Salting Issue

Here is a salting issue for you guys think about and how would you handle it. I just got a call from one of my best commerical accounts in regards to snow removal. *I only use rock salt for their sidewalks and parking lot area. *It's very cheap, only about $3.00 a 50lb bag, and works pretty good. *The only problem is that it tracks in sometimes. I have been salting and doing snow removal of his business for the past 6+ years. *He really loves using dow flake. *It's a great product, but costs around $12.00 a 50 lb bag here. *It gets expensive to store that amount of dow flake. *Also compared to rock salt, dow flake is very tempermental when it comes to humditiy. *For example, about 3 years ago I had 3 bags left over from the winter, and they turned to pure liquid during the summer months. *I was out of $36. So fast foward to today. *He calls me up, and says that he just ordered 5 bags of dowflake from Chemlawn for $8.00 each (great deal), and he wanted me to start using that on the sidewalks instead of the rock salt. *Sure no problem I said. Now here is the real problem there. *I still have to charge him a service fee to put down the salt, but I have no idea what to charge. *Usually my fee is based right with the salt cost. *To me, it would be really strange to charge $5 each time I put down salt for his sidewalks. *Normally I would charge $15 to salt the sidewalks and it only takes me about 2-3 mins. What do you guys recommend?

[myrlin]

Lawn care business tips

is he a good paying customer.as long he buying dowflake i wood do it for nothing.he has ben with you for 6 year. and cake 3 min or so.you do snow remove right. barry

[Steve]

Maybe you could have it set up where you charge him the normal rate and then show a credit since you are using his product.

That way, the bill won't look strange when he runs out of the product and you have to supply it again.

Just a suggestion.

I have always hated it when customers supply their own products. *I usually tell them, "Sorry, it's my products or nothing." *But he had already bought the products. *In my opinion there is no way that I am not going to charge him anything. *I am just trying to think of a good rate though. *I will probably just end up charging him $5 or something.

Like you said though, the big thing is what happens if he runs out. I am not buying it. In my opinion rock salt is an expendable inventory item, not dow flake. There is a $9+ dollar difference per bag.

I am basically going to leave it up to him. If he wants me to apply that, then he needs to purchase it himself and store it as his property.