Make the Customer feel you earned your Fee.

[dr_duke]

I have a friend who owns a Guide Service in Pinedale, Wyoming. During the Elk hunting season, rich people pay him between $3,500 and $7,500 to kill a trophy Bull Elk. He has to know where the Elk are at all times so he can make sure his customers make a kill. If they go back home without a head to mount and a few hundred pounds of Elk meat and sausage, they will not come back or recommend his guide service to their rich friends. To make sure he knows where the Elk are, he has 2 cowboys at a times follow the Elk herd and watch the herd 24 hours a day.

Now, when a group of rich hunters fly into Jackson Hole for a 7 day hunt, my friend is not going to take them out to where the herd is and let them shoot an Elk on the first day. If they get their Elk on the first day, what will they do for the rest of the week and they will probably feel like they did not get their money’s worth.

On the first 5 days of a 7 day hunt, my friend will not let his customers get within 20 miles of an Elk herd. During these 5 days, they travel lots of miles on horseback; they chop a lot of firewood; and make and break camp every day “looking for Elk.”

They hunt hard for 4 days and then on the 4th night, he Bar-B-Ques some Choice T-Bone steaks and breaks out the finest Kentucky Bourbon. After a hearty meal and a couple of stout drinks, he suggest they take off the next day and go into Jackson Hole and do a little shopping to buy Momma, who is back home, a really nice gift to make her feel she did not completely lose out on the hunting trip. After everyone has bought Momma an expensive gift and they have had a nice Buffalo Hamburger lunch, they drive the 38 miles into Yellowstone National Park to see the “Old Faithful” geyser. It is a nice day, but the hunters are starting to worry they may not see any Elk.

On the 6th day, they move the camp close to the Elk heard and on the afternoon hunt, they start killing their Elk. A few hunters pass on shooting an Elk that afternoon hoping to get a larger Bull the next day. By noon on the last day, everyone has killed their Elk and they are celebrating with a Bourbon and Coke and talking about what a wonderful time they have had.

When the rich hunter board the plane the next day to go back home, everyone is happy: the guide is happy because he has made a nice chunk of change; the cowboys are happy because the rich hunters have given them huge tips, and the hunters are happy because they have a nice head and rack to hang over the fireplace mantle. The hunters talk on the plane about getting their money’s worth and that the guide and cowboys sure earned their money. It was a mutually satisfactory transaction.

The locksmith could learn from the guide’s example. If a homeowner calls him out to help him get into his house after he locked the door with his keys inside, he wants the locksmith to earn his money. He does not want to pay the locksmith $300 taking the screen off a window and crawling in through an unlocked window which took less than 5 minutes.

The first thing I do when I am called out for a lockout, is talk to the homeowner. From the very beginning, I let them know that I cannot pick every lock made. I tell them that I will get them into their house, but it may take as long as a couple of hours or as short as 5 minutes and that I may have to use another means of getting into the house other than picking the lock. . I tell them that it is alright to watch me pick the lock, but if the lock is difficult to pick, I may ask they to go sit in their car while I am working so I do not get frustrated because of the difficulty of the lock.

The first approach I take is a straight single pin picking. If the lock is easy to pick and I get it picked in just a few minutes, I purposely do not open the door. I will change picks and spend the next half-hour to forty-five minutes playing with the lock and purposefully do not get the door open. I am going to take a minimum of 45 minutes to get into the house .

If I work hard, sweat a lot, and act exasperated, the homeowner feels they have gotten their money’s worth and are really appreciative when I finally get the door open.

Like the hunting guide, I want the homeowner to feel as though they have gotten their money’s worth. If I am successful at this, it is a mutually beneficial transaction and everyone is happy.

[cledry]

I'm the opposite. A customer calls me for my knowledge, not the time it takes. If I spend more than 5 minutes getting in I feel i am not doing a good job. I don't deceive my customers and they don't seem to mind that I can open their lock in 20 seconds; in fact that is when I often up-sell the customer with a better lock. I just don't have 45 minutes to waste on a simple lockout. We are too busy.

[GWiens2001]

I'm the opposite. A customer calls me for my knowledge, not the time it takes. If I spend more than 5 minutes getting in I feel i am not doing a good job. I don't deceive my customers and they don't seem to mind that I can open their lock in 20 seconds; in fact that is when I often up-sell the customer with a better lock. I just don't have 45 minutes to waste on a simple lockout. We are too busy.

+1, cledry. If their lock takes 5 seconds to open, then it should be easy to sell them an upgraded lock. "Yep, these locks are very easy to open. Of course we do sell better grades of locks. How good depends on how secure do you want to feel. How much is your safety worth?"

Gordon

[mhole]

I agree with Cledry - the elk Hunter is buying an experience, the locked out individual is buying a service if I was a customer, and cottoned on to the fact I was being deliberately delayed by somebody putting on a show I'd be pretty pissed off.

I find most customs are utterly disinterested in what Iv do to open their door, they just want to get back in.

[Achyfellow]

Well I'm not a locksmith, but if I found out that the guy has been playing with the lock I would be really pissed off (Specially since locksmiths here charge by the hour).

You just can't compare a group of people paying to have fun for 7 days (The guide in your example is extending the fun for those 7 days, actually doing his job) with a guy paying to get his door open. He is not paying for the fantabulous experience of watching you suffer to open his door, he just wants to get in and go on with his life (Yes, some of us may enjoy watching, but that's another thing).

Furthermore, I'd say what you do creates an impression of false security that can potentially be dangerous. Imagine that the guy with a standard lock thinks "Wow my lock is super hard to pick, I'm totally secure" and some day the house gets plundered while he was out doing the groceries. I don't know if he is going to change the lock or not, but I'm sure he will think about you, and not in a good way.

[mechanical_nightmare]

I am pretty sure the locksmith I called last summer did something similarly deceptive when I got locked out of the house, although he was more unscrupulous. He tried to shim the door first, and "couldn't do it". He said he could not pick the KALE double bitted dimple lock on the door, that he would have to snap it off and replace it for 150 TL (USD 75 at the time). Mind you, on the phone he gave a quote of 80 TL (USD 40). I told him for that price I can replace a window, so he may as well head back while I got an axe out of the tool shed. All of a sudden, he said something to the tune of "let me have another go at it" and shimmed the door open in about 20 seconds. I paid him (the lower, original price) and he left.

This was in June, when I first started getting involved with picking seriously.

[bioggy]

If your going to do a job do it right. People like to get into their houses ASAP not wait while you fiddle around. Aslong as your reasonably priced they don't care how long it takes you plus they offer you referrals for a job well done.

[ARF-GEF]

I think there is truth in what dr_duek said, it is important to make the customer feel appreciated. But maybe 45 minutes is a bit long for that
At least he pointed out and important question: how do you deal with customers who feel bad about paying your fee after a quick job?


And indeed, when I accompany a lockie to the call you can sell good lock by demosntrating that it takes under a minute to open their old one. Some people complain, but if it gets serious then he always says: you know what? I will lock it back for you and charge nothing...
Anyway it's best to remain nice, but there is a minority of ppl who can't understand niceness and mistake it for weaknes...
And I personally agree wiht cledry: the lockie I sometimes help out always say his time is the most valuable asset, so why waste it with taking artifically long.
Of course it also depends on the personality of the caller, sometimes you can "smell" from afar that they will be complicated...

Dishonest lockies who try to purposefully overcharge for example by breaking an easy to pick cylinder is a completely different topic though. That is just scamming and not salesmanship of any kind.

[ARF-GEF]

Plus I love the elk story, thanks for sharing

[reverendus]

I definitely fall on the side of doing the job as quickly as possible. If you draw it out to make the customer feel he is getting his money's worth, then you are wasting time, yours and the customer's. As someone else mentioned, a customer doesn't want to wait any longer than they have to to get into their house or car. Another thing to consider, if this isn't the first time they've been locked out and another locksmith opened their lock in just a few minutes, how are they going to view you taking much longer?

Also, if you take 45 minutes to do a job that you could do in 5 minutes, how many other jobs could you get to in that time?

I feel that as long as you are professional in your work and your bearing, most customers will feel that you earned your fee. Will some complain? Sure, but then there will always be some that complain no matter what.

[Wizer]

... how do you deal with customers who feel bad about paying your fee after a quick job?

I tell them that I did it quick because I´m good at it. Others tend to take longer.
If he still rants, I ask: "how long would you have wanted to wait?"
Allways try to be polite tho. I know its sometimes hard.

[martinblythe]

I hope my customers feel I have earned my fee by arriving quickly and opening the door in a professional manner, they pay for a good service !
Great story about the Elk hunting

[poshjosh]

I agree with Cledry - the elk Hunter is buying an experience, the locked out individual is buying a service

All purchases are experiences. They are "customer buying experiences". A friend of mine posted on his Facebook that he payed $65 for a locksmith to come to his house and use a credit card to unlock the door. Some of the sites you go to take awhile to "process" but the processing is fake. There is case study evidence to prove the value of making the customer wait to make them feel they got their money's worth.

I would suggest telling a customer how the lockpicking process works. If they seem impatient just cut to the chase.

All purchases are customer buying experiences.

[YouLuckyFox]

Reminded me of this:

One day a whole roomful of General Electric's most expensive machinery went out of order. By this time Steinmetz had retired, but the company's baffled engineers called him back as a consultant. Steinmetz ambled from machine to machine, taking a measurement here, scribbling something in his notebook there. After about an hour, he took out a large piece of chalk and marked a large 'X' on the casing of one machine. Workers pried off the casing and found the problem at once. But when the company executives got Steinmetz's bill for $10,000, they were reluctant to pay it. "This seems a bit excessive for one chalk mark," Steinmetz was told. "Perhaps you'd better itemize your charges." Within a few days, they received the following itemized bill:

Making one chalk mark $1.00
Knowing where to make one chalk mark $9,999.00

[Squelchtone]

I get where Dr_Duke is coming from, there are certainly some customers like the ones who need you to put on a show and make it seem that giving you $100 dollars for coming out had better take more than 1 minute of your labor, while at the same time preserving their notion that their locks will keep them safe at night, because you had to struggle with their Kwikset deadbolt for 20 minutes, but I ran across a comic strip today on Imgur that made me think of this thread and I wanted to share it with you guys.



I'd love to use this reasoning with a customer. One does not learn all there is in locksmith and safe work overnight. There's a certain value to the years of experience.

just my 2 cents
Squelchtone