We have never charged for tree growth. We do charge for customer related issues....bad routers....weed whacking etc.
Sent from my Verizon 4G LTE Smartphone ----- Reply message ----- From: "Paul Stewart" <p...@paulstewart.org> To: <af@afmug.com> Subject: [AFMUG] charging for service calls Date: Fri, May 22, 2015 10:10 AM I would say that the major competitor would be out of business at some point..... For tree growth and other stuff that's a much more grey area and my experience has been not to charge customers. Having said that, if the customer is insistent on a specific location that you have already suggested them not to use, we would have them sign a special sheet stating so - then future calls would become billable. -----Original Message----- From: Af [mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com] On Behalf Of Adam Moffett Sent: Friday, May 22, 2015 9:32 AM To: af@afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] charging for service calls 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. >
