Due to the economy a lot of customers are now requesting quotes (we call them estimates) on repairs prior to giving the approval on road service work. Some of the repairs might be as small as replacing a master cylinder. Back in the day most of these jobs were service calls that were phoned in. So now we have to jump through a bunch of hoops to basically do a road service call.
My question is what is the norm? If the jobs comes in under the estimate do you bill them the estimated price? If so, how do you justify billing 4 hours when it only took 2 1/2 hours?
If you think that the customer should be billed the actual time and materials and it is under the estimate then please explain.
I can see both sides but a big part of me says when you get a price on painting your house for $4000, that is what you get billed and there is no breakdown of labor or gallons of paint used on the job.