REW does not work for free, why is it so hard to understand?

[webmaster]

I am venting here but also I am looking for some feedback from both clients and non clients alike.

Here at REW we have some amazing clients, they are appreciative, pay their bills on time, and are just all around great to work with. However we also have a certain portion of clients that expect us to work for free, and feel that we should be happy to do so. It drives me nuts!

Here is my issue: Here at REW, we bill clients by the hour to work on their projects. Clients are ALWAYS told by their sales people, any work you request the production staff to do on your site you are going to be billed for. They get a quote for their original project and once that project is completed they are billed and that is the end of it. This might be anything from a simple template, all the way up to a major custom deployment with 100 hours of programming and 100 hours of design.

Now later on they come back to their developers and say "I would like to change this" or "I would like to add this" and we say no problem if you give us the go ahead we will go ahead and take care of that for you, if they request a new quote for the work we will provide that before hand.

So the client says go ahead Mr programmer or designer, make the change that I requested. We do it, and then send them a bill.

Here is the part that floors me: Some clients actually write us and say "Why was I charged for this? It is a simple thing, it took no more than half an hour, you should have just done this for free"

Excuse me? If you are a client, and you are asking to have one of our staff do something for you, you better expect to pay for it. I mean shoot, I pay my staff by the hour, and there are really only 2 options either I pay for the work they did on your website, or you do. And I really don;t think it makes sense for me to be paying for your web development. (I would go out of business very quickly)

Often times they are little things, 15 minutes here, a half hour there. whatever. And clients think, well I bought something from you already, you should just do this for free. Yeah you bought something from us, and we delivered it, that deal is done, that work was done and delivered we only billed you for the time it took, and you don't have extra hours entitled to you. Had you requested this change, or addition during the initial project you would have been billed for it then, so why would you think just because you thought of it later, or that it is small in comparison to what you initially did that we would do it for free?

Sure 15 minutes or a half hour doesn't seem like a lot in the sense of 1 or 2 little things a month. But what clients don't consider is the fact that we have 30 staff here, and over 1000 clients. If every client just wanted 2 little 15 minute freebies a year that equates to 30,000 minutes of work we would end up doing for free. But wait it's not free! Because I pay these people, that is 30,000 minutes of work that clients think I am such a nice guy I will pay for. That's 500 hours, or to hit it home a little better $50,000 of work. I wonder if I wanted to buy a home from one of my clients and there was $50,000 commission involved that they would waive it, probably not huh?

Another one that gets me is communication (Telephone or email)
Clients want access to development staff. A programmer, designer, writer whatever to work on their projects, and of course they get it. And often times they will call up to discuss their project with that developer, half hour phone call here, hour phone call there. And this time is of course billable to the client. They are like what! I need to pay for the time I take out of a developers schedule when I am talking to them? Once again, who should pay for this, you or me? Are you not requesting this time? Is this time not dedicated solely to your project? It's not like these guys are coding someone else's IDX while they are talking to you about yours. I mean what if we weren't doing it for you? What if you hired a programmer yourself and you put them on salary. Whether that programmer is coding your IDX, or you are talking to him in the office about your IDX you have to pay his salary, REW is no different. The benefit though is that you don't have to pay our staff when you are not using them.

Then there is hosting fees: You should do this for me because I pay you $30 a month for hosting. Ummm no, that money goes towards paying for the highest end dedicated hosting on the planet (Rackspace) and lets not forget the onsite staff we have to maintain those boxes. We don't even make $ off of hosting, we bill what we need to to cover our costs. And incidentally the hosting a client pays per month would not even cover my cost for an employee for 1 hour, these are high end graphics and programming professionals, not $2 a day slave labor in India.

So my question is, how do I do a better job of making clients understand this very basic common sense fact:

No matter what you are using a staff member for, if you are using them for your project, you must pay for them by the hour.

[webmaster]

Should probably mention what is free

Forum support - as many of you have see, our staff frequent the REW customer support forums 24-7 answering questions and being as helpful as they can. Technically we are not working on a clients site, we are just providing good customer service. That is free - we don't charge for the time it takes to answer all those questions, etc - nor will we ever. If something requires billable time, we tell that poster to post it in the work orders forum and ask for a quote. Providing quotes (Obviously) is not billed to the client either.

CSR support: We have regular business hours for CSR support, and staff dedicated to CSR. If you are having a problem accessing your email, or you would like to know where to find the tutorial on the CMS or whatever, give us a call, we have an amazing CSR lead named Thomas Rivett who will try his heart out to make sure you get the help you need. Thomas does not have a billable rate, I pay his salary, he is completely free However: He will not program or design anything for you, he is customer service

What else is free? We broke it's are always free. Hmmm server is down, needs to be fixed not going to charge for that - you uploaded Logan's listings to my account oops, our mistake we will fix that right away free (This would never happen but needed an example) My listings manager is buggarred up, that one actually happens from time to time, and of course, post it in the customer support forums and we will fix it for you, no charge (Unless it is actually something you did to break it and not a failing in the technology then we might charge you for it)

[webmaster]

Here's an interesting one actually: My MLS is not working it is broken, turns out that it is not broker at all, your MLS board changed the format of your data and now the system cannot update. Sorry but that is billable, we have no control over MLS boards and what they change etc, nor do we bill monthly for your custom IDX's (Except hosting) - so why would we pay for something that your MLS board broke? It's your custom IDX, you only paid us to set it up for you and host it. Sorry

IE 7 (Posted a rant on this when it came out) - hey my template that you made me a year before IE 7 existed doesn't work in IE 7, I want you to fix it free of charge! We didn't break it, nor is it broken. Microsoft has released a new product, and if you would like your website to work with that new product then it requires billable time. Your template is unique to you, there is no one button we can push to automatically fix custom elements across 1000 websites. We aren't advanced access, the code is not the same on every site.

[AnotherRE-Techie]

Before getting into real estate full time, I ran a technology company, doing software/hardware development, and maintenance.

I had to deal with all of this stuff myself, and it isn't easy!

I had one customer, a doctor, who argued over his bill for 45 minutes. He eventually paid. Next time we did business, I added a one-hour fee, labeled AT-fee. He wanted to know what that was for. "Arguing time." I said.

He said "What? That's ridiculous! I'm not paying that!"

I said, well, shouldn't you pay for the services you use and receive? He said yes.

"So," I said, "You're arguing about the fee, so you have to pay the 'argue fee'. You're using it, so you have to pay for it! If you don't want to, that's OK. You still have 40 minutes worth of argue time in which to argue about it."

Anyway, I'll be happy to talk with you off-line and give yu some tips on how to handle this.

Of course, I'll have to charge you...

[coastal]

I do e-mail all the time but the site is not yet finished and I always pay my bills and expect to be billed for it. The MLS Board change may have been on my site but I certainly did not expect any work to be done for free. I'm not a programmer. All I knew was that one day my site worked and the next it did not.

A written policy and price quote sent to your customers before the start of a project could alleviate any misunderstanding although I personally have never had any misunderstanding I pay your team to make my sites functional.

[Saodavi]

I got out of the IT support business for this very reason. People want you to come by the office to make a special trip because their machine is "slow". You kill some stupid applet they got from a friend online and leave. So it took you 5 minutes of work and 20 minutes of travel time. Nobody wants to pay you because it looks so easy.

So I got into RE and now I'm not getting paid in a different way. :-)

[AaronSOLD]

I can hear your frustration through your writing. I certainly can understand your situation.

Is it more a problem of sticker shock when they get the bill or an issue of you telling them it would cost $$$ If it is sticker shock, an online balance statement updated after each work order is done would give them more real-time feedback on the cost of these things.

[ColoradoHomeHelper]

I think that post should clear it up for everyone! I totally understand when I request any sort of custom work its going to be billed out.

Its like working with a lawyer you charge for your time and people should realize that, I have never ever had a lawyer give me 30 secs of their time for free.

I agree a price sheet explaining that you bill by the hour would help people better understand. I work with Moriah all the time having her do small things here and their and always pay and expect to be charged.

No one can make a living working for free...no matter how small a job!

[webmaster]

Mike we love you buddy, this was not directed at you

I do e-mail all the time but the site is not yet finished and I always pay my bills and expect to be billed for it. The MLS Board change may have been on my site but I certainly did not expect any work to be done for free. I'm not a programmer. All I knew was that one day my site worked and the next it did not.

A written policy and price quote sent to your customers before the start of a project could alleviate any misunderstanding although I personally have never had any misunderstanding I pay your team to make my sites functional.

[webmaster]

Check out this thread (Which is a sticky) at the top of the work orders forum. http://www.realestatewebmasters.com/thread7972.html Notice the date? It's 05-29-2006 - Now so those people don't have to click, this is what it says verbatim.

"The work orders forum is for those members that are also existing REW template clients. You can ask to have our team do anything you wish to your template, be it custom programming or graphics. Please be aware of current REW pricing:

Programming: $100 USD per hour
Custom Graphics: $100 USD per hour

If you are unsure of how long something will take, or want a quote, please make sure you provide as much detail as possible about the scope of work or project you are requesting. The more detail you provide, the more accurate your quote.

Keep in mind, these quotes will be our best guess as to how long we think it will take us, however final billing will be based on actual time spent to complete the project.

Please start a new thread for every work order, and make sure to identify your website when requesting work, as not all REW staff know what site you have based of your REW username."

So it's not like it is not online or readily accessible. Also as sales people we always tell clients that our work is charged by the hour. That is part of my frustration.

I agree a price sheet explaining that you bill by the hour would help people better understand. I work with Moriah all the time having her do small things here and their and always pay and expect to be charged.

No one can make a living working for free...no matter how small a job!