You just can't get he customers these days......

[The Medway Handyman]

Had a call from a bloke tonight, conversation went as follows;

Bloke; I need a flatpack wardrobe assembled. How much would that cost? TMH; Is it two or three door & does it have any drawers? Bloke; Two doors with three drawers. TMH; That would take around one & a half to two hours. Bloke; No, it wouldn't take anything like that long. TMH; I assemble lots of flat pack, in my experience that's about right, but I only charge for the time taken. Bloke; OK, could you come tomorrow morning? TMH; Sorry, I couldn't do it until the second week in December. Bloke; But its blocking up the hall & I need the wardrobe. You must be able to do it quicker than that. TMH; Sorry, I'm fully booked until then. Bloke; Well, how much would two hours be? TMH; £75 including the travel time. Bloke; How much? That's outrageous! That's £37.50 per hour! I don't earn anything like that per hour! TMH; Neither do I sir, I have overheads. But that's very competitive compared to the national flat pack assembly companies. Bloke; You can't possibly charge that much per hour! You will never get any work at those prices! TMH; Its quite competitive sir, otherwise I wouldn't be booked two weeks ahead. Bloke; But the wardrobe only cost me £99.99. TMH; Things are cheap these days, labour is expensive. Bloke; I'll have to think about it.

TMH; ............... Opens bottle of wine..................Retreats to darkened room.

[geoff]

In message , The Medway Handyman writes

you should have pointed him here

[DIY]

Perhaps he should try the B & Q Handyman service :)

1 hour - £60 2 hours - £95 4 hours - £170 8 hours - £280

[dom]

On the whole, he's probably a customer you can do without. He's unlikely to ever turn into a happy chappy that says "You've done a great job, here's your cash".

[TheOldFellow]

Poor Bloke, he's just woken up and realised why we do DIY in the 21st Century. He could have asked one of those slave-labour asians if they wanted a foreign holiday :-)

R.

[nightjar]

I had a customer on the phone yesterday, who spent a good ten minutes trying to persuade me to break up an ink cartridge refill kit, because he only needed the clip that held the cartridge. He had replaced his HP printer, for which he had bought bulk ink, with a Dell printer and didn't want to pay for the ink, even after I pointed out that ink made for an HP cartridge might not be suitable for a Lexmark cartridge. He felt that £12 was far too much to pay to get the bit he wanted and seemed amazed that I couldn't sell him the bits from the kit for the difference between the retail price of the full kit and that of the replacement inks, which would have just about covered what I pay for the product and the cost to me of packing and posting it.

Colin Bignell

[John Stumbles]

---8 TMH Retreats to darkened room.

You couldn't make it up, could you?! I particularly liked the "you will never get any work at those prices" AFTER you'd told him you were booked solid for weeks ahead.

I get alarm bells ringing whenever a punter opines on how long a job might take or tries to haggle on a price.

[Peter Lynch]

...

...

Looking at the B&Q prices, the difference between the cost for 1 hour and 2 hours is £35. For more hours the rate goes down even more: the

3 hours difference from 1 to 4 costs £90 (i.e. £30 p.h. ) )

[John Rumm]

A friend of mine went to quote on a minor roofing job...

Custard: How much will it cost? Friend: £150 Custard: How about £110 Friend: £160 Custard: ok £120 Friend: £180 Custard: No mate you don't understand, you are supposed to be coming down in price! Friend: No, *you* don't understand, I have told you the price, your the one who wants to mess about. Custard: Oh, ok then you can have £150 Friend: But the price is £180 now Custard: But the price was only £150 a minute ago! Friend: You are the one who wanted to haggle...

[Stuart Noble]

So he didn't get the job. Very smart.

[Andy Hall]

All of which demonstrates very well the principle of never selling on price.

[John Stumbles]

I assume you said that sarcastically but it probably was very smart: that sort of customer is more trouble than the job's worth.

[Andy Dingley]

That's rather the point. It's winter, any half-competent roofer already has more work than there are literally hours in the day (daylight hours at least). The last thing he needs is to find himself working for someone like this.

[Stuart Noble]

Then you just tell the customer the price is not negotiable. No need to go into a smart arse comedy routine.

[ARWadsworth]

Female Customer: How much to change an electric shower? Me: Approx £85 if you supply the shower Female Customer: And how much if I let you get in the shower with me after you have swapped it?

The mind boggles.

Adam

[John Rumm]

Actually I think he quite enjoyed it... and he didn't care whether he got the work or not, since it may have required an extra days travel to London. (friend is a general builder rather than a specialised roofer, and was working at some distance from home on another job nearby).

The custard, had already opened his gambit by saying that several specialist firms had already quoted over £400 for the job. So both of them knew the price was very reasonable.

[Lobster]

nightjar I had a customer on the phone yesterday, who spent a good ten minutes trying

You seem to be a guy with a finger in many pies?! ;-)

David

[fred]

In article , Lobster writes

Are you saying he's fat :-?

[fred]

In article , ARWadsworth writes

"About £1.35/kg"

[geoff]

In message , nightjar writes

I had a customer a couple of weeks ago who got all shitty when I wouldn't sell him the bearings ("sorry, we sell fans, not bearings") for his baxi fan. He's now going to measure them and compete with me by measuring the bearings and selling them as repair kits on ebay