Just what exactly is “UP-FRONT-FLAT-RATE-PRICING”?
Before you commit to handing over your debit or credit card and paying a contractor a FLAT RATE UP-FRONT PRICE FOR AN AIR CONDITIONING SERVICE CALL which, in virtually all cases, involves trouble-shooting by the technician and MAY OR MAY NOT require a consequent part replacement or component changeout, it’s to your benefit to ask the contractor UP FRONT what his HOURLY SERVICE CALL RATE IS and to explain his company’s definition and method of FLAT RATE UP-FRONT PRICING and THE SPECIFICS of how FLAT RATE UP-FRONT PRICING applies to your situation. If the contractor hems and haws in response to your simple straight-forward question regarding his HOURLY SERVICE CALL RATE or tells you that he doesn’t have an hourly service rate, then you’d be well-advised to seek out another contractor.
Our company’s founder and president has worked in the HVAC/R and mechanical business for many years and throughout that time he’s seen and heard it all and can recite one horror story after the other regarding “flat-rate pricing”. His least favorite and disgusting—but by no means atypical—”UP-FRONT-FLAT-RATE-PRICE” story is about the time he was called for a second opinion by a distraught homeowner suffering from cancer whose condensing unit (the outdoor unit) was struck by lightening. The technician that the original contractor sent on the service call looked at the homeowner’s condensing unit for two minutes—literally two minutes—and on that basis told the homeowner, matter-of-factly, that he needed a new compressor and fan motor, but that the homeowner should really replace his condensing unit because replacing the compressor and fan motor will cost almost as much as installing a new condensing unit and, in any event, the condensing unit “is old” and “inefficient”. As it turned out, there was absolutely nothing wrong with the compressor, the fan motor, or condensing unit. The problem was an inexpensive little component called a “dual capacitor” which serves and provides power simultaneously to both the compressor and condenser (outdoor) fan motor . . . a relatively inexpensive part which takes only a few minutes to replace.
THE 8 DOLLAR 5 THOUSAND DOLLAR CAPACITOR.
A “FLAT-RATE PRICE” is simply AN AVERAGE PRICE, taken straight out of a “quote book” (which nowadays is a computer application), based on AN AVERAGE PRICE which contractors in a specific region (such as Central Florida) charge for a particular job based on AN AVERAGE TIME it takes for AN AVERAGE TECHNICIAN to complete the job and based on AN AVERAGE PRICE of the parts and materials (if any) used to complete the job . . . did you get the part about “AVERAGE” . . . ?
SO-CALLED “FLAT RATE UP-FRONT PRICING” in virtually all cases benefits the contractor and not you, the customer. It makes the contractor’s life much simpler in terms of his bottom line and paper work and it makes the technician’s life much simpler in terms of his paper work, customer relations, and kissing his boss’s ass—especially if he gets a sales commission. It’s simply a sales technique and gimmick which contractors use all too often nowadays in order to cover all their bases by baiting their unsuspecting customers into believing that they’re getting a fair and honest, above-board and out-in-the-open no-haggle price, with no extra charges padded on the bill when the job’s completed. Think of “FLAT-RATE-PRICING” as a crap shoot in which “The House” (the contractor) wins most of the time.
For example: If an “average” AC tech here in Central Florida takes a quick look at your broken AC unit and tells you that you need a new outdoor fan motor and capacitor, and that your condenser coil needs a cleaning and on that basis quotes you a flat rate price of $400, based on an average of one-and-a-half-hours of labor (the time allotted for the job is automatically built into the flat-rate price but the contractor never tells you that) and you immediately hand over your credit or debit card to him no questions asked and the technician completes the job in an hour or less, then you just paid the contractor for an extra half hour or more of labor which was automatically built in to the “up-front-flat-rate-price”. Theoretically (and in most actual cases), the technician can go on his merry way from job to job throughout the day quoting multiple customers an UP-FRONT-FLAT-RATE-PRICE” based on an average of one-and-a-half hours to perform the work and complete those jobs in less time than the unsuspecting customer is paying for. With the above in mind, you can no doubt see why many contractors push their technicians to gloss over the job, finish the job as soon as possible, and then move on to the next “UP-FRONT-FLAT-RATE” JOB.
HERE’S A REAL-WORLD EXAMPLE OF “UP-FRONT-FLAT-RATE-PRICING”:
A senior-citizen homeowner in New Port Richey Florida, living in a modest home with one bathtub and one shower and with a disabled adult child has a COMPLETELY UNUSABLE shower, bathtub, and bathroom and kitchen sinks as a result of a clogged main drain line. In other words, it’s an emergency plumbing situation—and not just for convenience sake but for sanitary/health reasons. The homeowner happens to be an experienced, state certified licensed mechanical contractor and as such knows exactly what’s involved in clearing his clogged main drain, however the homeowner, who’s not in the plumbing business, per se, doesn’t keep a $2000-plus, 75 ft. electric plumbing snake on hand.
So, the homeowner calls up a major local plumbing contractor who boasts “flat up-front pricing”, over 170 employees to service your plumbing, heating, and cooling needs, 24/7/365 service, and so on and so forth. Moreover, the plumbing contractor’s shop happens to be located just a mile up the road.
The obviously not-too-bright young lady answering the plumbing contractor’s phone tells the homeowner that they’re really busy and they can’t send out a technician for another three days. The homeowner is desperate, however he doesn’t call another plumbing contractor because, after all, the plumbing contractor he called is just a mile up the road and has been in business for decades and is supposedly the best. So the desperate homeowner patiently waits for three days and on the third day the technician arrives, steps out of his truck, AND IMMEDIATELY, without even taking a minute to assess the job, informs the homeowner that it will cost $256 to do the job. The homeowner, as previously mentioned, happens to be an experienced, state certified licensed mechanical contractor and as such knows exactly what’s involved in clearing his clogged main drain line and there’s no way that it’s going to take the technician more than 15 minutes to clear the stoppage. Well the homeowner was wrong–it was a 10 minute job. Yes—a 10 minute job! WHAM BAM THANK YOU MA’AM!
What this contractor did was charge the customer at least twice as much as the job warranted due to “FLAT-RATE UP FRONT PRICING”. The job in the above example only warranted the price of a one hour LABOR ONLY service call and I doubt if the plumbing contractor charges New Port Richey homeowners $256 per hour for a labor-only service call. What if this job was a $1000 or $2000 job or more . . . ?
An experienced, honest, and above-board TECHNICIAN employed by an experienced, honest, above-board contractor WILL NEVER step out of his truck and immediately take the customer’s credit or debit card and charge the customer a “FLAT RATE UP-FRONT PRICE” without even assessing the job.
MAKE NO MISTAKE! UP-FRONT-FLAT-RATE-PRICING IS A COME-ON AND ALL TOO OFTEN A SCAM AND SIMPLY A WAY FOR A CONTRACTOR TO KEEP CUSTOMERS IN THE DARK ABOUT WHAT THEY’RE BEING CHARGED FOR IN TERMS OF LABOR, PARTS, AND MATERIALS!