How to charge when customer misdiagnosed

I dont know much about running a mobile buisness but I would think you are correct on needing to establishing some sort of dismissal fee. But I think you also would need to figure out how to get compensateded for your travel time as well.

You are thinking about it from the wrong viewpoint. When it is customer diagnosed you are not getting paid to fix it. You are getting paid to perform a procedure (that has been determined by the customer.) The result of the requested procedure needs to be owned by the one that asked for the procedure to be performed.

Ditto.

Totally agree!

For a just a regular flash update I charge 1 fee , for New module installations I charge more , theres always the security and various other procedures that have to be done with new modules. For used or after market modules I charge the same as the new module install and I always tell them theres a fee regardless of whether or programming was successful or not ESPECIALLY with used or aftermarket…

I have a minimum service call fee that I charge for instances like this. Are there times that i wave this fee? Absolutely!! I have customers that pay me a lot of money every month (customers that call me multiple times in the same day). If one of them have a whoops moment then I tend to say, “Hey, no worries.” However, if this is a one call a month customer, then they are charged the minimum…

I believe you should have a default fee(show up) to fall back to when the job goes south. To use your example, you were going to charge $xxx to program but quickly realized that wasnt going to fix it. Give the option to continue with programming as per shop, charge rate #2 @ $xxx for troubleshooting and possibly program or rate #3 to abort completely and justify your time. Option 3 is obviously…

Your advice and travel are billable... You did not misdiagnose it. You came per there request.

I try to always add value to every job and the repair/service industry, I have mostly had poor success achieving this goal when I give stuff away for Free.

I struggled with situations like this in the beginning of running my mobile business. Do you handle the incoming calls for service request? If not I would call the shop before heading there way and get as much info as you can. I would much rather spend 5 min on the phone and decide to head to a job that would actually help a customer than go out and have to debate with them to get paid due to…

You have to charge for your time as if you fixed it. Your time is valuable and finite. If they could have fixed it they would have. I tell my customers up front, unless its my fault, they are responsible for having everything ready for me to work, or let me bring the materials and charge for them. It may be cold, but we have to do it this way. We are already so under paid in this industry its…

I keep thinking about doctors. You or yours heirs (oops) pay for EVERY visit every time and for every test regardless of outcome.

I know several doctors and other industry professionals that stand behind their work even to the point of a loss, this also helps keep me accountable.

I also run a mobile programming and diagnostics business. I see this as a daily struggle. This is how we handle it today and it seems to work. Customer calls for programming, we arrive, charge a fee no matter the outcome. No comm, bad module whatever. There are always judgement calls. Yesterday had a good customer installed the wrong part. I did not charge for the trip. Anytime we program a…