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How Does $5,700 Labor Per Hour Sound?

Joe Marconi
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HarrytheCarGeek Experienced

HarrytheCarGeek

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It just jammed up the bays with a lotta folks that couldn't afford to own a car!

 

Very well said!

 

We tend to worry about alienating customers, but if they cannot afford your service, they were never customers.

 

That is why I always quote the job. I know people that come to the shop with the sole purpose of trying to nickle and dime me, I will not have it. I will give them a very expensive price and have them out the door so they will not waste my time.

 

The customer dealing scars run deep with me, as I when I began in the business people took advantage of my knowledge and skill because I was a noobie tech. I did many favors that came back to bite me in the butt, which I soon learned that it was better to charge full price and then if they had a problem, I would gladly honor my warranty. If everything went well and no issues, I was happily taken care of.

 

I have seen excellent mechanics go out of business, just because they really did not know the true expense of running a successful business.

Edited by HarrytheCarGeek
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IntegrityAutoCare Contributor

IntegrityAutoCare

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A lot of the hardest jobs pay the least amount of money. Think manual labor. The problem right now with our industry, as I see it, is that we are caught in the middle between being a "manual labor" industry and a "technical knowledge" industry. Up until recently, automobile repair was more about brawn than brains, these days not so much. A lot of the old timers who could wrestle the transmission out of an 76 Chevy are having difficulty adjusting to sitting at a computer researching wiring schematics and system operation theory for these newer vehicles before they can ever even touch a wrench or screwdriver. As you stated, you didn't pay that guy for the amount of TIME he spent working on your alarm system, what you actually were paying him was reimbursement for all the money he had to spend to gain the knowledge required to work on your alarm system. You felt cheated because his invoice was inaccurately itemized....which leads to my next question: Is the way we are itemizing our OWN invoices contributing to our customers feelings of being ripped off by US?

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