Introducing $49 Service Fee For Repairs

We are no longer going to look at repair work till the customer pays us $49 to look at the problem. This will be paid in full first. We will then give a price for the repairs or whole roof replacement if necessary. If the customer has us do the work the $49 will be put towards the cost.

I've been charging $25.00, deductible, since early 90's. Keeps the tire kickers away, and the ones that do call usually go with me. 99% conversion rate, no riding around for free burning gas and time for nada. My competition who thinks free estimate are silly says he sells 1-3 per 100 estimates. Which of us is crazy? :)

Ciak, I have a love/hate relationship with them.

When a client signs a contract with me that I'm going to make a nice profit on by doing the job in a professional way, I'm like "Thank God for their inexperience and lack of knowledge".

On the flip side, when I'm up on the roof beating the crap out of dried up tar all around a chimney or something where they put sooooooooo much of it on there the stuff just don't wanna bust loose, I'm steadily mumbling under my breath, "Friggin Idiot's".

:laugh:

Chuck Said: I probably shouldnt give this info away to my competitors but there it is. FWIW You could develop the perfect repair instruction manual fully detailed with color photos covering every possible scenario and send it to all your competitors and I doubt very many of them would change much of anything. The majority of them would find it offensive and probably just chunk it in the trash. They do what they do. Always have and probably always will. :dry:

"I probably shouldn't give this info away to my competitors but there it is. FWIW " You could develop the perfect repair instruction manual fully detailed with color photo's covering every possible scenario and send it to all your competitors and I doubt very many of them would change much of anything. The majority of them would find it offensive and probably just chunk it in the trash. They do what they do. Always have and probably always will. :dry:

After talking to him and my previous foreman I've decided to pull my lead guy out of the crew when needed, but hopefully full time after I advertise repairs.

My two best qualifiers needed a cash job, or didn't quite fit the physical description of a professional customer service representative. My lead man is very likeable, clean, and learns pretty quickly. Not having him on the crew is going to be tough.

Clover, I can really relate to "the trucks become a mess". This happens to my truck every time I hire anyone to help me on a job. I guess it's unavoidable as they are only part time and don't know where I keep things. ( probably don't care either ) I seem to find things out of place for about a week afterwards or else I don't find them at all. And then there's all the different left over materials mixed with trash in the back. It's always fun sorting it all out at the landfill. lol

The union roofer brings back bad memories but it's also led to a lot of good laughs over the years. I've had one guy who was union in 31 years. I was impressed when I found out he was union. That was until I stood over him watching him nail on every shingle upside down for about 6 courses up from the bottom before I sent him down the ladder to help the clean up crew. :laugh:

I'm not trying to damper your spirit but I spent years looking for a good repairman that could handle it all by himself but never found anyone I considered good by my standards. Best of Luck!

Old School, when did you quit roofing and start working for the irs? Is this an audit? :laugh:

The answer is in the long reply I left above anyways. When he worked along side me he was paid as an hourly employee with all the requirements for employees met ( same with the nephews and/or anyone else I choose to hire as an employee ) and I tried sub-contracting to him for a while on a per job basis but that didn't work out. I've been through the 20 questions audit concerning employee vs. sub with the irs before, passed it and I'm confident I could pass it again.

I only work him 2-3 days a month and only one of his nephews at a time about one day a month on average. But one of them is usually around if needed. We are not talking about a lot of money here. As I also stated in the reply above I do nearly all the work myself, rarely using anyone on a job. Thus is the life of a roofer trying to survive on repair work.

When I was last working as an employee, (way back in the '70's) I was working for a tile manufacturer. We were doing installation, but they had a large backlog of repairs. They paid minimum wage + 10% of the total. (11% if you brought back a check) They also gave you a gas voucher.

I actually found this setup to be lucrative at the time. Problems developed when a major storm caused a series of large repairs of broken tiles. It threw the repair formula out-of-whack and about doubled what we normally made on repairs. The company tried to adjust the formula and that was a major factor for me leaving them.

I now do almost exclusively repairs and my backlog waiting time discourages tire-kickers.

clvr83 Said: I would love to have a dedicated repair guy and have considered trying to find one many times in the past. This year Ive made two good hires for our crew, so Im assuming I just might possibly be able to find a decent repair guy.

Would you care to share how you set him up as far employee status and pay? Ive struggled with that. The rest of my crew are employees but I guess this guy could be a sub with his own insurance.

I do not use subs unless it is a product we do not install. This may be once a year.

My one repair guy is the highest paid employee. The other one is in the middle he just started 6 months ago. My guys have a full benefit package. Health insurance, vacation days plus vactions, retirement matching... They also make a percentage of anything they sell.

If things get slow which is rarely they team up and do garage and porch roofs. Slate repairs are included with this.

Chuck Said: It seems to me that having a couple of versatile guys who work on your replacement crew that are also decent at repairs could be the solution your both looking for. When its busy they help the other repair guys catch up until its manageable again and then they go back on the replacement crew and when repairs are slow the normal repair guys can work with the crew for a few days or whatever is needed to line them up with repair work again.

I do some of the repairs currently. Every few weeks I have a dedicated "repair day" and split four guys in to teams of two. It's hectic and the trucks become a mess, but it works.

I'm jumping the cliff and hiring a repairman. I talked to my old foreman and he is considering coming back to roofing. I also put an ad on craigslist and have an application from a guy who put in 15 years into the roofers union and 12 years outside of it. Looking forward to this venture!

$20.00/ hr. plus taxes and burden, or just $20.00? The same question about the nephews.

The thing about repairs is that they are mostly weather dependent. When it rains, it pours! If the rain holds off for several weeks the repair work slows to a crawl. If there is a flood type rain, it can go from dead stopped to wide open in a blink. This can make it very difficult to keep a few guys busy at times and on the flip side, it can overwhelm the person running the leads and the repair guys during the busy times but hey that's the good problem to have right?

It seems to me that having a couple of versatile guys who work on your replacement crew that are also decent at repairs could be the solution your both looking for. When it's busy they help the other repair guys catch up until it's manageable again and then they go back on the replacement crew and when repairs are slow the normal repair guys can work with the crew for a few days or whatever is needed to line them up with repair work again.

I do all my own leads and repairs but my company is very small just the way I want it for now. I do all the small jobs alone and have a couple of part timers if/when I need them or choose to pay money to make life easier on Chuck. It took what seemed like eternity to find a guy that would be dependable, who would come to work just about any time I asked him to and be a good helper on top of that. Especially considering that I can only offer part time work.

How did I find him? I didn't, he found me. I was at a store pumping gas with 7 squares of shingles on back of the truck that I was about to install on an addition and he came up and asked me if I needed any help. I said yes I do, especially carrying them up the ladder. He just laughed and said I'd be happy to do it. That was over 2 years ago and there has only been one time that he couldn't go to work when I asked for his assistance. He had a doctors appointment that day.

At first I paid him $10 an hour. After I discovered how dependable, hard working and skilled the man was, I moved him up to $15 an hour. Then one day I decided to start subbing jobs to him. This is when I learned how terribly unreliable he was doing it that way. It went from him being there to help every time, on time, to him totally not doing what he was supposed to be doing nor doing it when he was supposed to. We nearly parted ways because of it.

But instead, I decided to go back to the old way of paying him by the hour to work along side me. It immediately went back to the way it was before and all was well again. After some time, I moved him up to $20 an hour which is what I still pay him today. Sometimes when I do really well on a repair and his help is greatly appreciated I even pay him a nice bonus on top of the $20 an hour. He also has a couple of young nephews that live with him that are unskilled laborers and will work for $10 an hour.

What would I do without him? Well, I had been roofing for 30 years when I met him so I imagine I could get along but it's nice to have good help as you all know. :)

I would love to have a dedicated repair guy and have considered trying to find one many times in the past. This year I've made two good hires for our crew, so I'm assuming I just might possibly be able to find a decent repair guy.

Would you care to share how you set him up as far employee status and pay? I've struggled with that. The rest of my crew are employee's but I guess this guy could be a sub with his own insurance.

I have 2 guys doing repairs. I would like 3 or 4 doing repairs. I am trying to grow that part of the business.

I am doing this to become more efficent. I am not in the phone book. Most of my leads come from trucks and job signs. Our website is also important. We rank high on goggle and can turn on adwords at anytime if need be.

I've considered doing this myself many times over the years but just never seemed to get around to it. I've been at 49.9% in favor of it versus 50.1% against it many many times. lol Like Clover I also sell a high percentage of the leads anyhow and don't want to chance losing jobs over it.

But at the same time I agree that it would eliminate the "tire kickers". I guess it all comes down to how your business is set up and where your leads come from. If roof replacements are your main bag of tricks like most roofing companies and repairs are just a side gig then I think it's a great idea. The people who answer your phones may get sick of hearing "Fifty bucks just to come out? Everyone else does it for free!"