"Nightjar" wrote in message
...
On 13/03/2014 18:56, Stephen wrote:
Thank you every one for all your comments, I have learned a lot.....

I've had a few more thoughts.....

Do customers make voice calls to Handymen or do they email instead?

reason I ask is that I am deaf so voice calls would be a *BIG* problem
for me as it is not possible to lipread on phones. So I would prefer
customers to email me. I'm content to have a 3G enabled Apple Ipad in
the van for this purpose.

You would have to make it a selling point; to avoid interrupting my work,
I don't take phone calls while working. I suspect it will cost you
business though.

In a similar vein, many customers have smart phones so they could take
pictures of the job and email it to me to make my job of quoting easier
and/or more accurate without losing working time driving over to teh
potential customer, viewing the job, writing up a quote & posting etc
etc....

I think that would be a serious mistake. You need to see the site for
yourself to see problems that may not be obvious from a photo.

I think it would be better to quote using the photos and then
when you get the job, point out the problem when you show
up to do the work and discover its not as simple as it appeared
to be from the photos and give them the option of paying a
higher price or not starting the job.

Quotes are part of the job and you need to factor in the fact that you
have to make them and that some, possibly many, won't be accepted.

Still makes sense to minimise the time wasted doing
them with photos/video from their smartphones.