Current Pricing for Cash Customers

[Dave M]

Jeremiah,

I don't think anyone of us is pretending that you don't know what w/s repair is all about! What I do read from these posts is that the majority of us feel that $25-$35 is too little to ask for a cash job. In my 11 years repairing w/s I've never had a customer complain or cancel once they knew my cash price.
Going to college for 6-8 years to get a degree has nothing to do with the ability to make a nice living at w/s repair.
Oh, I also care about my customers and I deserve what I get from my cash customers!

[Jeremiahswindshieldrepair]

You guys keep talking about % of replacement cost ... by that thinking if I purchased an Armani suit for $9000 and I had a seam come loose right in the front of it and I got it fixed, then $900 should be a fair price as it saves someone 90% off a new suit. My goodness I would be overjoyed to pay $900 to get a simple tailoring job that takes a few minutes, because it saves me 90%!!!!!

What is my cost of goods sold on a repair? $.25-$.95?? Ok, now what is my cost on a replacement, Cost of glass, cost of tech to install glass, cost of truck, cost of glass, cost of location (most replacement companies have a location) cost of employees to proccess order. I think the difference is clear and I am sure you would agree that the comparison of percentages is not apples to apples. A replacement makes maybe 33% profit in 30minutes to an hour ... a repair guy makes 95% profit in 10 minutes. I am certainly not opposed to a profit and this is the exact reason I went into the business, I just wanted to contrast the "I deserve because I am an arteest" mentality in comments like this "I have always charged $50.00-10.00-10.00 (that is a comfort zone I want to break out of), going up by $10.00-5.00-5.00 on new customers" not that I am picking on one single persons post it just happened to be on the same page as the one I am working on here. To me if I am charging $50 for a few minutes work I can't justify raising my rates as there is no precedent for such an increase. I have no cost of goods sold and very little expenses altogether ... people in a real business usually judge pricing on a few things one of which is costs of doing business for the year divided by expected number of deals and that gives you a rough idea of cost per job.

If a tech pulls in $150-$200 a day doing personal retail work driving all over town to do so, first thing you need to do is stop the madness! but that wasn't my point really ..... if you make $150 a day with maybe $15 expenses X 5 days a week that is $35k a year after expenses but not taking taxes out. $200 a day minus $15 expenses is $48k a year after expenses. If you aren't getting 4 insurance jobs a day I would suggest going to a training somewhere to figure out a way to make this a profitable business for you, trying to shake cash customers for everything they have is going to come back and bite you because someone like myself is going to come in a do a fantastic repair at a reasonable price and you will have nothing to say about the quality of work or that I will be out of business in a week at those prices or whatever it is you say to justify the double cost of your repair. I am obviously not saying this for any sort of gain as I sold my business and am out of it now, I just can't imagine why there is such a mentality that if you charge less than $50 bucks you are leaving money on the table ... it's called win-win ... a very powerful business tool. If you jack people for every penny you could possibly get then it is a win-lose as the customer paid TOO MUCH for a repair that they could have gotten for less from another reputable repair tech. At least in my area there are very few who would even look at a repair for $40 much less $50 or more ..... but then again I do what I feel is the right thing and explain to them that there is no charge through your insurance company and the reason there is no charge is they want to save money by not replacing. If they charged you a deductible or raised your premiums no one would repair and they would be replacing everything ... I turn about 99.7% of my eligible customers to insurance and it is a win-win for both of us instead of CHOOSING not to inform the customer completely about the consequences (lack thereof) of doing an Ins repair.
What I am trying to say is that if you are not fully explaining and re-explaining why the insurance companies don't WANT to charge them for a repair and that they would much rather give you a repair for free not because they love you but because it saves THEM money, then you are doing a dis-service to your customer and it is a win-lose for them. For me to charge someone for something that is free to them is an ethical issue as is overcharging .. unless of course it is a luxury vehicle then I can jack the rates up a bit ... but there is no need to as I get insurance like I said about 99.97% of the time. When my employees were out they might get say 5 deals in a day and 2 of them would be cash ... I would go out and get 7 deals in a day and 1 would be cash then I might go 2 more days with no cash deals. Not because I don't get deals but because I was able to turn them to insurance and still get more deals and save people money.

I know, I know they can turn it into their insurance company themselves... I love coming up against people like that as I win everytime. Someone tells me they got a repair done and that they had to pay and get reimbursed, it makes me giddy as I know I have a customer for life. I simply tell them that there are some people out there that want YOU to wait for your money back instead of doing business properly and the company waiting for their bill to be paid. We don't charge up front for what is free to you mr. customer but some people do and it frankly doesn't make sense to me.... by this time the customer is getting a headache from nodding up and down so much and they usually thank me right about this time and we get started on a repair. I only do cash jobs on folks who do not have full coverage ... I shouldn't say ONLY but about 90%+ of my cash jobs are no full coverage theother 10% are folks who after a proper explanation and re-explanation still choose not to do insurance. I see alot of people giving a week try at insurance and then just automatically going to the "creating urgency" step and selling cash if there is a slight misgiving about insurance. If that works for you great ... but just know it is not the best thing for the customer and it is not the best thing overall for your business because win-lose is never a good thing for either party.

I think the point I am trying to make is if you are doing a proper job of explaining the insurance billing you will not be worrying about cash deals nearly as much ... also if you would stop doing so much driving around to do a single job for cash you wouldn't have to charge insane rates for a simple chip fix ( and I can call it simple because I have some pretty simple minded people to do a good job at this and it always works ). What we all need is a business plan that leaves us room for expansion, simply driving around doing retail jobs is never going to net a good living long term. You need a spot that can generate ongoing income like a tent or ffleet accounts or something like that ... then you wouldn'thave to be messing with driving 45+ minutes for a single job... which I never do.

Charge what you want but a so-called "hack" (isn't that what we call anyone who charges less than us and takes a customer away???) who charges less than you do is going to come in one day and rain horribly on your parade and then you will be forced to change to a better model than driving to customers houses and fixin' a couple 3-4 chips a day. While we still have insurance companies paying we need to utilize it. Since I am no longer in the biz I would be happy to share some of my seminar techniques in a post if there is interest ... but then again I have probably ticked off the majority of the "prominent" folks on this board so I doubt I am welcome to share my unpopular belifefs with the masses ... but if by some strange chance anyone wants to hear it let me know and if I can eek out a few minutes I will share some of my notes with you guys on how to get those customers you are missing and maybe even set up a part of your business that won't be dependant on retail. If you order ANYTHING from Delta Kits along with that order you can ask them for my phone number and you can call me for some free suggestions, I can't guarantee that I can talk at that second since I am a busy real estate guy now with 4 listings and 2 buyers (in 3 months in the business and only using cold calls that's not bad) but I can set up a time with any of you who use Delta if even for a drill bit or end seal. I do that not to diss on people who use other products but because I feel Delta is the best company out there and if you haven't had a chance to use them yet maybe some million dollar ideas for free might spur you to give them a shot for some resin or something.

Anyhow charge what you like but these are my opinions.

[Layne]

Obviously the real estate business is sloooww!

[Jeremiahswindshieldrepair]

Yes it took me way too long to type that tyrade ... which you obviously didn't read ... but it had to be said.

[Almost-New WSR]

Brian,
Man, bet that took an hour to type out. Whew. Get a beer and relax. You are entitled to your opinions as is everyone out there but the fact that you remain closed minded about other people's views while no longer in the business, as you said, corrupts your ability to convince others that you are correct.

I won't write a novel here simply because it is beer thirty and we just had a killer week out there Completely Satisfying cash customers by offering them a CHOICE of how to handle their situation. I can file for them or they can just handle it right then and there. Whatever. IT's THEIR choice and THAT is what customer service is built on.

As for the "hack" showing up and undercutting a good business like ours, I say BRING IT. They won't be in business very long. The ones that are out there right now near us are already on the way out.

Good luck with your Real Estate Adventure, Brian and take it easy!

Dave

[Almost-New Too]

2 more cents...

Another thing about offering the insurance price to cash customers is that if they have any gumption after they pay out of pocket for the repair, they STILL have the option to submit their invoice to the insurance company for reimbursement. If you charge your $25 rate, then the claims managers will be alerted to this. This is what I believe Delta Jeff was talking about how the insurance company finds out about the big discrepancy in pricing.

Oh yeah, we DON'T do only 4 repairs a day.

Brian,
So when a cold call comes in and the client wants to buy a house site unseen, will you discount your 3% sales commishion right off the bat? You sure don't have any time wrapped up in that sale, do you? Only writing the offer and presenting it to the listing agent. You'd be hard pressed to find a willing agent to cut their commission on a sale because they didn't do enough work to justify charging them the full commishion rate. (Mother is a 30 year real estate vet).

Beer 30 it is...come on down!!

[StarQuest]

WOW!!! I think that's the longest post I've ever read on this forum!

Brain,

After reading this, all as I can say is good luck buddy with Real Estate! The WSR biz isn't really your bag! Might sound harsh but it's the truth;)

[Jeremiahswindshieldrepair]

If your mother is a 30 year RE vet you haven't been paying attention ... that is just the tip of what our job entails. Very rarely does a deal go down with no counteroffers/inspection problems/financing problems/disagreements between the parties and so forth. To write up a deal is nothing it's what comes after that and the immense liability involved if something doesn't go as stated. I would encourage you to talk to your Mom about how "easy" her job is

[Robin Hood]

There is more than just 10 minutes of your time being spent on doing a repair. You need to calculate drive time, time and money spent getting new customers and travel and business expenses. Everything you do for your business and every penny you spend for your business shares in the cost of each repair. Gas prices alone right now may be adding several dollars to each repair.

I don't know and maybe I am missing something, but it doesn't sound like your taking into consideration every aspect of what makes you successfull. Vehicle wear and tear is something that is often overlooked. Just my opinion.

[StarQuest]

Jeff,

Could we just close this post and concentrate on more positive things?

Not to cut off Brain short or anybody elses opinion.......but it's obvious by the responses......the majority of us don't agree with low price repairs to satisfy our daily income needs.. I think all of us out here need to be consistant with our pricing. I don't have a problem with $40 cash repairs but I do have a problem with someone like Brian offering $25 repairs. It will just drive our business into the ground!!! Sorry for being so honest but that's what will happen;)