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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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Let us look at some of the different services for which you can bill your customers. The idea is to un-bundle services supplied so that you can handle pricing separately and maintain a competitive advantage. Some of the more common practices follow.
This is the basic charge of the portable toilet business. It consist of the rental of the unit and usually once a week service, though in warmer areas, multiple weekly services are quiet common.
If a unit is rented for less then two to three months, there is a delivery charge for placement of the unit. It is an expensive proposition to deliver and pickup a unit - estimated costs are between $80.00 and $160.00. This is usually recovered from the monthly rental, but if the rental period is too short, you are expending resources and not receiving appropriate sales to cover the costs.
Early pickup charges are similar to a delivery charge for short term rental. By splitting the charge, you reduce the amount and double the opportunities that you might collect incremental revenue.
This is a favorite area to obtain a price differential for your services. Any enhancement over a construction grade unit can be used as a reason for a price increase. Some of the more popular features include:
Wash basin
Hand cleaner
No sit units for women
Special units for parties that include, flower, mirrors, deodorant, etc.
Handicapped
Floor mats
Color schemes
Flush units
Any of these features can result in a difference in billing.
In some areas, customers will move a unit to a new location to avoid a delivery of early pickup charge. You can recover the cost of moving a unit to a location by charging a moving charge if the unit leaves the current work site. Even if this is a nominal amount of $10.00 to $20.00, it establishes a pattern of increased service, results in increased billing.
Customer requests an extra cleaning because of high usage or weather conditions.
Daily charge to cover any damages to units. If you can get thirty cents a day and you rent 200 units a month, that is an additional $1200.00 per month.
Everyone knows that the cost of waste removal is going up. This is usually a dollar or two monthly surcharge for waste removal.
Last minute calls for units to qualify for an inspection, week-end deliveries for special events, removal of units for open houses, etc.