Service question !!

The Dublin Plumber

Hi all

Basically myself & partner are setting up a small plumbing business .

The area we are targeting is emergency work ( out of hours evenings weekends ect )

My question is in relation to rates charged .

Monday to Friday 9-5 ?
Monday to Friday after hours ?
Saturdays ?
Sundays ?
Ect ?

The reason I ask is because I want to build a fair structure in relation to charges , as I have found with my previous employer , the general public seem to get a shock with plumbing charges & 9/10 times you will never receive further business because of the huge fees charged . And obviously I want to advide this and build a happy customer base .

Many thanks

mneylon

Check how much others are charging and work from there

_Brian

Blacknight wrote: »

Check how much others are charging and work from there

This is useful information..

But, for any business model its also essential to work out your base costs per hour/unit labor.

jimmii

Just decide how much you want to earn to make it worth your while and then add that figure to the costs for the job. No point trying to match other companies if the prices they are quoting mean that you come out of the job earning nothing. I wouldn't go setting different rates for different days once you go self-employed that sort of thing goes out the window and often times so do days off especially if you are specifically targeting out of hours work.

antoinolachtnai

The problem is that emergency plumbing is just an expensive business to do.

There is a lot of skill involved to do it right.

The hours are completely arbitrary. You have to go when you are called.

There have to be insurance requirements and issues.

There are regulatory and certification requirements in relation to heating installs.

You need a very big marketing budget.

You need to travel to jobs.

You have to pay VAT.

There isn't a lot of repeat work (that's the nature of emergency work).

The sort of people who don't fix/replace their dodgy plumbing aren't the sort of people who can actually afford to pay for all of the above.

You don't really get to have a 'happy customer base'. The people you are dealing on a repeat basis are inherently unhappy, because their plumbing is knackered and they often can't afford to upgrade it properly.