Bloody customers

[Khan]

Why is it always sparks who get down graded. It's radiclous, train for so many years to work to a strict regulations and in the end we get asked can you change 1 double socket for me? I live 20 miles away. Can you do it for £10. Yeh sure darling I will definatly leave my missus and kids at home and drive to you 20 miles away to change your socket. Ridcolous. When a gas engineer comes out oh madam this part is fu**** you will need to pay £400 to replace. Sure we will I will get my cheque book. I feel out trade is sooooo down graded for the graft we do

 

[Octopus]

I wouldn't leave the house for a £10.00 job and nobody else should either.

 

[GMES]

You need to build a decent customer base or get out of the domestic trade, either one will work

 

[Leesparkykent]

i wouldnt wipe the sleep out my eyes in morning to even entertain the thought of doing a job for £10.

 

[bigdavs83]

Just nope

 

[trev]

I had an asian woman ring me a few weeks back, went down to see her and gave her the price. She then said the job was only worth £20. I walked away.

 

[Rockingit]

It probably started about 6 or 7 years ago. Odd that that seems to coincide with the rise of the scams and the Electrical Trainee's, isn't it?!

 

[Geordie Spark]

Why is it always sparks who get down graded. It's radiclous, train for so many years to work to a strict regulations and in the end we get asked can you change 1 double socket for me? I live 20 miles away. Can you do it for £10. Yeh sure darling I will definatly leave my missus and kids at home and drive to you 20 miles away to change your socket. Ridcolous. When a gas engineer comes out oh madam this part is fu**** you will need to pay £400 to replace. Sure we will I will get my cheque book. I feel out trade is sooooo down graded for the graft we do

Then train and get your ticket to work on gas as well then you have two strings to your bow.

 

[richy3333]

I had an Emergancy call New Year's Eve. immersion not working in a tenanted property. Owner 100+ miles away. He also wired the house himself. Asked if I was working and I said no., on holiday. Asked how quickly I could attend. The line went quiet when I said 6 months. He then asked if I was that busy. No said I, but that's how long you took to pay me last time I did a job for you. Happy New Year and phone call ended.

Chancers wanting £10 jobs and bad payers need dealing with! Let them pay dangerous Dave or Rodger the bodger to do their work.

 

[Silly Sausage]

Then train and get your ticket to work on gas as well then you have two strings to your bow.

I almost did that about 12 years ago, still got the CORGI Training material, which still comes in handy! :wink_smile:

 

[shanky887614]

just state on adverts that thers is a £50 call out fee out of hours.

put working day hours as 9-5 ^^

sorted

 

[Adam W]

This is one of the reasons I don't do domestic. I like to think I entered the trade with an open mind, and I have been rewarded by working in several different areas and many interesting places as a result.
These 5WWs seem to have 'retrained' with a very fixed idea of driving around in a signwritten van doing rapid response remedials and alterations, and that's exactly what they've made their market.

The customer probably thinks this is perfectly reasonable - that you or one of the other vans in your fleet can just stop off on your way between jobs and pop in for half an hour or however long they've decided it will take you.
I expect she'll call every electrician and DI in the phone book demanding they come out and change her socket for a tenner before declaring 'you can't get an electrician for love nor money'.
Or maybe the domestic trade isn't like that at all. Maybe it's me that's making the assumptions.

 

[Octopus]

This is one of the reasons I don't do domestic. I like to think I entered the trade with an open mind, and I have been rewarded by working in several different areas and many interesting places as a result.
These 5WWs seem to have 'retrained' with a very fixed idea of driving around in a signwritten van doing rapid response remedials and alterations, and that's exactly what they've made their market.

The customer probably thinks this is perfectly reasonable - that you or one of the other vans in your fleet can just stop off on your way between jobs and pop in for half an hour or however long they've decided it will take you.
I expect she'll call every electrician and DI in the phone book demanding they come out and change her socket for a tenner before declaring 'you can't get an electrician for love nor money'.
Or maybe the domestic trade isn't like that at all. Maybe it's me that's making the assumptions.

Have a minimum charge and stick to it. Any fool can be a busy fool doing jobs for £10 or £20 - but it'll be tedious work and difficult to make any money... unless you are doing it for cash whilst on benefits.

 

[Lazlo]

£x min charge out and £x an hour thereafter for jobs inside office hours, add more for outside office hours, have a .pdf/printed price list, if they don't like it they can get some muppet round to do it for peanuts and probably bodge it. Listen very carefully to the customers description of the job/fault to ensure you're not drawn into something terrible that you wish you had just turned away.......

 

[vernam616]

Granted £10 is very low....

But you do have to speculate to accumulate

Ive done plenty of very small cheap jobs which have eventually led to bigger jobs such as rewires, DB upgrades etc... and reclaimed the money via them jobs