What would you rather have?

I work for a plumbing company as the "head" dispatcher/CSR. I have many duties to my position but my main one is answering the phones and scheduling services calls for the technicians. We do not charge by the hour, we charge by the job and we send the tech out to the home or business at no charge. This allows the tech to see the job at hand and to assess what needs to be done to fix the problem. He will give the customer a guaranteed written price before hand and we only do the job if the customer approves the price.
Is there a catch? No. If the customer does not like the price the customer does not pay one red cent. We also warranty all jobs for one year. If a faucet that one of my technicians installs develops a problem down the line we send the tech out at no charge and fix the problem at no charge. It doesn't matter how many times in one year we are called out for that same faucet. The only exception to the rule are stoppages. They have a one year one time return warranty because let's face it people how many times have you used too much paper and flushed a huge wad thinking that your toilet is invincible? Same thing goes for garbage disposal stoppages.

Before going to work for this company I have never heard of a plumber going to someones house at no charge and then possibly leaving that house with no money because the customer didn't like the price.

We average about 50 calls a day and I book on average 35 of those calls. The remaining 15 that didn't place a service call was because they could not get past the simple fact that we do not quote over the phone nor do we charge for a service call.

Most mechanics can not tell you over the phone exactly what is wrong with your car. You most likely have to bring your car in and have them hook it up to the computer for a diagnostic reading and then they let you know what your in for. Even if you do not have them do any work on the car you still have to pay them for the diagnostic fee. So why is it so hard to understand that we do not give pricing over the phone?

What would you rather have happen to you? Having a company that stands behind their work enough to warranty it for a full year and have the assurance that if there is a problem with what the tech came out for will be taken care of with no more cost to you. Or. Would you rather have an hourly rate along with jacked up prices for parts and when the job does fail later down the road or quite possibly the very next day you have the same company come out and get charged a second time for a job that should have been done correctly in the first place? Of course there are defective parts to consider but even with the hourly company they still charge you for a new part where my company does not. Hmmm... wouldn't this be a no brainer?