Sometimes the dollar cost for a repair isn't as important as the downtime associated with the repair.

The larger customers I service with in-house tech's will usually have a dollar or time cut off for their in house guy (unless he's slow & needs work) when they call me for a quote. I sometimes get the job- other times not- I know they're using my quote for a time & parts comparison. I've learned to suggest this to new customers to avoid the parts replacers senario.

duo is right- not being familiar with a particular machine usually translates to- at a minimum- longer diagnostic time as well as a higher chance of parts being replaced that aren't needed. The choice the company has then becomes, what actually is less expensive- paying dealer rate for service- relying on the expertise of the servicing tech- or paying less than half of dealer rate & hoping their tech can get it right at least 50% of the time (with the associated longer downtime).

We- as servicing vendors- have no control over which choice is better for them- we can just offer professional advise that with the proper diagnostics performed, costs will be less (in repairs & associated downtime) in the long haul.