Good points. However, there's no contention over charging for bullet
holes in the equipment (AFAIK). Really it seems like nobody disagrees
that if the customer broke it, the customer should pay for it.
The specific case that's causing disagreement is tree growth which
requires us to move the antenna. It's probably nobody's fault. It's
conceivable we could have put it in a poor location the first time.
It's also possible the customer pressured us to put it in the poorer
location. Most likely nobody could have known what was going to happen
with the trees a few years down the road. Trees pretty much grow like
weeds around here by the way....if you stop mowing a field it eventually
becomes a forest. There are lots of other circumstances where fault
isn't clear.
What if you had a major competitor who doesn't typically charge for
service calls?
If all service calls are chargable, but you waive where it's your fault, or
otherwise indicated, you're an awesome business doing right by your customers.
If you roll for free, then charge when you find the customer's been using the
radio for target practice, you're a greedy bastard who's out to squeeze every
last penny out of innocent, hard-working regular folk, who just made a simple
mistake, aren't smart with all that computer stuff, and didn't realize that
electronic equipment works best without holes in it, and shouldn't be punished
because YOU didn't explain that to them.
-----Original Message-----
From: Af [mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com] On Behalf Of Adam Moffett
Sent: Friday, May 22, 2015 1:31 AM
To: af@afmug.com
Subject: [AFMUG] charging for service calls
There have been some discussions at the office recently on this topic.
One camp feels that the default action should be to charge for all service
calls, and make an exception if necessary. The other camp feels that we should
reserve the right to charge for a service call, but we should only do so if the
problem is somehow the customer's fault (like hitting the cable with the weed
whacker). The discussion in our office is only about fixing internet service by
the way, not about fixing computers or other customer equipment.
I was wondering what the peanut gallery thinks today.
