Question about school bus wsr

Post your windshield repair tips, questions, advice! Note there is a sub-forum specifically for business development questions.
screenman
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Re: Question about school bus wsr

Post by screenman »

Trouble is when a member of staff from your customers company moves on and tells the new firm that they used to get glass repaired for $20, it devalues the trade. Sure I can see it pays but I would rather spend a few hours chasing the customers who run fleets with expensive glass in them.

Digging out the quality customers is what this trade is about, keeping an open eye for opportunities others do not see, quality and quantity is the answer.

Keep selling.
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Brent Deines
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Re: Question about school bus wsr

Post by Brent Deines »

I used to do several school bus fleets. I charged them the same as every other fleet but I provided them service no one else in our area would provide, such as evening and weekend repairs. I showed up every two weeks like clock work, whereas others did not provide regular visits they could count on. I drove to outlying areas for the smaller districts when no one else in my area would go even though the districts were willing to pay a premium for that service since it saved them from bringing the bus to town. I would lose a large in town district once in awhile but would always get them back when the most recent low ball guy did not show up when he was supposed to, did not do quality work, or would bill for work he had not actually done...happened more often than you can imagine.

I've sold and replaced a lot of school bus windshields and I disagree that they can be done "properly" in 5 minutes or they they can be purchased for $20.00 these days. It's been awhile but I believe all school bus windshields are not required to be installed with Urethane which is expensive, can be messy depending on the installation procedure, and has very specific application requirements that simply cannot be performed in 5 minutes. However, I agree with the others who have said school districts can have a bus windshield replaced fairly inexpensively so they sometimes baulk at the cost of a repair but my experience has been that you just need to educate them about the safety and liability concerns of an improperly installed windshield. Schools are very big on safety and very leery of anything that could get them into a law suit.

I also agree with screenman that if you drop your price too low it is very difficult to bring it back up. It costs more every year to run a windshield repair business so it doesn't make sense to me to continually lower your price. However, that is a decision every technician must make for himself or herself.
Brent Deines
Delta Kits, Inc.
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fixit
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Re: Question about school bus wsr

Post by fixit »

Thanks guys for all your imput.I'm enjoying the forum
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