Brenda,
I have been toying with the idea of charging extra for fax backs for about 3 months now. I kept a little journal of the fax backs that were required. I made notations of who it was for, how many pages and the overall time it took to fax and resort the package. What I came up with was astonishing.
Within the month of March, I had 14 packages that required fax backs above 30 pages. The calculated average time to fax and resort came to 32 minutes. This time totaled over 7 ˝ hours of uncompensated time for the month of March
I used this method to determine the time it also took to split and copy packages.
My total time spent on faxing, splitting and resorting docs in March came to 10 hours and 45 minutes.
On April 1st I began asking, “Will there be any fax backs required?”. I inform them that I now charge for fax backs and tell them my rate. So far, I have had several tell me that no fax backs are required but when the package arrives…viola…in very large print on the second page: THE FOLLOWING LIST OF CRITICAL DOCS MUST BE FAXED BACK OR YOUR FEE WILL BE REDUCED…So, I call them back and remind them that I charge for this service and what my fee is.- No problem so far.
One attorney told me that Joe Schmoe down the street doesn’t charge a dime for fax backs.
The way I see it is: So what if Joe Schmoe down the street faxes for free? Let Joe Schmoe burn up his business equipment and waste time. I now refuse to provide this service at no cost. I charge because my time is valuable to me. I run a business, not a charity. Besides that, try taking a stack load of documents to Kinkos and see if you can fax for free.
I too will now pass on the individuals who refuse to pay for fax backs.
Have a good one!.
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