Hey All,
I was just wondering if anyone out there adds a cleaning supply fee to their montly billings. If you do, how much do you charge? I know some of our competitors charge $12 every month.

Thanks,
Robert

Well we do not charge for cleaning supplies, but I do know that a couple of our competitors do. They send a separate invoice when a PM is done for "Cleaning Kit" it is usually about $25.
(Note: they do a PM every 90 days, so the customer gets billed an extra $100 per year.) One of them also charges a "Trip Charge" of $25 per trip for all on-site service calls, even if the customer is under contract.

We dont on cpc contracts, but do on time and materials calls. We used to call it shop supplies, but customers liked to argue the fee. We now call it an Enviromnental Fee and every seems to accept is as normal, kind of like an oil change extra fee. We dont charge it on software support calls, but do charge those at a higher hourly fee anyway .

we do not
nor travel cost in local area

but I see people do this and wonder what is the advantage over higher per hour rate?

there has to be a reason one way or the other
on contract I could see this.

We're pretty old school.

A couple of years ago when gas went crazy I started assessing a delivery fee for toner of $5. Customer pickup was free. The reaction from some was to attempt to order 25 toners at at time so they would only be charged $5 - which of course we weren't going to give them more than 2 (the places that used the least toner seemed to have the biggest problem with the fee - 25 toners would have lasted them 20 years!).

It's funny how they all accepted higher rate increases that cost them at least $5 every single month without a blink of an eye! We ended up dumping the delivery fee even though it actually cost customers less. I really think it would have been fine overall even though we did lose 1 (count 'em - one!) customer that really didn't even need a copier based on their volume.
Neighboring KM dealers that I've talked to have told me they ship all supplies with a flat shipping fee of $15 per piece and if the customer insists they need it faster than 3 days they'll deliver it within two days for $45. If they need it as fast as possible - $150.

I guess we've just been too nice over the years.

If it's non-contract though there really should be a trip charge and supplies fee. We pitch the contract as full coverage and worry-free so the out of contract fees really should backup the reason they should have a contract.

quote:

Originally posted by Yak:
we do not
nor travel cost in local area

but I see people do this and wonder what is the advantage over higher per hour rate?

there has to be a reason one way or the other
on contract I could see this.

Couldn't agree more.

"What's an environmental fee"?

"Oh, that's for those two disposable rags and 4 squirts of belt cleaner"

Why itemize everything to the customer? Just upsets them, it's like saying

"Ok Ma'am service comes to 75 dollars...gas came to 25, my wage and benefits amount to 17 bucks, and environmental 5.75"