Unfortunately, if we misquote the hiring company and if they already accepted our bid and assigned to us, they have the option to decline any fee increase. Just like if we accepted an assignment for $200 and the hiring company later turned around and said Oh I meant to say we would only pay you $75. Should that happen, then we too would have the option to decline any fee decrease.
In this case, if I cannot come to an agreement on rate with the hiring company, I just politely apologize for any misunderstanding and move on. The danger of being too gruff with the schedulers on the phone (however justified we may be or may feel!), is they are human and may hold our attitude against us later on in the form of not calling us for other assignments. These schedulers’ jobs are very stressful. Many are still working from home and they are juggling multiple issues. They are all fighting against deadlines and last second requests, last second changes, trying had to get all these appointments scheduled and assigned to signing agents as quickly as possible so they can move on to the next. They are being monitored on how efficiently they get their workload completed.
You are absolutely right to take expenses into consideration when you bid an assignment! 100%. That is smart business. Gas prices are going up, but I would not tell them it is a FUEL CHARGE. Everyone on the planet knows gas prices are increasing right now. So simply increase your rate. As our costs go up, yes indeed, our rates must go up if we hope to earn a living and stay in business.
From the hiring company’s perspective, when they call us for an assignment request it irritates them to get nickled and dimed. They don’t want to hear us tell them it will be $ for fuel, $ for this, $ for that, $ for that… They just want us to tell them the bottom line: Given the assignment, WHAT IS THE RATE WE WILL CHARGE?
What has happened to me before I would be on the phone with the hiring company, they’d offer XX ,I counter with XXX and they would accept. Then they would send me the confirmation that contains the OLD XX offer. This is why I immediately look at the confirmation rate that they send me via email. If it reflects the wrong fee amount (and it sometimes does), I call right back, give the order number, and explain the fee amount is incorrect and I politely remind them that what we had agreed on (they usually remember!). Then I politely ask them to resend the confirmation with the correct fee amount. 99% of the time it is just a data entry mistake. Maybe the scheduler had made the correction on the back end of their system and had sent me the assignment confirmation before saving the new fee amount. Either way, I try to address fee errors immediately because what we say on the phone is one thing, and what is in writing is what is enforceable.
I have also inadvertently hit the ACCEPT button in a text message when I meant to hit the REPLY to counter option. So, if that assignment does happen to get assigned to me with a rate I cannot accept, I have two options:
- I can immediately contact the scheduler to tell them my error so that they can repost the assignment.
- I can do the assignment for the unacceptable rate and chalk it up to an expensive lesson learned.
Cheers to the domino effect. I hear you loud and clear!
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percent along with efficient negotiation skills!
