Holidays

[wa1ker00]

Do you charge 'extra' holiday rates on top of your standard service call fees? It's not my name on the sign where I work and we don't charge any additional fees regardless of if it's a holiday or not. I disagree with this since those few days a year are important and if I do get a call, it's generally interrupting something important with my family and I feel like I should be better compensated. With several more holidays coming up, I'm looking for a better way to present this argument. Thoughts?

[Squelchtone]

Do you charge 'extra' holiday rates on top of your standard service call fees? It's not my name on the sign where I work and we don't charge any additional fees regardless of if it's a holiday or not. I disagree with this since those few days a year are important and if I do get a call, it's generally interrupting something important with my family and I feel like I should be better compensated. With several more holidays coming up, I'm looking for a better way to present this argument. Thoughts?

If you're in the service industry, and for instance your yellow pages add says 24/7 locksmith, people expect 24/7 locksmith. They don't care if it is Christmas Eve.

The only thing I would expect from a customer is perhaps to be kind enough to give you a decent holiday tip for coming out. Otherwise, change the recording on your business voicemail to say you are closed for the holiday, if in fact it is that important of a day to you. I'm sure most callers would understand, and just call the next number in the phone book.

I do believe some retail stores will pay time and a half if someone has to work on a holiday, so perhaps your boss/shop owner could see that for any calls that day you get paid extra, but it wouldn't be right to charge the customer time and a half. They expect the same price and professionalism all year round. Only thing I would charge more for is when it comes to day time work vs night time work. A drive out at 1am to unlock someone's car should probably have some sort of night time fee attached to it. Perhaps from 10pm-6am an added $25 to your drive out fee?

just my opinion,
Squelchtone

[wa1ker00]

While we do have additional late night service fees, we don't truly advertise as 24/7 service, just 'Emergency services available'. We do work for primarily commercial and large rental properties during after hours and most of these companies we have prearranged rates and services set up. We do the residential house calls as well but besides the University, it's a relatively small community and is by no means the bulk of what we end up doing. Guess I'm just full of wishful thinking and daydreaming after being stuck on call on my birthday a few weeks ago. It still never ceases to amaze me how many people don't even contemplate tipping when they wake you up at 2-3am.

[cledry]

Every shop I have worked at pays me more on holidays when on call and thus we pass that additional cost to the customer. Customers accept that nights, weekends and holidays will cost more. We do mostly commercial work and never have had one quibble about paying a higher rate.