What Does “No Call Out Fee” Mean?

Posted on April 18, 2013 in Our Service

ProTech advertise a “no callout fee” service on most of our maintenance packages. Does that mean there is no charge for our services? Are there any other hidden costs you might need to worry about?

No Callout Fee” – Peace of Mind For You

Some property maintenance firms advertise an hourly or fixed fee for their service, and then secretly whack on an extra charge for “callout” costs: the time it takes for their call centre operatives to organise someone to come to your door.

It can be a sneaky way of earning extra money from unsuspecting customers, an extra “hidden cost” that can be added to your final bill before you have the chance to think about it properly.

This is what the Citizens Advice Bureau has to say about call-out charges:

“Some builders and other traders such as plumbers and electricians make a call-out charge when they come to your home to do repairs or assess what work needs to be done.

Often, it’s not clear that a call-out charge is being made or what it’s for. If you’re charged a call-out fee when you haven’t been told about it, this could be unfair consumer practice.

The price of a call-out charge you haven’t been told about must be reasonable.”

– Read the full article on Adviceguide.org.uk

Not a Free Service

We want to be clear about this: we don’t offer a free service. Our operatives work very hard, and to high standards. They have homes and families to care for. We don’t receive government funding to provide our services. So, like any commercial company, we need to earn money to pay our staff.
We do need to charge for a minimum 1 hours’ work, to cover our operatives’ travel time and our other overheads, but we are committed to offering you an honest, ‘Gold Standard’ service – without hidden costs – to all our respected customers.

From our About Us Page:

“As a management team our principles are that we believe business is about more than just an exchange of services and money. We believe business can be conducted based on principles and good corporate citizenship …

“We treat our customers, suppliers and employees the same way we would like to be treated.”

Read more on our About Us page