Before I opened my PHC service business so many years ago, I concluded that my business policy would be to deliver excellence to consumers in a timely manner when addressing their requests. I knew that I would incur costs to achieve my business goal. I also knew that if I didn’t recover those costs, my ability to continue delivering excellence would eventually run out because I wouldn’t be financially able to continue my business journey.

 I had to decide whether I would be a businessperson or just a person in business.

Businesspeople understand that, except for nonprofit and not-for-profit businesses, the only reason businesses exist is to make a profit above their operating costs.

After all, why would anyone in their right mind take on the risks inherent within the business arena without a reward being the object of achievement?

I realized that knowledge of the true costs a business incurs is necessary for it to set its prices for any task, including not only those costs incurred to perform any task but also the deserved profit above those costs. 

I knew that excellence costs more to produce than mediocrity.

And so, armed with my intention to deliver excellence while earning the reward deserved for doing so, I decided to be a businessperson instead of a person in business.

Don’t fall into the competitor pricing trap

Those who are only people in business do not consider the aforementioned criteria. They open their businesses without a potentially successful game plan. They plow ahead with numbers that do not reflect the actual business costs their enterprise will incur and do not allow them to recover their true operational costs, let alone make a profit.

To further exacerbate their problems, they price their services based on what their competitors charge. Unfortunately, most of their competitors are people in business rather than businesspeople.

To avoid falling into that trap, I knew my prices had to be based on the costs my business would incur, not on the more-likely-than-not made-up prices of people in business.

I developed a budget system that allowed me to calculate, as accurately as possible, my true tangible and intangible operational business costs.

However, that was not the only issue I had to consider to be a successful businessperson. In addition to knowing my numbers, I knew I had to take pride in my workmanship. To perform in a timely manner, I had to choose my words carefully when delivering excellence to consumers.

Being in a PHC service business comes with the expectation that consumers don’t always have their needs crop up during regular business hours.

Leaks spring up at the most inopportune times. Consumers find out that their drains are clogged when they try to drain fixtures; that doesn’t always happen during regular business hours. Heating units break down in winter. Air-conditioning units become less effective as temperatures rise. You never know what will happen or when it will occur.

After a short time of trying to please everyone at any time and frustrating myself as I increased my own business stress levels, I came to heed the words attributed to Abraham Lincoln: “You can please some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time.”

Service agreement privileges

To get a head start on potential problems associated with pleasing consumers, I created various service agreements to identify consumers who could become my true loyal clientele. My service agreements offered annual system checkups and discounts. 

I informed consumers of our regular business hours and after-hours policies. I told them that only service agreement clientele could avail themselves of our services 24/7, and they would enjoy preferred scheduling privileges.

Everyone else could avail themselves of our services during regular business hours.

My service agreements were varied, depending on consumers’ needs. Checkups were included, but repairs or replacements would be charged to the consumer at pertinent service agreement discounts.

Service agreement clientele and any other consumers were told that after-hours prices were higher than regular business-hour prices. Service agreement discounts were applied to both regular business-hour and after-hours prices.

Emergency defined

To address my own frustration with after-hours requests, only active service agreement clientele would be eligible for those services during emergencies only.

Since the overwhelming majority of consumers do not know the definition of emergency, we defined it for them.

I defined an emergency as a serious, unexpected incidence that has recently occurred and is often a dangerous situation requiring immediate action. 

When receiving a call from a consumer who considered they had an emergency, we would ask when they first noticed the problem. If they responded in a manner that showed the situation did not recently occur, their situation obviously was not an emergency by their own admission. 

We would talk them through their panic and frustration, assuring them that we would be there to address the situation first thing in the morning. In the instance of water pouring into the home, we talked them through the process of shutting water valves over the phone

Once we had them calmed down, we emphasized that it would be less expensive for them during regular business hours. This helped assuage their financial anxiety. We then informed them that during regular business hours, the materials needed to resolve their problem were readily available. 

With this approach, the emergency was resolved, and the situation was scheduled to be addressed during regular business hours. In the event that water cannot be shut off, a service tech would be dispatched to at least address the emergency portion of the situation. 

Offering after-hours work

The effect of this policy, 99% of the time, was to reduce after-hours calls while increasing regular business-hour scheduling. It also kept our techs happy at home with their families, rather than having them frustrated by interruptions to their personal lives.

If your PHC business is large enough for you to have techs whose work shifts are only after regular 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. business hours, that’s your policy, and I stand by your decision.

However, I feel I must remind you that most techs don’t want to work after regular business hours. 

Another thought to consider is that night-time shift workers are usually less busy than techs working during regular business hours because demand for service is typically lower.

If this is true for your business, you should consider the cost of a night-time shift as it pertains to the amount of revenue brought in to your business during after-hours shifts. It may not be profitable. If so, it will drag down the profits you make during regular business hours.