Another thing that lots of contractors do not realize is there is three parts of business you can provide a customer. 1) Price, 2) Quality, 3) Time (promptness of service) You can not give the home owner the best of all three. If your price is low and you provide quality service, your phone will be ringing off the wall and people may have to wait days for you. If you have a low price and you get to each job as fast as you can, your quality will suffer. So in our case we provide the best quality, and prompt service, for that people will pay a higher rate. One thing I failed to mention we guarantee our roddings for 2 years. The only recalls I get are abuse (tampons, paper towel, and so on) or a pipe collapsed.
Just the other day I went to a call. The woman asks me if I know "Jerry"... I'm clueless! She then tells me the kitchen sink is backing up and needs to be snaked. Okay I go over to the sink and run the water for several minutes with no sign of backing up...
I must be pretty dumb because when I tell her that the kitchen is not backing up... I get the rest of the story...
It backs up in the laundry sink downstairs... But, Jerry always snakes it from the kitchen sink via a removed trap. He comes about twice a year. So I ask to go in the basement to check things out...
She gives me this look like what do you want to do that for... Jerry always does it from the sink up here...
I go into the basement and just below where the laundry sink connects behind the washer is a 3" cleanout. So I'm not going to snake it like Jerry does. I'm going to use the big machine with a 3" blade in the basement.
I go back up and give her the price and she tells me nevermind... I just found Jerry's Discount Rooter's card... He only charges $129 to snake a line!
Some people are just destined not to be your customer!
But then again do you want them?
I don't even auger a toilet for $129!
Why would I want to drag my K-7500 down into her basement to clean a line for that price? We'll let her continue to have Jerry come over and run his 3/8' cable without a blade through her 3" pipe every 6 months. She clearly cannot comprehend that there might be a better way, that costs a little more, that would have her line running clear a long time.
BTW when I auger a toilet it includes a complete check of its operation, setting the tank water level for optimum flushing, cleaning of the ports under the rim and the siphon jet, adjusting the flapper chain, and replacement of the flapper for parts cost only if needed.
We do the work and do our best to make sure it doesn't recurr. We also totally clean up our work area so it looks like we weren't even there.
I bet jerry just runs his auger through, watches the water go down and collects.
Yea we're not cheap... But we're good!
