[thelist] Bill E-mail As Consultation Hours?

Palyne Gaenir palyne at sciencehorizon.com
Wed Jul 19 17:10:34 CDT 2000


For me it depends on the client and on what else I'm billing.  If I'm 
billing a good salary for working that week and I also spent some 
hours explaining things in email or phone, I don't usually charge.  I 
consider that part of the job.  If I didn't do much billing that week 
though, and did a lot of correspondence (I get hundreds of email a 
day NOT counting lists and spend at least 2-3 hours on email) I might 
charge.  I charge a lot less for 'communications' than coding. 

I realize this is totally arbitrary.  It'd never fly in a bureacracy. 
The default is -- I could charge for all of it if I wanted.  Instead, 
I only charge a small portion of it and only if I need the money.  
This allows them to 98% of the time get the best end of the deal, 
while allowing me to occasionally get paid for my time if I'm not 
getting paid for a lot of code work that day/week.  I use the same 
concept on the various sites I'm ProjMgr for (not webmaster).  

You probably can't do this with clients you do not have a high-good-
faith relationship with, though.  My clients are personal projects of 
interest/support for me as well as just paying jobs, so that matters 
in my equation of course.

FWIW.  Palyne

> From: "Aileen Wrothwell" <aileen at stonebikini.com>
snip]
> and the majority of our conversation takes place on e-mail.  Until
> now, I've just considered these discussions, question-answering,
> guidance sessions as kind of a "value added" service included in doing
> business with me.  Clients comment that they appreciate the fact that
> I take the time to answer their questions.  However, lately I find
> that I'm spending more than an hour a day answering e-mail from each
> client.  I'm thinking that this should be billed as consultation time.





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