Let’s face it, small business owners who have to depend upon their vehicles for service are hurting right along with everyone else. In fact, many are being challenged by the need to remain competitive and remaining profitable. After all, as I stress in all my guides, profitability is the important thing to key on with your service business. Being busy isn’t necessarily the same thing.
For the last 3 months I’ve interviewed just about every customer I’ve serviced. Nothing scientific here but after I was all cleaned up and presented them with the bill, we’d talk a bit. I’ve done this for years and have preached regularly that ‘taking your time’ and being social with your customers will lead to more business over the years. It’s always paid off for me as now I get about 99% of my business from referrals.
After I have my check in my hand, I’d simply turn the conversation to the subject of gas prices. Everyone can relate to this and since they already paid, they are quite open on the subject.
After mentioning that small business owners are suffering due to fuel costs I asked them which they feel more comfortable with. Would they like to see an invoice with a surcharge added to their total bill for an additional $10 or $20 to cover fuel expense or would they just like to see the overall bill a bit higher then in the past?
Without fail, 100% of my customers said they wouldn’t mind an increase in overall fees at all and actually would expect it. But they wouldn’t appreciate a surcharge.
It works for me and I thought I’d share it. When carpet cleaning, painting or providing a service where I usually calculated the cost per room or area, I simply raised my over all rate. The customer is paying my fuel costs and never has complained at all. The same thing goes if doing an install where you might charge a fee per linear or squarefoot. Just raise that base figure and you’ll find you will have little problem covering the cost of fuel.
Some service providers I know have been trying the surcharge route and have gotten a bit of negative feedback from their customers. So you can make a choice for yourself but do not feel that you have to eat rising fuel costs to remain competitive.
Authors bio is coming up shortly. 
