A guy came to the office and wanted an estimate to stake some town lots. He told me to text him with my estimate, so a few days later I looked at it and texted him. A couple of days after that he texted me back and said go ahead.?ÿ
We had some crew downtime so I sent him out and then sent the invoice.?ÿ
The guy calls later and asks if this is the estimate or a bill that he got in the mail, I says it's the bill. Then he told me he never gave me the go-ahead, I said sure you did, I recalled his text and told him what he texted.?ÿ
He says, "I sent that to you? I meant to have another guy do it."
That was a first.?ÿ
At least you have proof that he ordered the survey.
Always have a written agreement and I suppose a text message qualifies.?ÿ
If you have to use evidence the survey was ordered, you already lost. Maybe you get your fee but you you lose in other ways...
There are some really absent minded clients out there.
The ones that really annoy me are the ones that keep calling me when I am going to be completed day after day and they had hired someone else.
Then there are the ones that want a copy of something I never surveyed and they are so positive that I did.
And the clients that stay in contact with me for 3 months and say that they are getting ready to have something surveyed and then gets really anxious and wants it yesterday because it was supposed to close last week.
Finally there is the client that actually thinks that you are going to drive an hour away to look at and discuss how you are going to survey a small ranchette they want to buy in the range of $200k so they can get to see you eye to eye before making any commitment to hire you and doesn't want it to cost over a couple of hundred dollars.
Some people are simply lost..........
A. Harris, I get the last one a lot.
Client:?ÿ"Let me know when you can come out here to look at it"?ÿ
Me: "I can't afford to spend a couple of hours to drive out there and look at a small job. I will provide your with a reasonable expectation of what I think it will cost but unless you're willing to pay my consultant fee I will not be driving out there".