(Above: A Redbox DVD that is nickel-and-diming me)

5 days ago, I checked out a Redbox DVD from the local McDonald’s with the intention of returning it the next day.  For those of you who don’t know, Redbox is a DVD distributor that charges $1/day for rentals and has distribution outlets in all sorts of places.  Pretty convenient, eh? The problem is, I forgot to return the DVD and am now left paying $5 of what should have been a $1 bill.

This experience makes me much less likely to rent from Redbox next time around, because I feel like they are nickel-and-diming me (i.e. ripping me off).  I would rather spend the $4 to get a rental at Blockbuster and not worry about returning it on a certain date.

So, I got to thinking about my website design business.  I don’t nickel-and-dime.  That is, I am very up front about costs, and so long as my clients ask nicely, I will even make little tweaks to their websites for free that are completely outside of any agreement we may have.  I figure that sort of customer service leads to happier customers which leads to a better reputation for my business.  So I ask this of you: Are you nickel-and-diming your customers?

There is nothing worse than being in a situation where your pocketbook is at the mercy of experts in an area that you know very little about.  I just got back from a car-repair shop in Minneapolis, where I had to get my car towed due to its reluctance to start when I turned the key in the ignition.

I know nothing about cars, and car-repair shops are scary for that reason.  I cringed when the guy at the desk told me that it might cost $100 for the mechanic to simply open the hood (the coat hanger that I was previously using to open the hood fell out and was rendered unusable).  Then there was the fact that the car wouldn’t start up.  Oh boy, was I in for it!

Thankfully, AAA took care of my towing expenses, or else the final $174 bill would have been much higher.

As I was waiting for my car to get fixed, the dollar signs painfully whizzing past my brain, I had a moment of clarity.  Some of my clients probably feel the same way when they ask me to fix a website issue or build a website from scratch.  That is, my clients mostly know next to nothing about what it takes to build a website. That’s not a dig on them, quite the contrary.  We can’t expect to know everything about everything – that’s what experts are for!  So, we hire a mechanic to fix our car, a web guy to build our website, an accountant to do our taxes, etc.  All of these experts are to a large extent given free reign to charge what they deem appropriate (and what the market will bear), and we must grin and take it. We have no other choice in the matter, except to learn the trade in question, but who has time for that?!

Next time someone asks me “how much?”, I will have much more empathy for their situation.  They are probably scared, gripping their checkbook and bracing for the worst.  Like me at the car-repair shop earlier, they will have to trust the expert (me) to do a great job at a fair price.