| Electronics > Repair |
| Charging by the hour is unfair! |
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| David Aurora:
--- Quote from: SteveThackery on July 04, 2024, 08:58:00 am --- --- Quote from: David Aurora on July 04, 2024, 04:50:27 am --- This is one of the most clueless posts I've seen in a while, I'm assuming this is a full Karen meltdown over something trivial that happened to you but I can't be bothered going through the whole thread looking for the story. --- End quote --- There is no background story. Actually, I did give an example about my car being diagnosed, but that must have been 25 years ago and it certainly isn't what this thread is about. It was actually kicked off by a discussion in another thread, and is something I've been thinking about for a while. The points you make have been made several times already, although I do think your point about most people having a queue of work is spot on and undermines what I said about stretching out jobs. Once you've got a queue, you've got a guaranteed daily income and no incentive to stretch out your work. --- Quote from: David Aurora on July 04, 2024, 04:50:27 am --- - What say I? I say you live in an alternate reality and have probably never done a real day's work in your life. --- End quote --- Hey, come on - let's stay away from the ad hominems, shall we? I'm not going to respond by saying what I think about you, because it has no place in this forum or this topic. FYI: I had a long and successful career in the telecommunications industry, which included a period early on setting up and operating an electronics repair lab. I loved doing electronic repairs. After finishing my career in telecommunications I worked as a technical author for four years. Then I spent the next ten years in academia, getting a BEng (Hons) and an MSc in Audio Engineering. After finishing the Master's I was awarded the Pro Vice Chancellor's Award in Science and Technology. I then worked as a lecturer at the University of Derby here in the UK, retiring four years ago. As a background activity I've worked continuously as a clock and watch repairer for the past 45 years. --- End quote --- And there we have it just like I had guessed- you've spent your life in salary jobs. You're accustomed to being paid a flat rate whether you're working, drinking coffee or taking a piss. Repair work for you is simply a hobby, not a profession. THIS IS NOT HOW IT IS FOR REPAIRERS. When we're taking bookings, returning emails, sending invoices, spending hours on the phone with couriers chasing missing parts, doing banking, cleaning up the workshop and about a million other things we are not getting paid. I had one recent customer who took up something like 4 entire hours of my time on the phone (between initial enquiry, constant calls mid job and 2 or 3 follow up calls). I think the total labour on his bill for the job itself was one hour. That's 10% of a standard workweek gone, completely unpaid just dealing with ONE customer. This is the reality of running a repair business and the kind of constant losses we need to eat up constantly. We only get paid for the actual billable hours per job, so that time is extremely valuable. The idea that we should absorb even more costs because a customer simply wishes the repair was cheaper is preposterous. It reeks of both entitlement and an absolute detachment from the reality the rest of the world lives in. |
| David Aurora:
OK, I just went back through the thread and yeah, wow. Pretty cooked. You cannot tell me this isn't a new Faringdon type troll. It's too batshit crazy to be real. |
| fmashockie:
--- Quote from: all_repair on July 04, 2024, 06:53:14 am ---There are different types of repair. For OEM, it is easier, as there are little unknown. For all 3rd party, they have to deal with unknown. How to price this unknown? Or more correctly, who is taking this risk for this unknown? If it is all known, there is no risk, then thing can be "fair". Pricing unknown, how to be fair? To be fair is about rewarding the party taking the risk. The party taking the risk, has to be the party to be rewarded The way the pricng goes is the Repair shop should charge as high a price for "no fix no fee" work that he thinks is worthy for them to absorb the cost of no-fix. It has to be definitely much higher than the hourly rate. Not charging so is short-changing themselves. If they think the risk is too high risk, they can just offer to charge hourly rate repair, or reject the work. As for people cheating on hour-counting that is about trust and business ethnics, and can happen in any trade and deal. Those who did no value-add, would not be around long, and you can bet their names would pop out easily on the internet. What is the first thing cheated customers do? = try to give bad review online on every platform they can find. --- End quote --- Excellent point. And these days why are people taking their devices to third party? Because a) manufacturer won't fix or will for absurd money b) the manfacturer has made it extremely difficult for customer to repair it themselves There's a lot of risk to people like myself who are in that third party position trying to fix electronics. |
| SteveThackery:
--- Quote from: David Aurora on July 04, 2024, 12:25:28 pm ---OK, I just went back through the thread and yeah, wow. Pretty cooked. You cannot tell me this isn't a new Faringdon type troll. It's too batshit crazy to be real. --- End quote --- You're doing it again - leave off the ad hominems, will you? What does "cooked" mean? |
| SteveThackery:
--- Quote from: David Aurora on July 04, 2024, 12:10:28 pm ---The idea that we should absorb even more costs because a customer simply wishes the repair was cheaper is preposterous. It reeks of both entitlement and an absolute detachment from the reality the rest of the world lives in. --- End quote --- Another example of misrepresenting me. "Wishing the repair was cheaper" isn't anything I have said. Please don't put words in my mouth. I am advocating for the customer NOT being billed for a non-repair, UNLESS they have been warned in advance that this might happen and are willing to go ahead taking that risk. There is an awful lot of noisy outrage in this thread, but my opinion is simple and summarised in that single sentence. And nobody has yet made a good argument why that can't be standard practice. |
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