Urgent Pricing

Customers can have an issue that is time sensitive. We do not want to leave these customers without a solution. This is why we offer an urgent service fee. In this article we cover how to charge appropriately and how to set expectations.

Pricing

We only offer urgent service on services that involve labor. This means things like OnSites, remote, or In-Shop Repairs.

The urgent service fee is equivalent to one hour of billable labor. This is in addition to the labor amount the customer is charged for our time. For example, Residential OnSite service is billed at $100/hr and so the urgent service fee is $100. In-Store labor is billed at $60/hr, and so the In-Store urgent service fee is $60.

An important note: The price of an urgent fee is not affected by any discounts, promotions. or specials. If a special is running to lower the price of an onsite, the urgent service is still equal to the original base rate.

The urgent service fee is billeld in addition to the hours billed for service. For a 1hr Rresidential Onsite job, for example, the urgent service fee is $100 and the billable labor is $100. For a 2hr Residential Onsite job, the urgent service fee is $100 and the billable labor is $200.

This table was created on 02/25/25

Positioning

Even if it's not right now, it's still urgent

This is an important mindset to maintain as you discuss urgent service options with customers. "Urgent" does not mean "drop everything you're doing and help the customer", it means "the customer urgently needs assistance and is willing to pay additional for it, so we will circumvent our normal scheduling policy and begin work ASAP".

Sometimes, "ASAP" happens to be now, or within the hour - and in those situations, the customer will be grateful for our very fast response time. Often, though, "ASAP" means "today, but you might have to wait a few hours" - the customer's reaction to this will vary.

In either event, though, the service is still urgent, and an urgent service fee will apply. While we recognize that the customer's issue is important and needs to be resolved quickly, we also must respect ourselves and our other, non-urgent customers. We do our best to shift our calendars around to handle urgent situations as they arise, but sometimes calendars can only be shifted so much, or a service is already in progress elsewhere and so the urgent service will have to wait a bit longer than normal.

In-Shop Repairs

In our shops, we work on a First-In-First-Out (FIFO) basis. With this workflow, it's assumed that repairs can be completed (on average) within 3-5 days.

When a customer pays for the urgent service fee, they are moved to the front of the line, skipping our FIFO repair queue.

We aim to complete the repair either the same or the next business day, but we do not make a guarantee to the customer regarding turnaround time other than "we will move this to the front of our repair queue and work on it ASAP and we will continue prioritizing the repair until it is complete."

The customer should be contacted every day (after the first day) to be kept up-to-date on their Work Order.

OnSite Service

If a customer requests same-day service for an OnSite job, an urgent service fee will apply. A timeframe will be set with the customer beforehand so they know when to expect our technician.

If you are scheduling this job, work with the OnSite technician or their manager directly to coordinate a time - don't set a time without conferring with an OnSite technician (or their manager). You can utilize the #onsite channel in Slack for this.

Remote Service

If a customer requests same-day service for a remote job, an urgent service fee will apply.

If you are the Remote Technician, you will be able to put this urgent job directly on your calendar and handle it when the time comes.

If you are not the Remote Technician that will be doing the work, you will not be able to schedule on their calendar directly through our Appointment Scheduler. Instead, speak with the Remote Technician that will be completing the work and coordinate a time for the service. You can utilize the #remote channel in Slack for this.