# Balancing service quality and competitive pricing



## lukepighetti (Jan 8, 2017)

Hey guys, I'm thinking of getting into residential plowing and the one thing I am having trouble with is coming up with a pricing structure that balances service quality and price.

Let's say you have a full residential route. Often times cars are parked in the driveway.

It starts snowing at 12AM, and by 6AM there is 4" on the ground and another 6" predicted to end at 4PM. Municipal plow has come along and made a nice mess for your customers.

What would your strategy be, and what would you charge them based on your current residential contract? How big is your route and what equipment are you using?


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## ktfbgb (Jan 31, 2016)

If the city plow comes along after you plowed the drive, then the customer can call you to come back to clean up the berm for a full price service call. This applies to my commercial and residential customers.


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## SnoFarmer (Oct 15, 2004)

lukepighetti said:


> Hey guys, I'm thinking of getting into residential plowing and the one thing I am having trouble with is coming up with a pricing structure that balances service quality and price.


Why? What are your costs? Ins etc etc.
Are you selling per push, sounds like it, have you thought about seasional pricing?



lukepighetti said:


> Let's say you have a full residential route. Often times cars are parked in the driveway.


So, I plow snow, not cars.
I'm not responsibel for vehicles or objects left in the drive.



lukepighetti said:


> It starts snowing at 12AM, and by 6AM there is 4" on the ground and another 6" predicted to end at 4PM. Municipal plow has come along and made a nice mess for your customers.


Why isn't the drive cleared before 6 am, don't your clients have jobs to go to?
Then plow again before they get home from work.

Then I'll open up the drives if the city plow has closed them in as needed.



lukepighetti said:


> What would your strategy be, and what would you charge them based on your current residential contract? How big is your route and what equipment are you using?


Every customer payes a diffrent seasional rate based on the size of the drive & difficulty.
Extras are salt and or shoveling at a additional fee.
A compact multi drive route.
A snowplow, shovels, ice scrapper, snowblower, truck , blinkey light,


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## lukepighetti (Jan 8, 2017)

Hey snofarmer,

If you show up to a home and the cars are in the drive, do you plow what you can and charge full price?

So it sounds like you'd do two pushes, one ideally before 4" accumulates and before they go to work, and once before they get home from work.

Where do you draw the line? What if it snows 2" after they return and you know their cars are going to still be there, and municipal brings in more snow?

I guess a better question would be, "what is the most pushes you did for the least amount of snow? what circumstances caused this?"


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## SnoFarmer (Oct 15, 2004)

Yes I did charge full price, but this can lead to disagreements. When chargeing on a perpush basises 

You have to decide on a trigger depth .
I recomend not letting it get over 2" for the am push.
Because they will complain about packed snow Turing to ice if they are allowed to drive on it.
Not everyone will shovel their drive....

If I was doing per push. You would have 2 service calls and One free drive-by to open the entrance if needed.

I'm all pre pay seasional. this way I'm not held hostage by the weather.


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