The normal process for me when I receive an inquiry is to provide any potential customer with a price for a job that needs doing by carrying out a survey based upon their specs and writing them up a quotation.  This quote is then discussed, refined, accepted or declined.  Once the quote is accepted a mutually convenient date for work commencement is organised and  I go off and source the materials needed & organise either collection or delivery.  My standard practice is not to take any money upfront from these customers as I like to build a level of trust between myself and them and like to reinforce this with this gesture.  I also use this as a USP (unique Selling Point) for marketing reasons and the majority (99.9%) of folk I deal with love it , for obvious reasons.  I do, however, place a limit on this based on the value of the job but I would never ask for a deposit on work valued under £5000.

At present I am dealing with a customer that has called me to their place twice to discuss the job in question and aid them in making a decision in selecting the right product for their requirements.  This customer not only called me back for a second time, which I don’t mind, but was also so keen to push ahead with the job that he asked me to move other work around to cater for him.  Not wanting to upset any one I made various phone calls and reshuffled my diary to squeeze him in.  I went out, sourced his materials and payed for them out of my own pocket, spending time and effort to do this on his behalf.  2 days before the job was due to commence I receive an email fro this customer telling me that he had changed his mind and he no longer needed the job done that was agreed.  Grrrr

After a little calculation I worked out that this guy had taken up 6 hours of my time.  Not just the journey to visit him (twice) but the time sorting his gear, communicating with him and shuffling work.   He also cost me £200 in materials, which will be a little while before I can re-use, and a days pay for my labourer that did not end up working that Monday.  If I were to calculate the time spent on an hourly rate plus the actual money handed over, and wages paid then I’m looking at a loss of £460.  I have asked him to help in recouping some costs but I bet you can guess the answer.

If this was the other way round, and I had messed him about, I bet my name would be appearing on various trusted trader sites, highlighting my bad service.  Is there anywhere that we can name and shame these people as I’m sure it will happen by him to others again soon?

The public are over cautious when it come to selecting tradesmen but what about the honest hard working chaps that get caught out by the cowboy public, thinking they can now do what they want because we are all tarnished with this dirty brush.  It’s hard enough for alot of us at the moment without the added threat of being done out of pocket because people feel it’s OK to treat you like a peice of S**t.

At present my work load seems to up and down like a yoyo.  One day I have weeks of confirmed work the next I’m running low and beginning to sweat.  This series of up’s & down’s has made me realise just how important it is to constantly chase new work.  I seem to take my foot of the gas when things are looking good only to regret it when they don’t.  When you carry out a trade that only allows you to penetrate each home once the chase needs to be a massive part of your daily/weekly tasks.

Following up on quotes that remain outstanding needs to be done almost daily, even if the answer received is not the one hoped for.  Over the past week or so me & the wife (boss) have drawn up and documented a workflow process that covers all scenarios from answering the phone or replying to an online enquiry through to where we file any work associated paperwork once the job has been completed. A huge part of this workflow is how and when we deal with any quotations distributed but remain outstanding, awaiting a response from the potential customer.  We now send out a letter approximately 7 days after the quotation was sent to all customers that have not responded.  This allows us once more to display a level of professionalism and provides us with another marketing opportunity.

Whilst brainstorming this sales/workflow process I sat down and rummaged through my file of outstanding quotes and was sick to the stomach once I realised that since the beginning of June I had distributed 21 quotes that remained, as what I call them, ‘awaiting response.  If I had this process in place from day 1 and followed it strictly every day/week or month I probably would never get to the stage of drying up or getting close to.

Now the chase for me is never ending and I am looking forward to seeing the benefits of this simple and easy to do task.