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| Subject - 24hr Emergency Service | |
| aline |
I was wondering how others out there handle emergency calls in the middle of the night. I've heard of one company where their techs take turns being on call and whoever takes the call gets all the money generated from the call except for the materials. So the company would get paid for the materials plus the material markup and the tech would get the rest. |
| MONOLITH | Handling middle of the night emergency calls is easy. Don't answer the phone. Problem solved.  Seriously, a strong incentive to make someone actually want to do it, is definately required, although 'all' of the amount minus materials sounds a bit high to me. One thing that definately does not work in my opinion, is it simply being a requirement of ones job, with minimal or no other incentive. That only causes rebellion, and employees dodging your calls. When I was on commission doing residential service work, there was no more money given in a 3am call then there was in a 3pm call. It was simply "part of your job". I quit. I think it's important to rotate 'who's on' frequently, since no one really wants to do it, or so it seems. A cash incentive is definately best. Maybe if a commissioned guy normally gets 20% to 30% of the total sale (minus material), a nighttime Em call should give him 50%. Almost doubling his money can be quite an incentive. Same would apply to an hourly guy. I say it's definately about the money, but 'all' of it wouldn't be doing enough for the company's bottom line in my opinion. Late night Em calls can be real cash cows. Don't give it all away. |
| aline | I just wanted to add that I would include myself in the rotation. I would not ask my employees to do anything I would not be willing to do myself. I think it would help knowing the boss is taking his turn. |
| John A. Peters | Do you suggest that you call foreward the night calls to the cell phone of the person who is on call or is there a better way like a pager or a short text messge from an answering service. This would help prevent a sleepy "hello who it it? |
| MONOLITH | quote: I'm not at this stage yet myself. But the way I believe it is normally done, is an answering service is hired. A company that's paid to be awake and alert in the middle of the night and answer calls as if they were directly in your company. They tell the client 'someone will return your call shortly'. The service then pages someone in the company who is responsible and dependable, to take the message and return the call to the client. In most cases, it is an office person, or officer of the company, that takes the page, and then makes the personal call to the employee on duty that night. "Hey Joe, wake up, I have a call for you to go to". Some companies have dependable enough tech employees that they can take the call directly from the service so the office personal is not involved (bothered), But I think in most cases, the office wants involement to be sure it's handled correctly, so usually someone like an office manager or such is 'on call' (to take the call) as well as a tech to hit the field. Personally, I would want the call handled, and negotiated with the homeowner, by myself or a trusted office employee, and not directly by a field tech who may not rise to the occasion. "What happened last night steve?" "Oh sorry boss, my pager was off" |
| wilkie | That's exactly how we do it. Answering service gets the calls from 7 to 7. It gets emailed to me, and paged as well. I call the customer, and decide how to proceed. Never let the call go straight to a tech. Never, never, never! |
| aline | What about using an answering machine with a message stating that if this is an emergency call this number. The number would be that of the owner or manager. I believe the answering service would be the better choice though. |
| aline | Wilkie, How do you compensate your Techs for these after hour calls. |
| MONOLITH | quote: The problem with that Bruce, is then you're back to answering the phone in a dead sleep and letting the customer hear that they just woke some guy up at his house. With the service, only the service knows they just woke you up, etc. With the service you can pull yourself and your game plan together before actually speaking to the client. |
| kbsparky | WE stopped advertising 24 Hr service years ago. The night time calls just were not worth the hassle. I'd get calls from kids in college dorms wanting me to come out "right away" and fix their fridge! When I mentioned about who was going to PAY for the trip, they figured that the school would, but were unwilling to offer any $$$$ themselves. Ha! Usually, when someone woke me up in the middle of the night, I'd try to talk them out of making me come out right away, explaining the difference between rates "now" VS 8 AM. Most would then wait until "normal business hours" We did a few jobs at that hour, including repairing storm damaged service drops, etc. Nowadays, our schedule is full enough already that we don't need the hassle of losing sleep just to get another job shrug . |
| MONOLITH | Actually, I'm glad you posted that kbsparky. I'm not the 3am service call type, and would prefer to avoid it. Yet your the first guy I think I've seen that has said he doesn't offer it. I was feeling like I was going to have to do it, because it simply seemed like the norm. Now I won't feel so bad if I don't do it. Although the cash is good at 3am. Decisions, decisions,...... |
| kbsparky | I started advertising in the yellow pages in 1984. I had Credit Card logos in my ad (the ONLY one who did in those days in my market, I might add), and offered "24 hour service" as well. At that time, I thought it would be good business sense to offer that option, as I was looking to expand my customer base. Some of the calls were from other contractor's customers who could not locate their normal pet electrician in the middle of the night, and wanted us to fill in for them. We didn't get to keep those customers most of the time, as they went back to their regular electrician afterwards. We did win a few over, but not many. I don't miss those nighttime calls, as many were not considered a real emergency in the first place. How does that saying go? Something along the lines of: Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on our part. We discontinued yello pages display advertising several years ago, as we have sufficient work from our regular customers and their referrals to keep us quite busy and profitable these days. I don't miss the ever-increasing advertising bills, either  We did many things on the cutting edge, such as we were the first to accept credit cards, first to have a toll-free number listed, first to have an email address listed. And, as far as I can tell, first to accept PayPAL in our area. -Ken |
| John A. Peters | A tale of two city's power outages. Ah so, if you want more business MAYBE you will get new customers if you advertise 24 hour 7 day emergency availability. My CSR and manager, answers every call in regular hours. After hours the phone recorder states that "Power Restoration is a specialty" in a encouraging voice and gives my cell number. Because I have a home office, I can faintly hear the phone down stairs when it rings three times and then goes to the recorder. This gives me advance notice. If I am awake, I usually wait to see if they call the cell. By that time I am ready to take the call if they are willing to make the second call to my cell phone. I figure if they are willing to make the second call then they are willing pay time and a half. This I like. I don't seem to get calls really late. I guess they filter them selves out. Several times, on a Saturday, the caller told me that the power company cut off the power due to a hazardous condition, some times because of corroded SE cable. The last time the power drop had touched the metal roof trim and shorted out through the CATV wire which melted. The owner told me that he had cut off the main disconnect but that the melting and some small sparks continued! I handle these calls by telling them my rate (regular service call rate of 1.25 hour minimum which included 15 minute travel time and ALSO that I will need them to pay for a permit and the one hour time it takes to meet the inspector. If they agree to pay those three fees, permit, 1.25 hr trouble call, and one hour to meet the inspector if I get the job, then I will get their power back on. I do this with some temporary #12 THHN down the outside, in through a hole in the wall and tie it in to the old fuses or what ever. #12 is good for 40 amps when in the open air, and my general liability insurance covers the situation until I can do a full estimate for a new electric service in the morning. I have gained several nice service upgrades this way, when times are not too busy. Of course as others say, I can always say that I do not have any electrician to send our right now. If it is a commercial job I tell them no, since we only do old houses, working directly with the home owner, as a specialty that pays much better than the competitive bidding situations. One Saturday, I was down in the sun room office, playing on the computer reading these messages when the business line rang. I answered it and the lady said she had been using a heater an now some power is off and she had "flipped" the breakers, but it did not work. I told her that I might be able to fix it over the phone, an not to laugh because I did one successfully the other day. I then tell her "If you are willing to follow instructions, and I fix it over the phone will you mail me a check for $xx (Side note - think of an amount equal to about 1/3 of the emergency service call fee) and that you will save $xx (Think $2/3 of the fee) Usually this makes them very happy. Some times they want to make sure that if I do not fix it over the phone then there will be no charge and that I will come out, and of course the answer is yes, you got it! The Saturday call was successful. and the client told me twice that she would mail the check right away and thanks a lot. Of curse you can do this for free for the good will, but the good will is not appreciated as much as saving all that money. Don't do it for free. The Sunday call was a power out. I inquired and found out the breakers were orange painted. FPE breakers do not need to be "cocked" so the phone fix did not work. I told him I would charge a bit under double time. He said ok. When I got there I found it was an underground service and that one leg was dead. I thought that was unusual. I went out side and noticed the street was kind of dark, not totally dark. There were some neighbors talking about the bower being out too. I saw the power company repair truck up the block. The PG&E guy was not to be seen. I went you hoo! and he came out of the back. He was kind of sirly and he started the engine and turned on the interior lights. I asked him if he was here to fix things and not just passing buy. He said yes so I went back and got paid. I discounted it a bit. I wonder if the PG&E guy was sleeping in the back or what. . . This story was broken up in to paragraphs, not one big long dense note - hint - hint. It was spell checked proof read, previewed here double checked. Scott wants to save the knowledge in to a data base in the future so please help keep it reading like you were a college graduate. Some one was surprised that I can spend so much time writing to you. I can do this because I enjoy it and I am not trying to grow a business, I have a successful business that runs like a well oiled machine. I do want to change it to get me out of the middle a bit more (I do every bid) but for now it is fine. Let's chat. |
| Wirenutz | i thought i might try '23 hr emergency service' in my next yellow page ad, then i could tell any outlandish request that it's just not thier hour..... |
| kbsparky | I had a colleague who advertised 23½ hour service. Same line of thinking
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| wilkie | ALINE, Our technicians are well compensated, and we have a different approach towards are employees, That being said it is difficult to simply answer the question of compensation. We pay our techs a certain amount just for being "on call" through the week. We rotate that responsibility. We also work with each other as a team, so if you need time off even if you are on call, we share responsibility. More importantly, I personally try to stay on call all the time. Very rarely do I pass off our emergency pager. The pager is just insurance for late night calls. The phone is answered by our service, they just additionally alert the pager as well as our other contact means in order to prevent us from ever missing a call. The reason I try to stay on call most of the time, is because I respect and appreciatte our techs. Each day they leave everything they've got on the field for us. I try to give them the rest and time off they deserve. If that means I catch the late night calls, to me, that's the least I can do. That being said, when they are called upon, they realize it is for a reason, not just because it is their turn. Do I offer additional compensation for that? Yes. Another point of view on 24 hr service, not intended to offend those who don't offer it, is we feel it is our obligation to provide 24 hr sevice. Our customers deserve the ability to reach us if they are in need or simply concerned. Since we are "their electrician" we feel thats exactly what we need to be, THEIR electrician. It is with a servants heart that we approach the community. We are servants. Keep in mind that the community provides your entire opportunity, and the livelyhood for you, your family, and your employees families. When that same community feels like it needs you in the middle of the night, which they rarely do, isn't it the least we can do to be there for them in their time of need? |
| kbsparky | quote: While we do not advertise 24 hour service, I still answer the phone whenever it rings, even at 2 AM. Our regular customers can always reach us, and we will respond if necessary. 
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