Side walk service - Summary

[Snoworks]

Well after 10 years of offering shoveling service to our residential customers, here is my summary of how it has impacted my business.

- We have charged between $50.00 to $140.00(Higher than most) for seasonal walkway fee's.
- Up until last year we avr. 45% of customers that choose the service.
-Most complain at the walkway cost as being to high, no matter what the sizes and $ amount we quote.
-I made a business choice to offer walkway service to target a specific customer. Basically clients that dont want to deal with snow at all.
-I have kept the walkway service throughout the years, due to fears that I would loose alot of business if I did not offer it.
- After always breaking even or loosing money on walkway service when considering labor expenses, and truck down time. We decieded to make walkways mandatory on our contracts for the 2003/2004 winter season. We have approx. 200 residential clients that signed up.

-After all the snow we have had in the last couple of weeks, I have had the chance to skip walkway service on all of our routes at one time or anouther(Due to multipule plowings in the same day). When I checked the route completion times with/or without walkways being serviced, the differences shocked me. We could finish a route up to two hours quicker, if we did not shovel the walks. And those times are based off us having a shoveler in the truck with the driver, not just a single plower/shoveler.

-That adds up to 14 additional driveways, or more, I could service per truck, if I did not offer shoveling. 14 x 6 x $320 = $26,880 Thats approx $16,880.00 in additional revenue, with out the hassels of doing the walkways. Also - I save $10,000 in shovel labor during the year, which brings me back to the $26,880 number.

-It has only taken me 10 years to beat this fact into my head, but, I do not think I will offer sidewalk service again! Well, if they are willing to pay, I really dont care. But I doubt that people will pay $200.00 to shovel a small walkway for the season. Especially since most laugh at me when I quote them $80.00. for similar walks. Again - why do walks when you no you can make more money not doing them!

Comments welcomed!

Chuck B.

[JimL]

We shovel around 15 sidewalks that take around 15-20 minutes a place, depends on the snow but 2 guys can do them in 15 minutes usually. I don't think we make much money on that, eccept the banks. Only place we make money is our big plaza we shovel, it takes minimum 55 minutes to do, thats the fastest we have done it with 2 guys. I know we make money there, but these little ones is where we loose the money.

[JCurtis]

I don't do sidewalks or front steps for any residential ( ok , i do one but it is a LARGE $$$$ account) I have to shovel out the automatic gates at the end of the driveway so the five minutes it takes to do the walk and steps to the front door isnt a big deal.

I do charge them but its only a nominal fee of $25.00 ( not bad for 10 minutes of work) and it doesnt add much to the route time.

Everyone else ( residential) does their own walks.

Now Commercial is a different story, I would take on sidewalks at commercial accounts, but I would consider putting a separate truck on the road for that depending on how many accounts you have.

You could outfit a truck to carry snow melt, spreaders or snowblowers, what ever you use to clear walks and charge accordingly. By doing this, your plow trucks can take on more accounts and your sidewalk crews can boogie on at their own pace from account to account.

If its a large commercial account that requires constant sidewalk clearing you may want to consider an ATV or some sort of mechancial/ motorized vehicle to keep walks open through othe storm and a laborer or two for stairs.

During this last storm ( 2/6) I saw a guy on a DINGO type piece of equipment with a power broom brushing the slush off a wide walkway. Looked sharp and pretty productive ( i wonder if it had a plow attachment too. ( 0ne drawback .... the operator is exposed to weather ( was in raingear) maybe a small bobcat / skidsteer would have been a better idea??????

[Snoworks]

Wow,

This is an old thread!

Funny how when you have managed to work out the kinks on a operation, you feel differently. In one of the more recent threads, we were discussing the topic of offering sidewalk service and I was a big proponent of doing shoveling.

Reason I brought this thread up is that I have made the decision to seperate all shovelers from plow trucks. I will have a seperate crew shovel all our residential walkways. I estimate it should shave off about an hour to an hour and a half per route.

I will see how it goes the first couple of events and update accordingly.

[Herm Witte]

Wow,

This is an old thread!

Funny how when you have managed to work out the kinks on a operation, you feel differently. In one of the more recent threads, we were discussing the topic of offering sidewalk service and I was a big proponent of doing shoveling.

Reason I brought this thread up is that I have made the decision to seperate all shovelers from plow trucks. I will have a seperate crew shovel all our residential walkways. I estimate it should shave off about an hour to an hour and a half per route.

I will see how it goes the first couple of events and update accordingly.



We provide shoveling service to businesses, condominiums, and other select customers and have for over fifty years. We route our shovelers giving them two - three hours of work per event. We use mostly college age young adults and they go out on their own. It works well for us, our operators have neglible shoveling responsibilities and our equipment stays in production. Hard to justify shoveling at what ??? per hour or ??? per trip and let that thirty, forty, fifty thousand dollar piece of equipment sit there idling.