You may be leaving money on the table. Here’s the most shocking part: you may be doing it on every call. You may be overlooking the easiest method you have for boosting your revenue. If you are already doing this, this month’s column will be reinforcement for why it’s the right thing to do but if you’re not doing this, prepare for a revelation.     
    As you break down your revenue opportunities for the year and you look at that great spreadsheet before you, you’re probably looking at opportunities like water heaters, re-piping, and repairs. One that might be missing is the category for service or travel fees.Some contractors overlook this. Some are afraid of it. Some charge it but never collect it. All of them are missing revenue they should have collected.   
    It may seem like the smallest thing. How can a few bucks on a service call amount to anything? But if you’re struggling to collect revenue throughout the year, charging or increasing your service fee is the easiest way to boost your revenue.  The most common reason for not charging a service fee is fear. If you haven’t done it before, it may seem intimidating to charge your clients a fee before you’ve done any work on their home, but if you’ve arrived at their home in a timely fashion and diagnosed their problem, then you have done them a service already.    
    After all, when was the last time you went to the doctor for free? When you go to the doctor’s office, you have to pay for an office visit just to get in and see the doctor. That’s before they’ve prescribed any medicine or treatment. You even have to come to them! When a client calls you, you’re coming to them to diagnose the problem. That’s a service your doctor won’t even provide.  As for leaving money on the table, you’re running all of these calls anyway. Your technician will still go out to the client’s home and diagnose the problem. A service fee simply gives you a way to be compensated for that service. Plus, your clients are used to it nowadays with doctors’ and other service provider fees.    
    Why is it time to start charging a service fee?
    Quite simply, if you’re collecting $30, $40, or more on every call, you’ll have more revenue. It adds up quickly. If your technician runs 500 calls this year, that’s $15,000 or more depending on what you charge and how often you collect it. 
    Charging a service fee gives you a way to weed out price shoppers. I’m sure you won’t be shocked to hear that some homeowners want you to come out just to give them a price that they can turn around and shop. If you’re charging a service fee to come out to their home, they’ll think twice about calling you just to shop your prices.   
    If you don’t earn enough revenue to cover your costs, your life in business will be cut short. And think of all the costs that are associated with just getting your technician to knock on your client’s door. There is the cost of the ad that generated the phone call, the employee who answered the call, the phone the call came in on, the computer that logged the call, the cell phone you called the technician on, and the person who dispatched the technician. That doesn’t even scratch the surface of insurance, rent, vehicles, and fuel! Charging that travel fee gives you a way to recoup some of those costs so you can provide your clients with top-notch service.     
    Are you ready to start charging a service fee or increase your existing one? Or has the fear set in? That big worry of losing or angering customers always seems to creep back in, and that’s why it’s so important to support your decision to charge a service fee. Just like every price in your business, it has to be backed up by value. What your clients get for that service fee should reflect the value that they receive. That means your technician should look professional, your truck should have what he needs, and he should show up on time.
    If he is late, looks like he crawled out of the gutter, and has to run off to the supply house three times during the call, it’s a little harder to justify the value of that service fee. At the same time, you can’t operate your business based on service fees alone. The real revenue will always come from the work that you perform for your clients in their homes. With that in mind, collecting a service fee shouldn’t stand between you and the work, especially when you’re slow.
    If your client needs a new water heater, but they’re upset about paying your service fee on top of it, don’t lose that sale just to collect that fee.  In the end, collecting your service fee is all in how you present it. That comes down to the value and trust that your team builds on the phone with the client before your technician arrives. The client should never be surprised by your service fee, and they should always know the value they are receiving for that cost.  
    And what is that cost? As with everything when you run your own business, it’s up to you. It depends on what you think your market will bear and how busy you are. You can change your fee based on how many calls you have coming in and how busy you are on a certain day. No matter what you charge, collecting a service fee is probably the simplest way to boost your revenue this year.