Another shop rate question

[bob p]

Sometimes repairs are easy, and my hour minimum charge covers it and leaves 45 minutes to spare. Should I discount my time just because I am good at this? And what about the time I took a lot longer but only charged an hour anyway?

When the job kicks your ass and you spend more time on it than you think is reasonable to charge, that's education. When the next job becomes easy, that's experience. Experience has value. You had to earn it the old fashioned way.

this is much like auto repair. most shops charge book rates and if they can do a job faster than book time then they get a bonus for experience and efficiency. Nothing wrong with the guy who's got lots of experience being efficient with his time -- being good at what you do means that you can service more customers and make more money. Good for you. Shop rates work out fine as long as a mechanic doesn't cut corners and let the quality of work slide, just so he can move on to the next job.

[bob p]

I have a related question about flat-rate charging vs time+parts, but rather than hijacking this thread I thought I'd start a new one:

http://music-electronics-forum.com/t42483/#post428292

[Chuck H]

I'm REALLY glad some of the actual repair techs chimed in on this. At my age I know how to charge rates because I own a small business. But it's eminently better to get on the ground experienced info from guys in the field.

I heard a story here once. I don't remember it well so I'll be paraphrasing (and improvising ). Basically... There was a "professional" that needed to indicate where to make a cut on something. With bated breath everyone waited for the scheduled appointment. Then "the guy" shows up, looks things over for five minutes, marks a spot with chalk and says "Cut here." He submits his bill for $500, collects his check and on his way out the customer comments that $500 is a lot for the time it takes to draw a chalk line. Our guy responds with "Well,.. It was only $2.00 for the chalk line. $488 was for knowing where to put it."

Remember that you've paid dues to learn what you have that others don't. Repair is getting too close to a "service industry" for my tastes already. Everyone thinks they can punch any problem into their I-Phone and get an easy answer (or come here with one post ever and fix their broken cheapie ). Well guess what.?. It's not always like that. Sometimes someone with actual time invested in the practice (countless hours) needs to be involved. This is along the lines of what Bob and Enzo were saying.

As a professional (painting) I do discount my best customers rather than charge for what I can because I can. I charge for what I should because I should. There's a very careful distinction there. This is along the lines of what I and Leo were saying.

Since I don't do repairs professionally I ALWAYS need to pay attention to "educational time" because I know for certain when the fix is slowed down because "I aint learned" So that's something. If your in that position you really SHOULD do the same. OTOH consider that the more experienced techs are probably charging more per hour than you are. Meaning that if you only charge $35/hr. because of your inexperience, but an experienced shop charges $65/hr. (pretty standard) you need to consider that too and not sell your time too short. No such thing as altruism baby!

[Enzo]

You paraphrased it well enough. Every industry has their own version of that story.

When I first started at the music store decades ago, I was faced with my first wireless lapel mic belt pack. I had to replace the little fancy connector on the mic cable, one of these things:
Rode MiCon 4 Connector for Rode MiCon Microphones MICON-4 B&H

I had never seen one, there is not a lot of room in them, the cable is tiny, there is a crimp ring inside that just fits the hole if you make it perfectly round. I struggled. The experienced tech I was taking over for looked at me after a while, and asked, "Are you going to charge them $45 for replacing that connector?" Our shop rate was then $30 an hour. No Steve, I will eat the extra time, and will be a heck of a lot faster next time, but they won't get a bill for an hour and a half. Much later, and I could sling those damned things onto cable fairly efficiently, my charge was more realistic.

Without unduly patting myself on the back, another story, also from the music store at a later time. It was quarter to 9, when the store closed, ready to go home. I thought, well, I have fifteen minutes, I'll toss this PV XR600 on the bench and see what it needs so I can start on it in the morning. Blown fuse, draws current. OK, Well might as well spin the screws out the back and check the output transistors. Couple shorted ones, resistors OK, drivers seem OK. It works with the two bad outputs removed so... Ah, I still have time, I'll throw a couple new outputs in it. Did so, it all works, check for current. What the hell, button it up. So 11 minutes after I started, I had the thing repaired an on the burn-in bench for checkout tomorrow.

Now I still charged that customer full price for the repair, even though it took 11 minutes. it was still a blown amp repaired, and I earned the ability to make that diagnosis and repair in that time frame by direct experience. Both experience in repair and troubleshooting, plus familiarity with the PV product line, and for that matter that model specifically. So that is the other side of the educational time.