How do we set our fees?

At Upkeep Plumbing we really strive to operate in a manner that is respectful, courtesy, honest and trustworthy.  These are all traits that are important to us in everyday life and are traits that we want to instill in our business.  With this in mind, we wanted to offer an insight into how we set our fees and charges here at Upkeep Plumbing.

1/ Quote over the phone

We are always reluctant to give a quote over the phone.  Our preference is to come out, look at the job, chat to you in person and really get a clear sense of what you want.  We can also offer different alternatives and solutions that maybe more financially viable or work better.   Sometimes a customer may just want a straight swap of their toilet and have already brought their new toilet.  This is fine and something we can easily do, however, in some cases we may need to move the waste or fittings so the new toilet fits – these types of things can’t be seen over the phone to give an accurate quote.  We’d prefer to come out and let you know these things upfront, before we start the work so there are no hidden surprises.  We don’t charge to come out and provide a quote.

2/ Call out fee and hourly rate

We factor a call out fee into our first 30 minutes of works and thereafter have a set hourly rate.  Our service fee is basically set as a result of our operating costs for the business.  We have worked out the cost of opening our doors each day and set a fee based on covering that cost and paying a wage to our plumber.  Some of the business expenses that are covered in this fee include: insurances, licensing, car costs – petrol, services, road tolls, bank fee such as EFTPOS facilities.  It is a pretty long and exhaustive list and we just aim to be as fair and reasonable as possible to ensure that you get value for money and we can continue to run our business for years to come.

3/ Set price jobs

After completing an onsite quote, we are able to provide set-price for works.  In most cases this is generally for larger jobs and it gives our customers piece of mind to know the costs up-front and not be hit with any surprises.

So that is a pretty quick run down of how we set our fees here at Upkeep Plumbing.  We hope that it has given you some insight into the way in which we operate and in the spirit of transparency, we always encourage our customers to ask questions if you are not sure