I have an appliance repair business. I charge for labor and parts. I mark up my parts a flat percentage. How do I respond when a customer wants me to breakdown the cost of labor vs parts? Because I know what they are really trying to do is see if they can find the part cheaper on the internet.
This one’s easy. The breakdown is this: $500 and we do it, $0 and we don’t.
This shit doesn’t fly at a restaurant and it shouldn’t fly at your appliance business. Try asking the server what the dinner cost to make.
One recommendation, we occasionally have a fictional associate that does the negotiating via email. It’s the boss creating and sending the quotes, but the customer thinks he’s dealing with a low tier employee with no way to influence the cost.
This person can check with his supervisor for more info but in the end he’s in no postion or authority to change policy or pricing.
This all but eliminates low profit high emotional energy draining interactions.
That is a fantastic idea that I am going to steal
I used to do this when dealing with suppliers. “Sorry, I have to check with my boss first”. There was no boss, it was just me.