Plumbers with blue and white vans in London
Discussion
Okay I'll give you a few highlights of working in this industry in 2001 (I'm a sparky). This doesn't concern a plumbing company with blue and white vans but was (and probably still is*) a big player in multi-trades responsive maintenance. I worked for them for a few months and was perhaps a little naive initially as to how the business model operates. It was 15 years ago but a few memories of how things worked; I doubt much has changed:
1. You carry no spares, nothing. An hours travelling time is very profitable, and can be the difference between a low profit 1hr job and a more "decent" result. Even if the client rings up and says they have a broken socket and want it changed you're supposed to go to look at it and go "Hmm, yes a socket, I'll go buy one". Got told off for fitting a replacement part one evening - without which a young family would have gone without power for the night - as I missed the opportunity for some profitable travel time. Pointed out no-where was open that time of night to be told I should have taken a deposit and "returned with the part in the morning"
2. Company I worked for charged by the half hour. Quoted exclusive of VAT. £45 per half-hour typical day rate, doesn't sound like too much at first (HEY No call out fee!!1!) but it adds up very quickly.
3. Pay scale is shall we say, optimised to earn "more" per job. At £200 excl. VAT profit on any one job (labour and any markup on parts) my split jumps from 40 to 50%. So a 1.5 hour job @ £45 pays me £60. If it's 2.5 hours I hit the magic 50% and get £112. Very motivating.
4. Job charges all over the place; 45 was standard but with nothing on it might drop to 35. Busy times with jobs in hand saw it going to 55, 65, whatever they thought they could get away with. If they took a lower priced job and then a few more pushing the rate up they'd string the original client along with BS while you did the more profitable jobs. If original client didn't give up in exasperation you'd get there to be informed they've been waiting forever while you've been broken down or something and you're like WTF
5. They're smart enough never to compromise themselves; I often got calls telling me there was "nothing more doing after this job" and comments that I had an "unusually high number of half-hour jobsheets relative to other engineers" They reminded me several times you're allowed to charge an hours travel time according to OFT, they never ordered me to do so.
6. *= They spent over half a mill with the yellow pages. They had adverts of all shapes and sizes, "local firms with an office in your high street" but all their hundreds of lines that all went to one call centre.
7. They had professional scumbags on the phone ready to argue/threaten/intimidate people who felt the bill was too high. They're good at their job; I've seen people reduced to tears.
8. They had secret trackers fitted to all vans but didn't tell us (illegal) so they could spy on us. Was really weird before I knew about them - I'd stop for 5 mins to grab something to eat and they'd call two minutes later - "are you on the way to the job?" "erm yeah on my way" "are you sure?" "...like WTF". Apparently they tracked the vans especially out of hours use (we paid to rent them) and cross referenced any address to recent jobs so they could catch blokes who'd gone back on a job to finish it off for cash in pocket like.
Could have netted £3k/week doing this; didn't, and we split due to musical differences, too much soul not enough face or whatever. I tried to be as decent as possible within the framework - certainally hinted at rising charges/that they could have an "interim" fix rather than surprising people with huge bills. Trouble is people were often just too damn stupid to take the tip. Main regret is not staying on for a bit, being superkind to anyone nice untill I got sacked just to dish out loads of (personal) biz cards, could have really given me a leg up as I went self-employed afterwards.
The thing is these people and others like them pretty much have the emergency call-out/responsive market sewn up, which is a shame as I enjoy and am pretty damn good at fault finding/outside the box solutions to issues, perversely not a sought after talent when some chimp can take twice as long and earn twice as much for the people who run these concerns!
While not N+S I don't think these people even care much about adverse publicity and certainly not repeat custom - there's always more desperate mugs on the phone with drips or sparking. Desperate people don't check reputations and are only too happy to sign here.
1. You carry no spares, nothing. An hours travelling time is very profitable, and can be the difference between a low profit 1hr job and a more "decent" result. Even if the client rings up and says they have a broken socket and want it changed you're supposed to go to look at it and go "Hmm, yes a socket, I'll go buy one". Got told off for fitting a replacement part one evening - without which a young family would have gone without power for the night - as I missed the opportunity for some profitable travel time. Pointed out no-where was open that time of night to be told I should have taken a deposit and "returned with the part in the morning"
2. Company I worked for charged by the half hour. Quoted exclusive of VAT. £45 per half-hour typical day rate, doesn't sound like too much at first (HEY No call out fee!!1!) but it adds up very quickly.
3. Pay scale is shall we say, optimised to earn "more" per job. At £200 excl. VAT profit on any one job (labour and any markup on parts) my split jumps from 40 to 50%. So a 1.5 hour job @ £45 pays me £60. If it's 2.5 hours I hit the magic 50% and get £112. Very motivating.
4. Job charges all over the place; 45 was standard but with nothing on it might drop to 35. Busy times with jobs in hand saw it going to 55, 65, whatever they thought they could get away with. If they took a lower priced job and then a few more pushing the rate up they'd string the original client along with BS while you did the more profitable jobs. If original client didn't give up in exasperation you'd get there to be informed they've been waiting forever while you've been broken down or something and you're like WTF
5. They're smart enough never to compromise themselves; I often got calls telling me there was "nothing more doing after this job" and comments that I had an "unusually high number of half-hour jobsheets relative to other engineers" They reminded me several times you're allowed to charge an hours travel time according to OFT, they never ordered me to do so.
6. *= They spent over half a mill with the yellow pages. They had adverts of all shapes and sizes, "local firms with an office in your high street" but all their hundreds of lines that all went to one call centre.
7. They had professional scumbags on the phone ready to argue/threaten/intimidate people who felt the bill was too high. They're good at their job; I've seen people reduced to tears.
8. They had secret trackers fitted to all vans but didn't tell us (illegal) so they could spy on us. Was really weird before I knew about them - I'd stop for 5 mins to grab something to eat and they'd call two minutes later - "are you on the way to the job?" "erm yeah on my way" "are you sure?" "...like WTF". Apparently they tracked the vans especially out of hours use (we paid to rent them) and cross referenced any address to recent jobs so they could catch blokes who'd gone back on a job to finish it off for cash in pocket like.
Could have netted £3k/week doing this; didn't, and we split due to musical differences, too much soul not enough face or whatever. I tried to be as decent as possible within the framework - certainally hinted at rising charges/that they could have an "interim" fix rather than surprising people with huge bills. Trouble is people were often just too damn stupid to take the tip. Main regret is not staying on for a bit, being superkind to anyone nice untill I got sacked just to dish out loads of (personal) biz cards, could have really given me a leg up as I went self-employed afterwards.
The thing is these people and others like them pretty much have the emergency call-out/responsive market sewn up, which is a shame as I enjoy and am pretty damn good at fault finding/outside the box solutions to issues, perversely not a sought after talent when some chimp can take twice as long and earn twice as much for the people who run these concerns!
While not N+S I don't think these people even care much about adverse publicity and certainly not repeat custom - there's always more desperate mugs on the phone with drips or sparking. Desperate people don't check reputations and are only too happy to sign here.
hairyben said:
Okay I'll give you a few highlights of working in this industry in 2001 (I'm a sparky). This doesn't concern a plumbing company with blue and white vans but was (and probably still is*) a big player in multi-trades responsive maintenance. I worked for them for a few months and was perhaps a little naive initially as to how the business model operates. It was 15 years ago but a few memories of how things worked; I doubt much has changed:
1. You carry no spares, nothing. An hours travelling time is very profitable, and can be the difference between a low profit 1hr job and a more "decent" result. Even if the client rings up and says they have a broken socket and want it changed you're supposed to go to look at it and go "Hmm, yes a socket, I'll go buy one". Got told off for fitting a replacement part one evening - without which a young family would have gone without power for the night - as I missed the opportunity for some profitable travel time. Pointed out no-where was open that time of night to be told I should have taken a deposit and "returned with the part in the morning"
2. Company I worked for charged by the half hour. Quoted exclusive of VAT. £45 per half-hour typical day rate, doesn't sound like too much at first (HEY No call out fee!!1!) but it adds up very quickly.
3. Pay scale is shall we say, optimised to earn "more" per job. At £200 excl. VAT profit on any one job (labour and any markup on parts) my split jumps from 40 to 50%. So a 1.5 hour job @ £45 pays me £60. If it's 2.5 hours I hit the magic 50% and get £112. Very motivating.
4. Job charges all over the place; 45 was standard but with nothing on it might drop to 35. Busy times with jobs in hand saw it going to 55, 65, whatever they thought they could get away with. If they took a lower priced job and then a few more pushing the rate up they'd string the original client along with BS while you did the more profitable jobs. If original client didn't give up in exasperation you'd get there to be informed they've been waiting forever while you've been broken down or something and you're like WTF
5. They're smart enough never to compromise themselves; I often got calls telling me there was "nothing more doing after this job" and comments that I had an "unusually high number of half-hour jobsheets relative to other engineers" They reminded me several times you're allowed to charge an hours travel time according to OFT, they never ordered me to do so.
6. *= They spent over half a mill with the yellow pages. They had adverts of all shapes and sizes, "local firms with an office in your high street" but all their hundreds of lines that all went to one call centre.
7. They had professional scumbags on the phone ready to argue/threaten/intimidate people who felt the bill was too high. They're good at their job; I've seen people reduced to tears.
8. They had secret trackers fitted to all vans but didn't tell us (illegal) so they could spy on us. Was really weird before I knew about them - I'd stop for 5 mins to grab something to eat and they'd call two minutes later - "are you on the way to the job?" "erm yeah on my way" "are you sure?" "...like WTF". Apparently they tracked the vans especially out of hours use (we paid to rent them) and cross referenced any address to recent jobs so they could catch blokes who'd gone back on a job to finish it off for cash in pocket like.
Could have netted £3k/week doing this; didn't, and we split due to musical differences, too much soul not enough face or whatever. I tried to be as decent as possible within the framework - certainally hinted at rising charges/that they could have an "interim" fix rather than surprising people with huge bills. Trouble is people were often just too damn stupid to take the tip. Main regret is not staying on for a bit, being superkind to anyone nice untill I got sacked just to dish out loads of (personal) biz cards, could have really given me a leg up as I went self-employed afterwards.
The thing is these people and others like them pretty much have the emergency call-out/responsive market sewn up, which is a shame as I enjoy and am pretty damn good at fault finding/outside the box solutions to issues, perversely not a sought after talent when some chimp can take twice as long and earn twice as much for the people who run these concerns!
While not N+S I don't think these people even care much about adverse publicity and certainly not repeat custom - there's always more desperate mugs on the phone with drips or sparking. Desperate people don't check reputations and are only too happy to sign here.
Wow. All stuff I assumed went on but seeing it written down is pretty wierd. Shady practice's but that's why they make so damn much. 1. You carry no spares, nothing. An hours travelling time is very profitable, and can be the difference between a low profit 1hr job and a more "decent" result. Even if the client rings up and says they have a broken socket and want it changed you're supposed to go to look at it and go "Hmm, yes a socket, I'll go buy one". Got told off for fitting a replacement part one evening - without which a young family would have gone without power for the night - as I missed the opportunity for some profitable travel time. Pointed out no-where was open that time of night to be told I should have taken a deposit and "returned with the part in the morning"
2. Company I worked for charged by the half hour. Quoted exclusive of VAT. £45 per half-hour typical day rate, doesn't sound like too much at first (HEY No call out fee!!1!) but it adds up very quickly.
3. Pay scale is shall we say, optimised to earn "more" per job. At £200 excl. VAT profit on any one job (labour and any markup on parts) my split jumps from 40 to 50%. So a 1.5 hour job @ £45 pays me £60. If it's 2.5 hours I hit the magic 50% and get £112. Very motivating.
4. Job charges all over the place; 45 was standard but with nothing on it might drop to 35. Busy times with jobs in hand saw it going to 55, 65, whatever they thought they could get away with. If they took a lower priced job and then a few more pushing the rate up they'd string the original client along with BS while you did the more profitable jobs. If original client didn't give up in exasperation you'd get there to be informed they've been waiting forever while you've been broken down or something and you're like WTF
5. They're smart enough never to compromise themselves; I often got calls telling me there was "nothing more doing after this job" and comments that I had an "unusually high number of half-hour jobsheets relative to other engineers" They reminded me several times you're allowed to charge an hours travel time according to OFT, they never ordered me to do so.
6. *= They spent over half a mill with the yellow pages. They had adverts of all shapes and sizes, "local firms with an office in your high street" but all their hundreds of lines that all went to one call centre.
7. They had professional scumbags on the phone ready to argue/threaten/intimidate people who felt the bill was too high. They're good at their job; I've seen people reduced to tears.
8. They had secret trackers fitted to all vans but didn't tell us (illegal) so they could spy on us. Was really weird before I knew about them - I'd stop for 5 mins to grab something to eat and they'd call two minutes later - "are you on the way to the job?" "erm yeah on my way" "are you sure?" "...like WTF". Apparently they tracked the vans especially out of hours use (we paid to rent them) and cross referenced any address to recent jobs so they could catch blokes who'd gone back on a job to finish it off for cash in pocket like.
Could have netted £3k/week doing this; didn't, and we split due to musical differences, too much soul not enough face or whatever. I tried to be as decent as possible within the framework - certainally hinted at rising charges/that they could have an "interim" fix rather than surprising people with huge bills. Trouble is people were often just too damn stupid to take the tip. Main regret is not staying on for a bit, being superkind to anyone nice untill I got sacked just to dish out loads of (personal) biz cards, could have really given me a leg up as I went self-employed afterwards.
The thing is these people and others like them pretty much have the emergency call-out/responsive market sewn up, which is a shame as I enjoy and am pretty damn good at fault finding/outside the box solutions to issues, perversely not a sought after talent when some chimp can take twice as long and earn twice as much for the people who run these concerns!
While not N+S I don't think these people even care much about adverse publicity and certainly not repeat custom - there's always more desperate mugs on the phone with drips or sparking. Desperate people don't check reputations and are only too happy to sign here.
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