the games had finished. I also got a bit more paid private work off an employee of the charity. So everybody's happy.

 

[Gragson]

My old folks owe me a fortune in NFF call outs over the years
Charity begins and all that...