Should / Would you charge for a repair not completed?

[chris watkins]

This seems to becoming more & more of an issue recently, with customers often paying £££££££'s for a repair that has not been repaired !!
I would not make a charge for work carried out by me that did not rectify the problem that I was called there to correct, why would you ?

We are all learning & I accept that it is not possible to get it right every time but why should the customer have to pay because I don't know ??

I can just about understand with something like a PCB which is both none returnable & difficult to be 100% sure that it is the problem but then would you not just charge the cost of the board not the labour if it did not do the trick.

What do you do or charge for ??

 

[hammers4spanner]

I think the magic words here are 'it maybe the fan' or 'maybe the pcb' take a leaf out of the boiler manufactureres book as they never offer dead cert advice they always cover their back end . Even whenn you phone them up you get a statement about not guarantee of advice.

The big problem here is that the cust expects it to be fixed no matter what you turn up click your fingers and hey presto repair done .It happens mis diagnostic so you need to fire it back to the cust just in case imho.

what i have noticed tho is of recent months is more and more have a go heroes trying boiler repairs as i have turned up to price boiler changes and noticed half a dozen boiler parts laying by boiler only to be infoirmed on inquisition ' bought this of ebay and tried it but never worked' so on so on

 

[R1CKY]

It's called customer service. If I come in at a slightly higher price on the swaps they may still go for me because they now know that I'm a reasonable person. In reality I've not spent much more time than I would have going round to have a look to price up the boiler swaps anyway.

I'm with you on this one Mike, I've been to a few boilers that are beyond economical repair and I don't charge if that is the case. I've ended up doing a few boiler changes through this method and has led to more work of the back of this.

I'm willing to spend a few quid in diesel and lose half hours pay if it potentially gets me more work!

 

[peteheat]

Solicitors charge for each hour they talk to you,
Accountants do your accounts but cant guarantee that you wont be investigated
Tesco, dont guarantee the food your eating is the right food
politicians dont guarantee there policy is in your benefit (yet we pay them millions)
Water companies dont guarantee they will provide you water 24/7 365 days a year
electrical companies (dont guarantee they will supply power 24/7 365 days a year)
broadband providers just replace your modem rather then fix it
Phone suppliers dont guarantee to fix your line should it go wrong (actually got told to switch off and back on by virgin and when it doesnt work they will send an engineer out in 2 weeks)
psychologists, marriage counselors and massagers, none of them can guarantee to fix problem.
consultants, only consult, dont fix anything.
My brother is a computer engineer and charges for telling somebody the problem over the phone

As plumbers we are expected to fix things immediately and know everything about ever appliance,

We should all own up if we havent got a clue but we should also be paid for our knowledge as well as our skills

Jase have you ever noticed that most of the service providers you listed call themselves "Practicing Solicitors, doctors, accountants etc?

Maybe it's time as an industry that we own up and tell the public we are practicing plumbing and heating contractors, technicians, engineers whatever takes your fancy.

Simply because that is what we are.

Back in the real world it can be hard enough to get paid for your successful repairs, to be honest I wouldn't leave until I found the fault and fixed it, I'd probably crash my mind would be back at the job.

 

[nicro3]

This seems to becoming more & more of an issue recently, with customers often paying £££££££'s for a repair that has not been repaired !!
I would not make a charge for work carried out by me that did not rectify the problem that I was called there to correct, why would you ?

We are all learning & I accept that it is not possible to get it right every time but why should the customer have to pay because I don't know ??

I can just about understand with something like a PCB which is both none returnable & difficult to be 100% sure that it is the problem but then would you not just charge the cost of the board not the labour if it did not do the trick.

What do you do or charge for ??

This post is not consistent with some of your past posts on similar subjects?

 

[chris watkins]

This post is not consistent with some of your past posts on similar subjects?

A deadly combination of being contrary & dementia, so remind me, nicro3.