Should Tradesmen Such as Locksmiths, Heating Engineers, Plumbers and Electricians Still Charge a Call out Fee?

Whether or not Tradesmen Such as a locksmith, roofer, local plumber, heating engineer and electrician should charge a Call Out fee is a much debated topic with most people saying that no they shouldn’t and a handful saying that yes it is perfectly normal for a plumber, heating engineer, electrician, drain company, locksmith etc to charge a flat fee on top of their labour and parts charges should they be called out in a emergency situation especially if the call-out is during what’s known as unsociable hours.

So how many emergency call out tradesmen charge a call out fee?

Going back to the 1980’s and 1990’s between 80% and 90% of all emergency call-out home services or tradesmen  including plumbers, heating engineers, locksmiths and electricians charged some kind of fixed call out fee on top of other charges such as part and labour but nowadays it’s between 10% and 20%. The reason for this massive difference that has occurred over the past two  or three decades is that there is more competition and tradesmen need that competitive edge over their rivals, plus it’s now easier to advertise your services and reach your end user without resorting to costly newspaper and directory ads.

Before the internet revolution of the late 90’s early 2000’s tradesmen such as plumbers and heating engineers had to advertise in local business directories such as the yellow pages (remember that?) or in the local press, this was costly and the reason many tradesmen charged a call out fee to cover the outlay for these expensive publications.

Another reason was the shear lack of competition. Heating Engineers, Locksmiths, Electricians, Plumbers, Drain Engineers etc where few and fair between so they could literally charge whatever fee they wanted especially in an emergency situation where the end user had little choice, either pay the callout fee or have the water continue to flood through your ceiling into your kitchen or living room, stay in the dark with no lights or heating, leave all that raw sewage simply floating around in your front or back garden, or in your house or stay locked out of your home, office or vehicle, you see these type of emergency tradesmen offered a service people needed and could not manage without .

So why have things changed now in the 21st Century?

For this we’ll focus on the locksmith industry, the reason for this is fact it is still completely unregulated with just a handful of voluntary accreditation certificates available to those locksmiths willing to pay for them.

Advertising as a 24 hour emergency locksmith in 2018 is as simple as setting up a basic cheap or even free website and touting your business online through paid marketing services such as Google Adwords.

Most of these amateur ‘have a go’ locksmiths have little of no training and have just watch a few Youtube videos on gaining entry and lock picking and then bought some cheap locksmith tools off ebay. This is the reason that competition is now fiercer than ever and why even genuine, professional  locksmiths can no longer charge their customer a call out fee otherwise they are pricing themselves out of the market because the amateur locksmith with little overheads will undercut them every time.

These amateur locksmith usually operate around the big cities so they can get a constant flow of one off customers because once your hire an amateur locksmith you won’t do it again as there are so many reports of locksmiths turning up with a hammer and chisel and  using 100’s sometimes 1000’s worth of damage to your property.