Log Book Timesheet Blog

What does it take to be proactive in customer relations? Do not wait for unease to settle in. Make yourself accountable to your customers.

Ever wondered why some customers go quiet when it is time to pay their bill? Does your invoice reflect a true account of services performed and goods supplied?

It is better to be straightforward in documenting the work you perform for somebody. Failure to do so will not invite trust or loyalty. If you consider how much it costs to acquire a new customer as opposed to maintaining an existing one with repeat business you will be amazed at the difference.

Yet it is the little details that can invite ill-feelings. Some service business feel like it is a tight rope exercise to itemize time spent on a job and then disclose an hourly rate.

Customers are entitled to know who performed a task for them and how long it took that person. Why not provide that information readily on a website where they can log in and keep in touch with the progress of their project before falling off their chair when they receive the bill a month later?

The old anecdote is this: A woman calls a repairman to fix her washing machine. The tradesman spends 5 minutes, taps with the hammer, gets the appliance back in working order and displays a bill for $150. The customer stunned, retorts: "All you did was tap with your hammer and you want $150 for that?" the man undeterred rewrites his bill: "tapping with the hammer $5, knowing where to tap $145."

Different hourly rates are used to differentiate between work performed by a junior staff as opposed to a senior partner of the firm. Parts can be supplied at cost or with a surcharge to cover inventory and handling. When an item relates to pure expertise or industry knowledge you may charge a set fee without disclosing the time spent. For example you could have a set price for business registration, engine tune-up and so on. All routine tasks can fit into this category. Jobs where you experience delays onsite for no fault of your own could be charged on an hourly base to document the fact your staff was tied up there, unable to do anything else.

At the end of the day clients what to be able to compare and to establish they were charged a fair price. If you are tied to some inflexible system software you won't have the latitude to capture the raw data (time spent) and negotiate a fair price (invoice line override).

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