Non-Contract Machine Procedures.

[lgwilkinson]

Just reaching out to see what other dealers and techs procedures are for non-contract machines. It seems as though we are working on more and more machines that don't have contracts. We only replace parts with new on machines with out contracts, and normaly we charge for service call and give estamate before doing any work on machine and if they ok work we use part of the charge for labor when we complete the job. What are your procedures.

[copyman]

Free estimates. If after repair machine is still not working properly I don't charge until working! Not sure how these companies can hand the customer a bill and machine still don't work!

[bilyahn]

We do the same as copyman stated. Free estimates and we don't charge if we cannot fix it. Most of the time you can tell withing 10 minutes if it's even worth working on.

Good luck.

Bil

[guitar9199]

We're a smaller shop. (Sometimes it's just me out there...LOL!). The way we do it is we charge a flat rate for a repair estimate. Don't quote me, but I THINK it's $75?...
(I don't set the prices.)

If the customer decides to go ahead with the repair, we'll roll that estimate fee into the cost of the repair. (Parts/Labor/Mileage if more than 5 miles from the mother ship) If the machine is more than 10 years old, we do try to at least move them into a newER piece of equipment....especially if parts availability is going to be an issue.

[copyman]

Oh yea, forgot a few important things, I charge a flat rate of $105. No mileage, nothing extra if I have to return with a part. If account is far away I load up everything possible and some so I won't have to go back. I have even brought whole parts machines with me because customer wasn't able to explain what was going on and account was really far away. Thankfully most of my customers are within a 50 mile radius of shop.