How would you handle this?

I had a job that I quoted last week for bat guano removal. I priced it at $600. I was called in last year to bat proof the home after another company failed to solve the problem, I charged the customer $525 to bat proof the home (with a 5 year warranty) and remove ONLY the droppings in the 3 vents. He wasn't interested in getting the whole attic cleaned out. Now the home is for sale and the buyers want it cleaned out.
I was anticipating it to be a PIA, expecting to have to peel the top layer of insulation off to remove the droppings instead of vacuuming. My worker decided to take a piece of screen, press it to the insulation and vacuum the droppings off. The whole attic was covered with droppings. The screen was used to keep the vacuum from sucking up the insulation. Total time for the job, drive time included was 4.5 hours. I did not include replacing insulation in the price. The job had to be done short notice due to the closing for the home sale is Monday. The customer was very satisfied with the work.
I sent the invoice and now the customer wants a reduction in the price because it took my guy three hours to do the job and we didn't have to peel the insulation off as I had planned.
We all have had jobs that end up taking longer than expected and unless we go up on the price at the end we loose. I don't go up on price once the price is agreed upon... ..so why should I go down on my price? What if my guy slipped and busted thru the ceiling below? What if he got hurt....could I go up on my price to cover the on expected costs? The customer thinks that $600 is "a little high for just 3 hours work".
What would you do?

1.I would have a signed contract
2.I would perform the work as specified
3.I specified work was performed in a manor that deviated from said specifications, I would submit a change order

verbal contract is still a contract, so customer should pay agreed upon price. How you performed the work is irrelevant, it could have taken 10 hours still the same price.

lol,,,,,,let me know WHEN you need a good layer.......

Specification within a contract need to be followed otherwise you are in violation of that contractual agreement

It was the customer who suggested using the vacuum, to keep from having to go behind us and replace any lost insulation.

In that case I don't see where they are fussing from other than penny pinching. This all comes down to client expectations and clear written contracts
that if modified should be signed off upon somewhere. (edited in this piece **** I don't use written contracts for every aspect but I do use a pdf contract for all bat and bird exclusion and serious wildlife exclusion and clean outs. There is much to say and I want them to know what I am doing and not doing, you can even add spaces for them to sign off that they have read and understand. That said, many have run decades without a need for just a couple of written contracts and I'm sure they will chime in that it is largely unnecessary and they aren't wrong, just a different mode.)

Vinke is right about the aspects of work promised, versus work delivered, but if the client specified to change it up, I would have had them agree to that
beforehand.

I know in this case you probably weren't sure it would work till your tech got moving, so hard to see it coming.

I've struggled my first two years with client expectations and being sure that what I promise is met 100% of the time. While I always make them happy by the end, if you aren't careful it costs you more than you had planned for.

I find bird exclusion to be the place this happens most with those folks who are bugged by even a pigeon gliding over their home but not landing. You usually can tell after a few of these people and therefore make sure you spend extra time explaining.

In your case they should pay, whether it took you 45 minutes or longer, as they agreed to your price. I do my best to not discuss how long any job takes in great detail, as they can vary and I want folks to not focus so much on trying to determine my labor rate as that the job will be done correctly where it takes 2 hours or 24 hours, it is up to them to pick me over another contractor based on the bid and other factors.

Sounds like they just thought what you did was too simple to pay that much and if that is the case, imagine where a lot of things guys do for wildlife control would be if everyone just dropped their rate when the landowner said...

"Well I could have done that myself!"

There isn't an easy way to go really, you can decide if you think it is worth the client promoting you to others or if they have a written description and you didn't comply if they will use that to flog you with.

Bummer....

Justin

The way I see it...I came in after another company failed to take care of the bat problem. I took care of their bat guano pronto because the closing in this Monday (tomorrow) and they are completely satisfied, actually praising the clean up. If they don't pass my name along, so be it.
The customer could have done this work himself, I told him exactly what he could do and he chose to have me do the clean up.
I'm going to keep to my price.

Sounds reasonable batman!

If the contract was for removing guano for x amount of money and you did so why should you not
get paid the full amount you ask for. It doesn't matter if you picked up each peace with your teeth.
You removed the guano bottom line.

I wouldn't say its quite that simple not to be difficult everet. For example removing with a HEPA system and taking precautions to minimize health
risk versus scooping it up and not minimizing these risks can be cause for folks to not pay, likewise any large deviation in the look promised with
exclusion, or other little details can cause problems.

It sounds like though in this case NCbatman had a plan and the client suggested a different way and when followed the folks just decided, "hey that
shouldn't cost me the same, because it didn't take very long" which is nonsense.

HD, I understand what you are saying, maybe next it he should work slower LOL. He made it look easy because he knew what he was doing.

I would reduce it by $50. And redo my contract.

Put a lean on the house first thing in the morning don't know if he can close until your paid.

Don't know if it's the same everywhere, but when we were looking at buying a house over the winter, the house had a lean on it for $500 labor charge the guy didn't pay a few months prior and the way they were going to work it was at least one of the two (seller or buyer) had to pay the $500. I wasn't about to pay the extra cash on the house as we found a lot of other issues with it so we walked away from the sale.

It's kind of frustrating to have someone upset at you for being more efficient than they thought you would be. The fact that the homeowners didn't have to replace the insulation should be enough to make them happy.

That being said, I usually explain about all of the overhead we have to cover such as workers comp, GL, advertising, etc... at times I'll try to smooth things over by reducing the cost by 5 or 10%, but only if really warranted and if it was built into the profit margin.
To me it's better to close on the job and have the customer happy, than to have a customer complaining on the web or to their friends.

Got paid....I tell you what...I love the Square App. I called the customer and gave him a $50 discount...while on the phone he made the payment and asked me to bat proof his recently purchased home. One in the hand is worth two in the bush.

Batman, A question for you. I am thinking about going to Square for credit cards. How do you do it when you don't have the card in your hand? I do about 1/2 of my business on the phone. Thank you for your help.

Jim, the app on your phone will have a screen where the client can sign with their finger. In the case of off site transactions I write in Phone Authorization and explain the same to the client but only do so if they have given full consent to do so.

My one and only, so far knock on wood, attempted charge card reversal was of this type. I never laid eyes on the client as he was on the west coast. He had a diller tearing up the yard and his lawn man was complaining. I did the deal over the phone and set up the job but the dumb diller must have played in traffic because two weeks later no show no call on dillers in that yard so I packed it in. The client had the gall to attempt to have the charges reversed but fortunately I had emailed the joker on each visit with photos and a description of what I was seeing. His CC company agreed with me that I had provided the agreed upon service to set traps and monitor them for a period of up to fourteen days.

I take a picture of EVERY JOB and the animals caught. When it is an over the phone payment, I write in the signature PD by Phone . The receipt is emailed, including the pictures of the work. Crossing my fingers...so far no issues. I've been using Square for a long time with no issues what so ever. The first week it increased my cash flow by $1,500 . Instead of waiting 2-3 weeks to get paid, I get the money in as little as 5 days.

Could you explain how to get (square) what kind
Of cost is with it? I currently don't take any cc payments
But would like to start!

75

Square is an app that you download to your smart phone or tablet. Once you sign up, they send to a 1 inch swipe that plugs into your phone. The service charges 2.75%, which is worth it to me...one in the hand is worth....well......more than 2.75% to me. It's very handy, and easy to use, especially with those customers that call you in the middle of the night with a critter running crazy in their home....You give them a price...have them pay you at least a down payment before you leave your nice comfortable home and loving wife at 8 pm on Friday night...only to have them call you 3 minutes before you get to their home to tell you that their neighbor came over and let the animal out the door. Well...at least you got paid for your time. Before, I would have to just suck it up and go back home to a peed off wife wondering why I interrupted the "Batchler" to go and not get paid. Or how about this....called to get a snake...lady is freaking out...try to get paid and hear " My husband has the check book, just bill us".. well I was worth every bit of a $150.00 before I showed up to get the snake...now they don't want to pay because "all you did was walk in a pick it up..that's a heck of a rate for 5 minutes of work" . Now, I say...we accept debit and credit...and I get paid.

See he was negotiating....$50 mad him feel sucessful. And, got a happy customer.

What is the swipe for,if you don't leave home does he give you his cc # and some how it goes through you to the bank so they get the 2.75% and then put the rest in your account and how long before you know it's in there? Just wondering.

smallcreek, check the other thread posted by Kasey on this subject, details on how it works and how fast are there for you.

http://www.trapperman.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3683610/Credit_card_apps#Post3683610

Justin

Thanks HD ,but NCbatman said you get a down payment before you leave home and #5 in that list says you swipe there card so how is he doing it or what is it that I'm missing.

Ah, sorry man, some folks do that way, I generally don't. You can get their card number over the phone and enter it manually for a deposit
before you leave the house, but the rate you see on that other thread of 3. something plus .15 per xaction applies.

Hope that helps, skip over #5 and look down at the question about cell phone reception. Some folks due to service area have to go this
manual route, because the "swiper" won't work without cell reception.