Hit 500 residential service calls in a year and it changed how I bid jobs

I just wrapped up my 500th call last week. That number surprised me because I thought I was only doing maybe 300 or so. Turns out I was way underestimating my workload. Seeing that total made me realize my hourly rate was too low for how many quick fixes I run. I bumped my service call minimum from $85 to $120 and haven't lost a single customer. Has anyone else tracked their annual call volume and found a similar wake up call?

2 comments

2 Comments

zarat379h ago

Hold up, I gotta push back on this one. Bumping your minimum from $85 to $120 just because you hit more calls doesn't really prove anything except that you got lucky. You might have just been underpriced before, but that doesn't mean every other guy needs to follow your lead. What about customers who live in cheaper areas or have smaller jobs that aren't worth a hundred twenty bucks just to show up? You could be pricing yourself right out of the market for the people who actually need a quick fix like a tripped breaker or a loose outlet, not a full service call. If your area is full of folks on tight budgets, that raise might cost you more work than you think. Did you check your cancellation rate or just assume nobody left because of the new price?

adam1869h ago

Zarat37, you mentioned cancellation rates, but that's not really what the original post was about. The guy was just sharing his own numbers, not telling everyone to copy him. I think you're sorta mixing up two separate things - his personal experience and some kind of industry standard he supposedly set. You said he got "lucky" hitting more calls, but that's assuming he didn't actually get busier because of the price bump, which can happen in weird ways, like when higher prices actually filter out the tire kickers. And on the cheap area thing, you're right that $120 could be steep for a small town, but he never claimed his market was universal. Feels like you're arguing with a point nobody made.