Customers trying to be chancers

[Cadgey123]

How do you guys react when a customer tries to drive you down on price?

I am struggling at the moment to deal with that side of things because I take offence a little, when I know they have every reason to barter with me.
I just know I am very fair on pricing so maybe should stop being too sensitive.

 

[Squid]

Jeeez I hate these people, do they go the the Solicitor or Dentist and haggle about the prices, the OP made a mistake saying that he would reconsider the estimate, always stick with the price as then the customer thinks he's got you.

Always have a written contract especially if they are awkward and as the job progresses and they make changes to what is in the contract then charge them extra for it.

 

[Jurassic Sparks]

I went to look at a job, and the woman had it all printed out, list of materials, time it would take etc
so I took the list away after having a good look
they were adding value to the house, re locating a kitchen to a downstairs room to make it 4 bed and worth more
I was not doing the electrical work, they wanted me to do the tiling in the new kitchen and the shower, and re use some secondhand laminate flooring ?
I pointed out that some stupid Gombeen had previously glued the flooring down ?? and the glue would need to be removed and the upper side planed level ( it was awful)
I had to start in 2 weeks time and be done in 3 days as they were having the house valeted and then then marketed
At the time I was short of work and a bit hard up
to carry out the work I estimated 2 off us would be needed and 8 days work
so I would be working for 75p per hour according to her calculation
her husband was in the building trade and knew all about building work she told me

In Actual fact her Husband is like her a social climber, and vain, and merely works for a ground-working company in the office, he is not even a surveyor, just books the lorries in and out
I wrote her a nice quote, with the correct times and the real world cost

she rang me back and said oh dont worry about working to your usual standard, you can cut corners,and do it much cheaper than that , we only want to sell it, you can then do all the work in our new much bigger house we are buying!!!

I never lower standards, also its a good way for the customer to avoid payment
and the old story about a bigger house with loads of work is a standard lie used to try to keep the price down

one client used that on me for night on 20 years, until I called his bluff, and told him I was now charging him double

the woman involved with the above house, had 2 Audis on the drive, one of which was 4 wheel drive ( very useful round here with our roads ?)

They sold the house and the new owners had all sorts of problems,including work that was not registered with the planning department, a faulty boiler that had been moved, dodgy wiring, and no fire doors between the garage and the house??

One thing I do keep an eye on is the Gazette
her and her husbands name came up a year later with lots of creditors !!
one of whom was a German car dealer, and several tradesmen ?


if you know what Audi stands for you would know why I avoid them like the plague

 

[Spunkywads26]

My father gave me an excellent piece of advise for these situations.

When a customer states that Joe Bloggs has quoted for 'X' amount (cheaper than you), you should reply with.... Really, could you give me their number then as I will have them work for me and I can earn off them if there any good!!

Immediately after saying this watch the customers face

 

[johnduffell]

Your 20% more expensize to VAT registered customers though!

That's not quite true, 20% on materials if you buy them but same on labour.

 

[Santa]

Just to put the other side: Negotiating with tradesmen, or even trying to sort out the best of two or three quotes is hard. I get my car serviced every year; if I don't like what they do, I can choose from a dozen competitors and mates in the pub will likely point me to a good one.

Most of us only ever employ an electrician once (maybe twice for a small job) so we have no experience; our pub mates don't have any either, at least none recent, so it is difficult to know if the guy sitting in your kitchen is an honest tradesman trying to make a living, or a wide boy who will either come in with a low price and then find all kinds of faults to jack it up, or come in high with "guarantees" of top quality fittings and first class professional work.

Reading the (often amusing) posts on this forum I see loads of jargon; incomprehensible to me, but obviously meaningful to you (at least most of you). The hypothetical guy in my kitchen is waffling on about "Z's" and voltage drops in T&E and my brain shut down. All I hear is "£How much?". Probably about twice what I expected.

Then I see the likes of Martin Lewis telling me that all prices are negotiable, so I ask my fellow tea drinker if he can see any way the price can be reduced. Does he get his phone out and swap the gold plated switches for plastic; suggest that maybe putting a power point in the far corner of the sitting room might be a bit tricky with the solid floor, and maybe I could hold off until Christmas when it gets a bit quiet, he could reduce the price. Or does he spit the tea out and stride off into the sunset in a huff at the insult to his (alleged) professionalism?

An anecdote:

I used to be a fleet manager and I had a good relationship with a small garage who fixed all the dents and scrapes that my drivers put on our cars and vans. One afternoon I was in his office when he got a phone call. He listened and I tuned out, but when it was over he had a little rant about effing customers who went round garage after garage getting quotes and didn't usually even bother to call and say he hadn't got the job. I said nothing.

 

[bigspark17]

That's not quite true, 20% on materials if you buy them but same on labour.

So it is true if you supply materials which was the scenario refrenced too, so you supplying them (non vat reg) would indeed make you 20% more expensive.

Labour only would not make a diference to a vat reg company, only non vat reg people it would affect making the vat reg sparks labour then 20% more expensive.

 

[ppuch1]

If i recall correctly as this was a year ago the materials he had priced at just over £30 inc delivery! (2 sockets, a light pendant, switch and backboxes, T&E and clips all from ebay!) - I didnt have the heart to tell him i could have got them cheaper as his colour printout looked so well presented. He allowed labour at 2 hours as he felt it wasnt too hard or a significant job. when i quoted £45 per point which i thought reasonable he looked as if i swore at him.... people can be funny

£45 per point is not enough surely? If it's surface maybe and close by but to chase and replaster (which is what i do on most small jobs for sockets) i would normally quote £65-70 per point as chasing can be quite hard and time consuming work.

 

[Hellmooth]

I'm not VAT reg so I'm always 20% cheaper

Not necessarily, I could save the customer the vat on materials and not put a mark up on them and you might, just playing devils advocate lol.

 

[JK-Electrical]

If they have two Audis on the drive, then they are vain and lacking in any commonsense and are only interested in their image
and want it all for nothing.
Just a rule I use that seems to work

If they have two Audis on the drive, or two Beemers, or two Mercs for that matter, then they should automatically incur a 25% surcharge.

 

[JK-Electrical]

Over the years, I've had quite a few customers try all sorts of tricks to get me reduce my quotations. From the "I've had another quote from another electrician that is half the price you're asking" to the other old chestnut, "How much would you knock-off that price if I pay in cash?", I've heard them all. I'd like to think that I'm quite a good judge of character, and my intuition more often than not alerts me to such types. I find that it is usually the ones with big fancy houses with several top-of-the-range cars sitting on the driveway that play these games. They think nothing of spending six-figure sums on houses, five-figure sums on cars, four-figure sums on furniture, but grudge paying you a three-figure sum for carrying-out a professional service in their homes. Pah.

I really can't be bothered wasting my time with such people. Before walking away, I tell them to ask the guy who undercut me by 50% to give me a call as I would like to offer him immediate employment. There will always be employment opportunities at JK Electrical for electricians who are happy to work for £8 or £10 an hour.

And this dovetails nicely with my next point. I believe that a major factor in customers having unrealistic expectations as to what constitutes reasonable rates for the services of a qualified, professional, experienced electrician is attributable to the fact that there a lot of young boys fresh out of the training centres offering their services as 'electricians' at what can only be described as pocket-money rates. Glasgow is absolutely teeming with these guys at the moment. I'm trying to compete with boys offering to do EICRs for £40, consumer unit changeovers for £150, and rewires for a grand. Seriously.

Consequentially, when you have maybe two or three of these guys banging in quotes at half the price of yours the customer draws the conclusion that you are overcharging them! It never seems to enter their thinking that the other three are undercharging so to win jobs that they would not otherwise secure if they were to compete on a level playing field i.e. if they were to actually visit the customer's home to visually inspect the installation prior to submitting a quotation (regulation 132.16) for jobs that they can't be bothered to properly survey beforehand.

So, while some customers can be a real pain in the arse, a bigger pain in the butt as far as I'm concerned are the chancers within our trade who create such unrealistic customer expectations in the first place.

 

[Amamsdad]

Tell them to do one. You are the expert in the field not the chippy or the other fella. They seem like messers and need to be avoided . They are agreeing to the price now because they need the job done and will no doubt try and mug you off regarding payment later on.

 

[Phil Thompson]

I usually say customers that try and haggle "I'm not a car salesman, would you go in to Asda or Tesco and ask them for discount?"

If I get the feeling they are going to be hagglers then I usually add a bit on and then say usually it would work out at that, but since you're looking so much done the best I could do is that, and give them the real price.

If they think they're saving something it seems to stop them asking for discount, and they think they're getting a bargain.

If they still want to haggle I just say I'm sorry but that's the best I can do for the quality of materials and service I provide, 1 year warranty on all goods and 2,3&5year on various LED lighting products.

I dislike labour only work as quite often the client still expects repairs done free, But do provide labour only for any larger jobs for a few long term clients that are vat registered businesses, being that I'm not vat registered. The small jobs I do for them just get billed the same as anyone else.

 

[GlenTavener]

You have to be very wary of such customers if they are up against it to get the work done. They can be very tricky when it comes time to pay. So many of us take our customers on face value much like work was always done without all the computer checking so many businesses now use. You get to the end and suddenly they are unavailable, cheque in the post syndrome, PC down cant do the BACS thing at the moment. If only their parents had married. Fortunately I am well past that and only tend to known friends and customers now but I do feel for the younger guys keeping the cash coming in can be a real headache.

 

[Gavin John Hyde]

£45 per point is not enough surely? If it's surface maybe and close by but to chase and replaster (which is what i do on most small jobs for sockets) i would normally quote £65-70 per point as chasing can be quite hard and time consuming work.

It was surface mounted in the cupboard/storage room on back of the house. My going rate these days per point and considering small amount of chasing and making good is £65. that can vary depending on the wall and finish needed. if its surface mounted then will come down obviously. there is a cowboy spark around here at the moment who is charging £30 per point. must be no tax, NI paid as he cant be making a living at them prices.

 

[johnduffell]

Your 20% more expensize to VAT registered customers though!

That's not quite true, 20% on materials if you buy them but same on labour.

So it is true if you supply materials which was the scenario refrenced too, so you supplying them (non vat reg) would indeed make you 20% more expensive.

true if he only supplies materials, but I'm assuming he's going to do some actual work too!

Labour only would not make a diference to a vat reg company, only non vat reg people it would affect making the vat reg sparks labour then 20% more expensive.

Seems we're going in circles a bit disagreeing where I think we agree so I'll just unroll the rules:
vat contractor+vat customer = n cost
vat contractor+ non vat customer = n +20% (vat on the lot)
Labour and parts non vat contractor:
non vat customer = n + 10%ish (vat on the parts)
vat customer = n + 10%ish (vat on the parts)
Labour only non vat contractor:
non vat customer = n cost
vat customer = n cost

So the poster referenced is actually 16.6% cheaper to non vat customers than a vat reg contractor. And for vat customers he would be either the same price for labour only as you state, or 20% on materials and nothing on labour as I stated.

And that's too much data for saturday night...

 

[martin mcguinness]

unfortunately the general public dont realise that something as straightforward to a spark as a CU change might involve upgrading the earthing, extending short wires, making sure tidy, safe and done to current standards inc testing and sometimes fault finding is the norm they only see a shiny new CU
i have had one cust ask why i was lifting floor boards for running cables for extra sockets they must think you fix to wall and they work they dont understand the work involved.
I often walk away when the customer thinks its to expensive and am not surprised when they call you to fix what someone else has done

 

[martin mcguinness]

unfortunately the general public dont realise that something as straightforward to a spark as a CU change might involve upgrading the earthing, extending short wires, making sure tidy, safe and done to current standards inc testing and sometimes fault finding is the norm they only see a shiny new CU
i have had one cust ask why i was lifting floor boards for running cables for extra sockets they must think you fix to wall and they work they dont understand the work involved.
I often walk away when the customer thinks its to expensive and am not surprised when they call you to fix what someone else has done

 

[ED17]

In a strange way, it's nice to know that everyone else has the same problems with customers that I have.

 

[RWJ]

One that sticks in my mind was a woman that wanted a shed wiring and decking / garden lighting.

I went to do the quote I'm sure I noticed someone lurking in the lounge when I pulled up. Rang the doorbell.... no answer rang door bell again, still no answer, ended up banging (hard) the door several times,then gave up.

Next day customer called saying no one had bothered to turn up!
Rescheduled (a colleague) for the following week as no other time was convenient?

He went round did the quote sent it to the customer via email.

We then start getting several one ring calls from the customer, when we tried ring then back no answer. This went on for over a week.

Eventually the customer rang said she wanted to book the job in but wanted 40% off due to hassle she had with us not turning up and answering the phone or she would go to XYZ electrical....... Yep we told her they were really good and to go with them and then hung up!