The customer called on a Friday afternoon and we scheduled for first thing Monday morning due to the urgent nature of the call. It was not a free estimate. The customer wanted the work done the same day, and we said we could do a spot treatment in the affected area on Monday, and then we...
would have to come back to complete the rest of the house later that week. The client apparently found another contractor over the weekend, and did not notify us until Monday morning when the technician was already on his way. We have a certain number of timeslots per day for each technician and each timeslot represents money that we pay (the technician as well as gas to drive to the appointment) whether we do the job or not. Had the customer contacted us when they had found another contractor, and not 15 minutes before the scheduled appointment, we would have had time to fill the slot or simply not have the technician drive out there, however since they waited until Monday we had to pay the technician to drive out there for nothing. The trip charge is a standard charge for cancellations done at the time of a scheduled appointment. We rarely impose this charge because most people call in advance if they need to cancel or reschedule. However, the few times we have had to charge this fee, people have always been understanding out of respect for our loss of revenue due to the last minute cancellation. Obviously, if an emergency came up, that is different, however, this was just a case of the customer finding another contractor which is fine as long as we would have been notified at that time. The customer called to say he did not believe he should pay the charge. After I explained it to him, I let him know that if he thought that was fair then not to pay and no future action would be taken.
The customer called on a Friday afternoon and we scheduled for first thing Monday morning due to the urgent nature of the call. It was not a free estimate. The customer wanted the work done the same day, and we said we could do a spot treatment in the affected area on Monday, and then we...
would have to come back to complete the rest of the house later that week. The client apparently found another contractor over the weekend, and did not notify us until Monday morning when the technician was already on his way. We have a certain number of timeslots per day for each technician and each timeslot represents money that we pay (the technician as well as gas to drive to the appointment) whether we do the job or not. Had the customer contacted us when they had found another contractor, and not 15 minutes before the scheduled appointment, we would have had time to fill the slot or simply not have the technician drive out there, however since they waited until Monday we had to pay the technician to drive out there for nothing. The trip charge is a standard charge for cancellations done at the time of a scheduled appointment. We rarely impose this charge because most people call in advance if they need to cancel or reschedule. However, the few times we have had to charge this fee, people have always been understanding out of respect for our loss of revenue due to the last minute cancellation. Obviously, if an emergency came up, that is different, however, this was just a case of the customer finding another contractor which is fine as long as we would have been notified at that time. The customer called to say he did not believe he should pay the charge. After I explained it to him, I let him know that if he thought that was fair then not to pay and no future action would be taken.