emergency call charge?????

heatmiser

i have for the past three years been doing heating work in northern nh. i charge an hourly rate of time and materials when working. i have never charged a call out charge but recently have had a couple non emergency calls later at night that could have waited until morning. need some advice on a fair policy  to charge for emergencys so im not getting up at 2 am for non emergency work. any ideas??should it be after 8 until 5 am??? please help. what do you other contractors do?



thanks  

SpeyFitter

Sounds easy, perhaps?

Most guys charge a set fee to show up which often/typically includes your driving time, the first hour (or up to an hour) diagnosis/time and a "truck charge." Usually it's around 150%-200%-ish of your hourly labour rate. In your case I would just make everything time and a half after hours between certain times, including your show up fee. If you're willing to get off your butt for your after hours show up fee, and they're willing to pay it, it's probably an emergency.

Rescueplumber

Emergency call charge

 Tell them as your making the appointment how much the trip charge will be, then once there you can roll that into the cost of the repair or, add it to the regular fee as you see fit.Upon realizing that an after hours call has a price they may reconsider the "emergency".I'm not into punishing clients for calling me however , if I felt like my good nature were being abused I might like to be compensated for it.  Jim

tim smith

Re: overtime charge

We are a time and mat shop also, we charge 1.5 times from 5-8pm and saturday 8-5, all the rest of the time outside of 8-5 mon-fri we charge double. We have always tried to be fair but sleep is also a concern and burnout. This has seemed to work for the last 25 yrs + so we keep with it. It weeds out some people who are on the fence but is not way out there. Tim