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need advice on fair labor rate

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nytech28

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Discussion starter · #1 ·
am trying to join home advisor network for hvac service after getting all the requerments i would like to know what labor rate would be best and fair for me and customer, do i need to charge travel time can any one help or give good advice.thank you
 
#2 ·
i dont think anyone can tell you that. every company, area, and overheads are different. you have to charge what your area and overhead demand.
 
#3 ·
Why is this in commercial? Didn't you say "home" advisor network?

I'd re-think that. Sounds like a lowball provider.
 
#4 ·
Be competitive in your area. We charge no travel time to the first call but the next customer gets travel time and the last one of the day gets charged till the techs home.
 
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Discussion starter · #6 ·
Not really commrcail at this time but mostly residential and ventilation systems and if you dont mind me asking why you think home advisor is low ball provider? am trying to get start they will help me with the leads
 
#8 ·
rider77 said:
Be competitive in your area. We charge no travel time to the first call but the next customer gets travel time and the last one of the day gets charged till the techs home.
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So the last customer of the day gets screwed.
We flat rate trip/dagnostic charge. Dispatcher groups nearby calls with last day's calls near supply house.
 
#9 ·
Every customer gets a "travel and administration" charge, one time per event and allowed on returns or subsequent service. I had a customer who tracked one of my trucks travel from a job one block away to his site, and then griped about the travel/admin charge, "He only drove one block!". I said,"Yea, but he had to travel twice as far to get to those two jobs!.. Haha.

I never heard from him again and I was glad for it.

~Cheers!
 
#10 ·
I have some customers who refuse to pay a Service Call. So I work it into the bill someplace else and everybody is still happy. Also some customers try to beat me up on the labor so I add the difference into the parts. Same end result. :grin2:
 
#11 ·
I had a customer - a little Korean lady. She would call, is Mawk there? (My name is MARK. haha). After the bill was produced she would say, "It's too muuuush, mawk." Time after time I had to haggle with her. At one point when I started totalling the ticket, I would add an 1/2 hour for the anticpated haggling. Finally, one day I presented the bill and as predicted, "It's too muuuush." I responded, "Well, On (pronounced "own"), How much should it be?"

She was like deer in headlights. "I don't know. Well you take care of me and give me good price next time." Then she wrote the check. Gee if I had only started doing that a year before. Haha :beat:
 
#12 ·
Then, on some customers that I really like, I'll lower the bill then normal. Quite often they will tell me that's not enough and pay me more. :gah:
 
#13 ·
nytech28 said:
Not really commrcail at this time but mostly residential and ventilation systems and if you dont mind me asking why you think home advisor is low ball provider? am trying to get start they will help me with the leads
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The expertise of such websites is getting traffic to their site. They see you and you potential customers as commodities (identical product or service units whose only difference is their cost) so the website has to keep you cost at an absolute minimum. Their customers are the same people who look up the cost of a contactor online and believe that is what you should charge for one.
 
#14 ·
nytech28 said:
am trying to join home advisor network for hvac service after getting all the requerments i would like to know what labor rate would be best and fair for me and customer, do i need to charge travel time can any one help or give good advice.thank you
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My guess is that you are new to this. Don't take that as an insult, but I think you have a rather steep learning curve in the beginning you'll need to get over. And it will be painful at times. If you want to get pricing, just call around to other shops in the area. But I'm guessing that home adviser network is looking for 25 - 30% cheaper than the going rate.
 
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#15 ·
We my be working on the same things (A/C and refrigeration), but the service that we provide can be very different. The guy that clips pigtails on flooded condenser control valves and installs fan cycle controls connected to the receiver king valve might seem cheaper than the guy who replaced the flooded condenser control valve.

When I first started in the HVACR service industry, I worked for a guy that first of all only did refrigeration to keep other companies out of the customer's place to protect the Air Conditioning service business, there. Second of all - the hourly labor rate was cheap, but he made up for it in the charges for parts.

I advertise that, you can pay me ONCE, or pay the other guy OVER AND OVER AGAIN.
 
#16 ·
Much better to charge high and give a customer a special" discount then to offer a cherap price and tack on additional charges. Eitherbway, it will be the same price, but, if the customer feels like he is special, he will call again.
 
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