Customer watched me fix his washer and then tried to haggle the price down

I was at a house in Arlington last Tuesday replacing a lid switch on an old Whirlpool. The guy stood right over my shoulder the whole time, asking questions and telling me how his brother-in-law could probably do it. When I finished and handed him the $85 bill, he asked for a discount because I only used one screwdriver. I mean, seriously, has anyone else had a customer try to talk you down after watching you do the work?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_dylan8d agoTop Commenter

Does it make you feel kind of disrespected when they do that? I had a guy pull almost the exact same thing on me a while back, standing over me the whole time while I swapped out a control board, and then he tried to knock ten bucks off because I "didn't have to cut any wires." It's like they think watching you work somehow makes them part of the labor or something. Honestly, that kind of behavior just shows they don't value the knowledge you have to have to do the job right in the first place. You paid for the tools, the training, the gas to get there, and the experience to know exactly which screw to turn, not just for the time it took to turn it. I hope you held your ground on that $85, because that's already a fair price for a lid switch replacement.

hayden7098d ago

Man that story about the guy watching you swap a board is EXACTLY what I deal with all the time. @the_dylan hit the nail on the head about people thinking watching makes them part of the labor, I had a lady literally time me with her phone stopwatch once while I replaced a dishwasher pump. She tried to argue the price down because "it only took 12 minutes" completely ignoring the fact I drove 45 minutes each way and had to buy the part at wholesale that she couldn't get.