bad week in residential estimates

[herler]

What pisses me off is when they call us to get our opinion but they really want the complete rundown...
So that after they get it all down real good they feed us some BS and after we leave they call their $10/hour guy...
But what can you do?
We stick to what we know and we do the best we can, always.

Originally Posted by HPSInc

Im wondering is there any way to weed out these bad jobs before wasting my time driving all over to check them out because im really not into it! Alot of times I'm asked a price over the phone, but i dont do that cause I like to see what it is im bidding not just what they are describing as its always an "easy little job" until I get there and its a fricken mess.

No, I don't like it either but we still have to deal with these customers in a polite manner, they called and that shows they are interested and if I walk into a store I want to be treated with respect even if I plan on spending very little money, now if they tell me on the phone that it sounds easy and I get there and it is a mess I may say as much, nicely.

You know when it comes to dropping the hints such as "don't know if you'd be interested" I can throw them back almost as fast as they hurl them my way and that's how I handle it, over the years I have learned the counter-hints but remember to always stay courteous and polite. There's nothing wrong with saying no thank you and getting it out of the way in the first 5-10 minutes so we don't have to spend an hour there, but go over and take a look and tell them our honest opinion without being condescending or rude, we owe them that much.

That having been said we like to route estimates into our day's routine so we can swing past on our way elsewhere, we don't enjoy making one-way trips to nowhere over nothing any more than the next guy but when we plan our entire day's route out in advance it's not so bad, just hit it up on the way between two regular stops.

When that is the case and the place is a mess I don't even mind spending 20 to 30 minutes going over the details just so the customer knows what I think they're up against, even if they only called to gain some experienced insight, so be it.

Practice makes perfect.

[banjogum]

There's some good tips posted here so far. I had to smile reading the OP. I had a week similar to HPS' ... gave out 5 estimates and no go on any of them. I know, 1 out of 10 is average but I must be lucky as I have a higher sign on rate than that (and I'm not the cheapest). Sometimes I tell people you're not only paying me for my time, you're paying me for what I know as well (SKILLS) After a frustrating week, I just chalk it up to cheap people. It seems so many people think they can do this work themselves or have some college kid do it, but the results say it all. How many times have all of us gone out to fix one of those jobs?

Anyway, greendoctor - like what you said, and it ties in with what bunton said too. I'd ask them what their priority is: Do you want the job done cheap... or right?

[RSK Property Maintenance]

I just did two estimates totaling over 4500 dollars for weeding, edging and shrub pruning and got both of them, one is done took about 9hrs split between two days and the other one i estimated to take 8hrs with 4 guys, two weeding and edging and one cleaning up the clippings from the shrubs which there are about 40 of them to prune.
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[HPSInc]

im definately going to put some of your advice into action from here on out. i think the reason i was very suprised is that like Banjogum said, i too have a higher sucess rate when it comes to getting the job. i usually have the job before i even get there. So to have all these dissapointments in the same short period of time wasnt something im used to.

[banjogum]

That would be the (psychological?) costs of doing business I think ...