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Fitting the Pieces Together: A Guide to Office Operations for the Liquid Waste, Portable Toilet & Septic Pumping Industries |
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The septic pumping and sewer and drain business is usually run as a cash COD business. A person calls up and they are scheduled that day. Once the work is completed, a hand written receipt is supplied and payment is received immediately. Thus people pay for the whole job or a bundled price.
In some areas Septic, Sewer and Drain companies are starting to recognize that if they un-bundle the services they provide, they can increase there sales by using the invoice as a way to:
Raise customer awareness to ALL THE WORK THAT IS BEING DONE.
Gain a better understanding of where the company’s sales are coming and thus figure out ways to improve them
Selectively contact customers based upon services supplied for additional sales, i.e., use focused marketing
Improve competitive bidding on jobs by allowing the customer to save on parts of the work they choose to do themselves, i.e., digging to uncover septic tank cover.
The following is a list of services different companies have been using to improve their sales.
Making digging a separate option on a septic tank pumping job can add $10.00 to $25.00 to every job. If a driver does 6 to 8 jobs a day that can be increased sales of $60.00 to $200.00 dollars a day in digging charges. Not only is this a revenue source, it also can lead to increased sales by encouraging the customer to install a build up system onto the tank to reduce future digging charges.
This is a chemical or biological agent to help dissolve solids. You can sell a multi-month supply to be added to a septic tank regularly and include a reminder to call your company to have the tank pumped when the supply is used up. Not only do you get the added sales of the treatment, you also get the maintenance pumping.
When the septic tank access is placed such that an extra hose is required to avoid driving the truck onto finished gardens, a surcharge is possible to recover the added cost of providing and maintaining the extra hose.
It is not uncommon that an owner of a home will not know where the septic tank is located. Using a rod, it can take up to a half hour of more to locate the tank cover. This is time that the truck and driver are tied up not earning any additional sales. It is not unreasonable to charge time to locate the tank. Once found, you can then sell a tank lid marker to avoid additional location charges the next time the tank is serviced.
Your driver shows up at a house and no one is home. It has cost your company time, fuel, equipment to go to provide a service and the customer failed to show up. It is not uncommon, when setting up the appointment, to have a service charge to cover the costs of supplying the service.
Customers who require weekend or off hours service should be charged to cover the overtime rate paid to the driver. Do not forget if you are an owner/operator, you get paid too!. Receiving additional compensation for working non-standard hours is a reasonable charge.
If a service call requires extra driving time, the pump rates should be adjusted for the expense of tying up a truck and driver for an longer time to supply the service.
A charge in addition to pumping the tank to check the condition of the baffles, tank sides and lid. Most homes require this whenever they change title. It requires extra time and you company should be compensated for the time spent. Please be careful and check with your attorney to what obligations you have by inspecting the tank, if the system fails at a letter time.
This should not only include the bank charges, but your costs associated with getting a bounced check corrected.
Some other charges we have seen include:
Toilet removal
Hand snaking vs electric snaking
Price quote
Tree/bush removal
Late payment fee
Dumping surcharge