PING TMH

[Judith]

My local Age UK hold a list of tradesmen: not necessarily "approved" by them - but certainly recommended.

[Dave Liquorice]

Quite agree, if there is that amount of work surely there must be enough productivity to pay for two people, bearing in mind that some one doing a 72 hour week should be getting 30 hours of overtime at

1.5T...

Agreed again, when I was a staffer and had little choice about 72 hour weeks it was a fur lined rut. Being made redundant and going freelance has greatly improved quality of life but the lack of disposable income, ie. "money for toys" not shelter, food and warmth, is a bit of a PITA.

[The Medway Handyman]

I have a land line because customers don't trust 'mobile only' traders much. I don't ever answer it, because punters ring at such odd hours.

7:30 on a Sunday morning, 11:45 at night etc.

When I get in from work I pick up & return calls received that day.

It's not always possible to answer the mobile, hands might be covered in Gripfil etc, so I stop for 10 mins at lunchtime & on the way home to answer.

I get quite a lot of e-mail enquiries & some text message enquiries.

I have done that & it works OK. Google Earth is useful as well.

Never faced that scenario. I do call/txt if I'm going to be more than

10 mins late

Again, never come across that scenario.

Good plan.

[Stephen]

What about Text messages, a.k.a SMS?

Yes, born profoundly deaf in bopth sides. I need to lipread as well....

[Stephen]

or send me a Text message....

[Stephen]

or to text message.......

[The Medway Handyman]

The elderly don't text much. They will use an answerphone.

[GB]

Isn't that very expensive?

However, I agree that a landline gives confidence. As does a name and address on your adverts.

Looking at TMH's website, he charges for time taken, although he may give quotes as well. I assume that for small jobs it simply makes no sense to give a quote. As an example, even a simple job such as replacing a tap washer can take 5 minutes or it can take hours. It depends? Is there an isolation valve? Is the tap head easy to remove? does the mains stop c*ck work? It seems to me that the only sensible approach is to charge for the callout and the time taken. There is no way that you can rely on the customer to answer those questions so you can give an accurate quote. Once you have a reputation for being a decent workperson and acting fairly, people will trust you to turn up and just get the job done as economically as possible.

[tony sayer]

Well we get calls to mobiles around 7 pence a minute so no not really saves the cost of having to have someone to answer them....

Yes but of course mobiles are becoming far more common but old habits break hard;!...

[GB]

Sadly, shamefully even, this will be a really major problem for someone starting up a new handyman business. I would strongly expect that most customers currently ring up and discuss the work that they want done.

If you go down the email/sms route that will be a new experience for most of your customers. I think you will have to be very up-front about this and try and make it a positive selling proposition. There must be some people for whom it is beneficial to book by email/sms.

You would have to explain why it is necessary, and you will rule out say

90%+ of your potential customer base. After all, TMH reports that he does jobs like assemble flat-pack furniture. Anyone incapable of that is probably incapable of booking a handyman by SMS. :)

It matters where you are geographically. If you are in London, say, you can afford to rule out 90% of potential customers. You just make your catchment area a bit bigger. In some areas, though, ruling out 90% of the customer base will leave you with too little business to survive or leave you travelling huge distances.

[GB]

Do these proceed to booking by email, or are these simply requests to telephone?

[Nightjar]

Unless you have a smart phone with a keyboard entry option, which a lot probably won't, texting is a PITA.

IME messages on answerphones or voicemail have a very high failure rate for replies, so I just ring off if I get one.

Colin Bignell

[GB]

I find that text thing is a PITA regardless of the type of phone I am using, although I have never tried a really posh phone like an iPhone. My fingers are just far too big for the little tiny keys.

Having said that, a lot of the very smart phones now offer speech recognition for texting. So, I could become a convert.

I am over 60, but I do not regard myself as elderly yet. More, late-40s. :)

[F]

Try turning the phone landscape rather than portrait: some of them offer a larger keyboard when they are in landscape.

[Andy Burns]

on Android you get (or can get for older phones) various "swipe" keyboards, instead of hunting and pecking, you just draw a swirly line that roughly travels through the letters you want (works better if you don't think about it too precisely, just trust that you know roughly where the letters are, and the phone will work it out). Of course it uses an element of prediction so sometimes you get the wrong result, but I wouldn't go without it now ...

[Peter Johnson]

I claim 70% of telephone (including internet) and 15% heat and light for business (working from home) use. An item in the Observer by a contributor from Gran Thornton, accountants, recently suggested claiming a per centage of water and council tax as well. It also said that HMRC will accept a claim of £4 per week for minimal use of the home, writing up records etc, without quibbling. I think they key thing is not to designate an explicit part of the house for work purposes. Doing that is why doctors with home surgeries get caught by capital gains tax when they sell.

[Nightjar]

That's what mine does. It makes it just about usable, not that I am an avid texter. However, I have a cousin who is.

Colin Bignell

[John Rumm]

While the point is valid, I would contend that the discussion does not have to be with the person actually doing the work. So long as the person doing the "interfacing" has a good enough grasp of the basics to hold an intelligent conversation, and find out the broad outline of the job etc it should work out ok.

For many kids these days SMS is an extension of their arm!

Its really just a case of working out how to deal with phone calls... any reasonably conpetent PA should be able to discuss a job, take details, book appointments, explain charges and rates etc, and then SMS the spec along to the handyman.

[Nightjar]

Can you sign? If so, you could find you have a niche market you could exploit and they would understand why you can't take phone calls.

Colin Bignell

[JoeJoe]

You may have a point here.

A joiner friend is gay, and has completely cornered the gay market around here (not literally... ;-)). Apparently some can be uncomfortable with the attitude of some tradesmen. He is also very popular amongst single women looking for a joiner.

He's been self employed for 15 years and has yet to spend a penny on marketing etc - all referrals from happy customers.