by Raccoon » 13 Apr 2007 18:12
Here's an interesting predicimant I've encountered. Both Yesterday and Today I received calls to make an automotive key by code for a customer. One customer had the code to their vehicle keys and had genuinely lost their keys, while the other didn't have the code and it turns out they had locked their keys in their car and wanted a new key to simply regain entry.
Both keys were plain jane non-transpondered keys, paid 50c for the blanks. The problem is, how do I charge for this?
As I see it, I'm charging X for a lockout re-entry ($45.00). The time and effort involved for me personally is nominal-- I'm charging the customer for my 24 hour emergency availability. But when a customer wants to buy a tangable item like a key, it's becoming tricky. Do I charge them $10 to cut them a key, and an additional trip fee? That would still only come to $40 for me, undercutting my lockout rate by $5 and the customer gets a fresh key on top of it. What if the customer asks if they can pick up the key? How do I still charge them a service fee?
This same scenerio applies to homes. I'll charge $15/hr (2 hr minimum) service fee, and $7.50 per cylinder for rekeying (w/ key present) or $10 per cylinder for rekeying or decoding (no key present). Again, this comes to be $40 if the customer locks their keys in the house and sneakily asks to have new keys made.
I know a lot of locksmiths will charge much more for lockout calls, increasing the margin from $5 to possibly $50. So how do these locksmiths handle a customer who asks "for a new key" instead of "can you let me in"?
