When your professional service technician arrives at your door, many costs have already been incurred just to get him and our truck there, ready and able to complete the job.

Without years of training, it would not be possible for a doctor to make a diagnosis and prescribe a remedy. Consider for a moment that it isn’t just his initial training, but an ongoing variety of continuing study , and the expense of maintaining an adequately equipped staff and office with the latest tools and equipment.

As a patient, you pay for his knowledge and skill, plus a share of his business costs (overhead). Even if he spends only a few minutes with you, his fee could range from $50.00 to $250.00 depending on his degree of expertise.

This analogy holds true in any service business. The charge for providing service in your home cannot be determined solely by the time it takes technicians to diagnose and make repairs.

A qualified service organization’s costs begin with the salary of the professional technician. This amount is the same whether the technician is actually diagnosing a problem, making repairs on customer premises, traveling to keep service appointments, or participating in continuing education to sharpen his skills.

The cost of doing business (overhead) must also be added to the technician’s salary. These overhead costs can amount to substantially more than the technician’s salary.

Now comes the profit. A 10% net profit on the selling price, although seldom realized, would be ideal. Accordingly, if your service charge is $200.00 and we are efficient enough to earn 10% of the $200.00, we are sure you agree that is not excessive for providing top quality service on your premises.

All thing considered, the cost to a service organization for it’s service technician’s time on the job is the same whether he works with tools or not. A diagnostic call that results only in a diagnosis and estimate for resolving the problem warrants a diagnostic charge.

In other words, we must run our service business the same way your employer runs their business, regardless of the occupation!