Question:

Who charges extra for those tanks that are solid from top to bottom? How much do you charge?

Answers:

We usually charge by the hour, but used to charge for each extra backflush. If the customer warns me ahead of time, I will bring some septage from one of my yearly customers to backflush the heavy tank to stir it up once I have pumped it part way down first. I have opened the distribution box on some heavy tanks and jetted them out if solids made it to the field. A broken baffle in a heavy tank is a real concern. If you don’t charge extra for a heavy tank, the customer won’t have any incentive to go on a regular maintenance program.

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We charge extra after a half hour on-site. We also charge extra for using our Crust Buster. It’s this simple, if you want to stay in business, charge for your service. If the customer is interested in a good job they will understand a tougher job will result in a higher bill. I recommend notifying your customer before cleaning of extra charges.

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I wish we could get away with that here. Our prices run about middle of the pack, but there are companies charging less, and I don’t know that I’ve heard of anyone charging extra for a thick tank, unless they tell the customers once they have seen the tank. I am sure most of the people around here would laugh at us on the phone if we tried to tell them there would be an extra charge for a very thick tank. Business is just too cutthroat.

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Where do I start? First, figuring out how to charge is not as important as figuring out how much you need to charge. What do I mean by this? You have fixed charges that do not change, including insurance, Yellow Pages, your wages, etc. You also have cost of goods sold, tires, fuel, etc. Do the math and find out what your break-even point is. You can do this by the hour, by the job, by the mile, etc. Now that you have that done, decide how you can charge that amount using a flat fee, charge for extra gallons, charge for extra time, dig by the foot instead of by the hour, charge for extras (maintenance items). It seems you are afraid of your competitor and how much he is charging. Is this true?

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We’ve decided to give an hour of time (from the moment we drive in the driveway to the time we are driving out) with the basic rate. Anything over that is billed at $95 per hour, which is our labor rate.

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We’re not afraid of our competitors. Just aware. That’s the reason we do not reduce our rate to try to compete with these bottom-price people. First off, I know they have less overhead. Usually just a one- or two-truck operation run out of their homes. Also, I think a lot of times they recommend new drainfields to people at the first sign of trouble instead of trying to troubleshoot the situation. I don’t know this for sure, but we have been out behind people on jobs where the owner was asking for a new field quote and after a little investigation it turned out it was something much simpler.