That's how I feel. There is more work involved preparing an "estimate" than just taking a service call over the phone.
Look at the automotive industry, I think that they average person knows that they are being charged flat rate where a technician spends 2 hours repairing a car and they get charged for 5 hours. The big difference is that the customer can't see that only 2 hours was spent on his car.

Another thing I find odd is that on all shop jobs, no matter what they come in for, we charge each customer about 1.5 hours to do a thorough check out of the forklift truck. Then an estimate is prepared which could take another 1.5 hours in looking up the parts etc. and although the people involved in preparing the estimate probably make more than the technician who checked out the truck that work is at no charge.