With a few recent projects I’ve realized I need to be much more detailed in my bidding, as there are a lot of little enhancements we’ve been doing for free. How do others handle this? And where do you draw the line?
I seem to hear that it’s fine as long as we’re offering a free adjustment, but as soon as a client requests something it’s time for a change order. Thoughts?
You have to pay more attention to your estimates, other wise you will give a lot of freebies.
You can give some thing as curtesy and thank you for your business, such as entrance hardware, a light fixture that will wow your clients and guests. But if the customer ask for such items, you should be polite and tell them you will do it for a price as it is not in the scope of work. Some customers will keep on asking for this or that, knowing well it costs you money.
Best of luck.
If it is something small related to the project I always take care of the customer. If you constantly upsell the job than they won’t like that feeling and shut down. The more you take care of your customers the more likely you will get a 2nd or 3rd project with them.
Change orders are issued when client makes additions to scope of project, unforseen issues with existing work that was noticed during construction or building inspector requires something else not shown on bid set of plans.
For us it all depends on cost of the change. If it is something small and I have some funds left over form another area of the project. I will do it for free. But I will still write up a change order to document everything we do. It will just show “NO CHARGE” on it.
