Steve Stone
Owner’s Spotlight
ShuBee®

There’s a lot of debate on whether service companies should charge a diagnostic fee. Steve Stone of Steve Stone Plumbing and Heating & Air and ShuBee^® CEO shares his opinion on diagnostic fees from his experience growing his company from 7 to 32 trucks.

I started to evaluate whether or not we should charge diagnostic fees, and what we found out was we were losing a lot of opportunities to trade jobs by charging diagnostic fees. The other companies around us were working by the hour. We would charge a $70 diagnostic fee we would waive once we did the work. But the customer would say,“ You mean you’re going to charge me just to look it at?” So we started to think about the best way to approach the diagnostic fee. What we decided was not to charge a diagnostic fee between regular working hours. Here’s how we did it.

We beat our competition by telling our customers we didn’t work by the hour; we worked by the job. We’d say to our customers, “We’ll send a technician out to assess and diagnose the problem and tell you exactly what the service will be.”  My theory was that we live in a “right now” society, and when people have a plumbing or heating and air problem it usually means they had to stop their day and even take off of work.  So after we showed up to a customer’s home with our professionalism and expertise, the urgency of calling another plumber was eliminated and they could easily see they called the right company. The key to being successful is to invest in your technicians. They should be well trained in their appearance and how to greet the customer. Your technician should exude a wow factor when a customer sees him or her for the first time.  Take that wow factor and turn a customer into your client for life.

Your technician should have a clean uniform and their shoes should be polished. We even had a shoeshine box at our office that our techs could use. It quickly became a habit and most of our technicians would keep their shoes shined on their own. Respecting a client’s home should be a top priority, and shoe covers should always be worn to keep dirt off of a client’s floors. Wearing shoe covers is a small act that goes a long way in client retention. Your technicians should always be wearing Trust Me™ Id Badges, and they should never smell like smoke.

Appearance does not just mean a uniform; it also includes your technician’s truck. A dirty truck gives off the impression of sloppy work.  This includes the dashboard. A messy, cluttered dash is a driving hazard and appears very unprofessional. Your truck is your billboard. It should always be clean and organized as an extension of your work and reputation.  Bottom line; a customer should know they called the right company the first time they see their technician at their doorstep. Because we showed up to our client’s home with a professional appearance and were face-to-face rather than trying to charge a diagnostic fee over the phone, our closure rate skyrocketed! For us, it became a no brainer.

Be sure to check back next month for the continuation of Steve’s story!