Flatrate Task Question

lately it seems more and more customers are questioning the pricing on certain known tasks. Example " gee's that ignitor only cost me $65.00 last time it was changed, why is it $175 now". Im thinking maybe I should look at lowering "know" items like ignitors. I get the feeling even though the customer will pay the higher price for the ignitor maybe I wont here from them again?

Oh yea...glad to see this forum

Thanks for using our new Forum.

One more thing, you’re generally looking for a 75% gross profit margin on service work. Analyze these repairs. You may find they are priced higher than they need to be. Make your money on more complicated repairs or repairs using items that cannot be easily identified.

For those of you, who own Total Office Manager; please also use the Item Alias feature. This allows you to create meaningless part numbers that serve as “aliases” for your company’s real part numbers. For example, an actual  Grainger part number of 9M947 could be easily searched out on the internet. The buyer would then know your approximate cost and unfairly consider your markup as unreasonable. Use TOM to prevent this. You would enter an alias part number of 7627YR (I just made that up) or whatever. That’s the part number that shows up on the printed invoice (but not on the screen). This technique helps prevent users from searching out the part number on the internet.

It is not a question on what I can charge... its a question on customer retention. If I lived in a highly populated area like IN seattle I wouldnt be to concerned with repeat business, BUT I live in a rural area, so I must be concerned with retention. Last year 64% of my service calls where past customers ... and last year after my price increase in my book I started to get complaints on calls...in paticular ignitors. So i think i need to make an adjustment, this was my concern.

NO the $65 guy was a example, Ive been FR for about 7 years now ..and it was the best step I ever took.

Hi, folks.

I don't mean to be a nay-sayer and I'm sure none of you intend to violate federal antitrust laws, so I'll mention to you that discussions on pricing will get us all in trouble with the federal government.  I think this discussion crosses the line. 

I've had my say and will now bow out.  Just don't want anyone to get into trouble, especially Aptora since they host the forum.

The language in this discussion board (thus far) could not possibly be construed as price fixing; a violation of the 1890 Sherman Act. The laws are far too stringent to for anyone to worry about violating the Sherman Act here; at least so far. If anyone was interested, the law has been summarized on this Department of Justice website: http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/public/guidelines/primer-ncu.htm

Still worried? According to the United States Department of Justice, here is a summary of what it takes to “price fix”:

Price fixing is an agreement among competitors to raise, fix, or otherwise maintain the price at which their goods or services are sold. It is not necessary that the competitors agree to charge exactly the same price, or that every competitor in a given industry join the conspiracy. Price fixing can take many forms, and any agreement that restricts price competition violates the law. Other examples of price-fixing agreements include those to:

Establish or adhere to price discounts.

Hold prices firm.

Eliminate or reduce discounts.

Adopt a standard formula for computing prices.

Maintain certain price differentials between different types, sizes, or quantities of products.

Adhere to a minimum fee or price schedule.

Fix credit terms.

Not advertise prices.

In many cases, participants in a price-fixing conspiracy also establish some type of policing mechanism to make sure that everyone adheres to the agreement.

***END

Like I said, so far, we have not crossed the lines here. I'm comfortable anyway.