Overheard a customer call our repair a 'waste of good money'

Last Tuesday I was swapping a dryer heating element in Maplewood and the homeowner told her friend on the phone that we were just 'milking the insurance claim.' She didn't know I could hear her through the laundry room door. I finished the job, showed her the burnt-out coil in a ziplock bag, and she went quiet. The part was $38 and took 20 minutes, but she still paid the $185 service call without another word. Has anyone else had a customer assume you're ripping them off until you show them the actual failed part?

1 comments

1 Comment

ryan7191mo ago

Man, honestly I get where she was coming from. People hear horror stories about overcharging and assume every service call is a scam. They don't see the overhead, the truck, the liability insurance, the years of knowing what to look for. You make it sound simple, but you don't pay $185 for 20 minutes of work, you pay for the hour of diagnosis and the fact the house doesnt burn down. Plus, you showed her the part right after, so she got proof. If every customer got that kind of transparent explanation first, maybe fewer people would be so suspicious in the first place.