Opinions please :)

[IDCHAPPY]

Hi Niel, *hope you had a good Christmas?

Due to increased costs over the last year we will from the 1st of January 2015 have to increase all our prices by £5, so we'll now be charging at £30 ph for standard calls , £45 ph for out of hours and £45 for the landlord safety checks.*

We have held our prices for 20 months but even with these modest increases still feel ourselves to be amongst the most competitive prices in Edinburgh and hope you will use our services for the foreseeable future.*

Many thanks, *Ian Chapman

Thanks in advance guys

 

[lame plumber]

Neil ?? too cheap in my mind, you work in Scotlands capital city, surely they arent all skint up there.

 

[Atouchofgas]

I think your under charging tbh, but how much work do you get from this guy/ company?

 

[mfgs]

I don't know what the going rate is where you are, but that seems cheap to me. It all depends on the volume of work which you receive from the person/company though. I am guessing its a letting agent or something similar? If you bring home a few grand a year from regular work for them, then it is worth doing it a bit cheaper to keep them happy and you know you have a sort of guaranteed source of work also.

 

[Ray Stafford]

Good start. Now make it a regular, annual review.

And don't feel tied to round numbers. There is no reason not to charge £31.75 per hour, or £48.60 for a landlord check. Those extra £1.75s and £3.60s will really add up across the year.

Your fuel station doesn't charge £1 per litre until its time to put it up to £1.25 per litre. It charges all the variants in between, and so should you.

 

[smtplumbing]

ian you are tooo cheap

 

[SimonG]

My prices are going up from Monday.

 

[Ermintrude]

I'm cutting prices by 41.23% for customers who I like. Rest ... All of them can flexi off. Up up up. Think 10% above inflation is fine

 

[IDCHAPPY]

Thanks guys 🙂, we get about 10 k pa from them but it's all $hitty work with most of the properties being from the lower end of the private sector letting market.
We get no boiler changes out them unless they can't get them green deal (they got about 20 worcesters fitted last year, and I took great delight to find most of them at 0 pressure when I was doing the first run of gas checks on them :lol🙂
The owner (Niel) can be a bit of an arse too, I'll send it to him on New years day 😀

 

[julesverne]

Personally don't chase work from letting agents but if it was me I would be looking at a min of 35 an hour and at least 60 for out of hours. But it's work if you can't get owt else. Ian why dont you try marketing your services at people with more money they are out there otherwise bg wouldn't be charging what they do.

 

[Masood]

Agree with the rest. Regional variations aside, you're undervaluing your skills and experience.

 

[IDCHAPPY]

I quoted him £120 festive period price to look at a baxi, got a message back saying he's not agreeing to that... he then txt back saying it's normal working hours until the 31st... I told him 10 days ago that we were taking the fortnight off at Christmas time like we did last year.
:asshole:

 

[SimonG]

Your business, you decide whats what over christmas. He might be daft enough to work normal hours, get sick pay, holiday pay etc, but you call the ball and make his nads shrink 🙂

 

[IDCHAPPY]

It's his attitude sometimes that really boils my pee, like i should be happy to fault find on a BBU between Christmas and New year for £50.....
Again folks, thanks for your input,It's always appreciated 😀

 

[Kev the gas]

The only Fault Finding I have done this Xmas period is realising my recycling bin isn't as big as it used to be 😛arty:

 

[tomplumb83]

I suppose it depends how much you want the work.
I'd go in abit higher, £35 or just under. If youre gonna up it, you might as well make it worth while!
It sounds like he'll have a moan whatever you put it up to

 

[kris]

As long as your happy with your rate Ian then that's the main thing, for ages I used to undervalue myself and sometimes still do , I think your worth more and that's from afar,

 

[julesverne]

Ian i suppose it depends on what percentage the 10k makes up your annual income/turnover and how much your willing to gamble by increasing your prices. Problem i find with letting agents and the reason i don't seek work with them is. They are constantly wanting the cheapest price and show no loyalty and will quickly push you aside for a cheaper price but thats business i guess. Now i know there will be decent ones but 99% are imho dodgy. And should be avoided

 

[Nostrum]

100% agree with above.

Don't take offence but the reason you get 10k of work from this crowd is probablybecause your prices talk the language they wanna hear.

If you can't afford to lose this work then you are in those grasp but if you can then up your prices to what you want to earn as opposed to what they will pay you. Chances are they will find the next cheapest but there's no point being busy and earning peanuts.

 

[smtplumbing]

yeh cheap, see at the end of the day if you happy thats fine, i would of telt him to bolt for NORMAL work hours. i defo no you to check my cus has a heating company, 300 + houses under one contract he is £35 cp12 plus vat min but callout charges etc, normal customers are other rates i just think he is walking all over you.

if you raise your prices you will lose customers that want it done cheap but the faithfull customers will stay which means you earn more but work less

 

[jtsplumbing]

I'm down in the West Country, and charge more then that, mind out in the sticks, so need to allow for travel/fuel costs will be asking for 2 turnips for gas work, with a Doz eggs for out of hrs call in new year.

 

[EPH]

How many appliances are you checking for £45??

 

[cr0ft]

yeh cheap, see at the end of the day if you happy thats fine, i would of telt him to bolt for NORMAL work hours. i defo no you to check my cus has a heating company, 300 + houses under one contract he is £35 cp12 plus vat min but callout charges etc, normal customers are other rates i just think he is walking all over you.

if you raise your prices you will lose customers that want it done cheap but the faithfull customers will stay which means you earn more but work less

I would add to this that you will also find the best customers. The ones who are willing to pay good money to have a job done properly. Raising our prices over the years has made us more busy not less.

A point worth considering, for those that don't do gas work like us December and January are usually the quieter months. For this reason we tie our annual price increases in to the end of our financial year, end of March. By that time we are usually stupidly busy again!