The Fee Disclosure Before Dispatch SOP

Purpose

A trip charge or diagnostic fee the customer first hears about at the door is the single most common seed of a consumer complaint in residential service. The fee itself is lawful almost everywhere; what the complaint is really about is that the customer agreed to a visit without knowing what the visit cost. This SOP makes every booking carry a record that the fees were stated, in approved words, and accepted before a truck was assigned, so when a customer at the door says "nobody told me," the tech is holding the answer instead of an argument. Without it, the office's habit and the tech's memory are the only evidence, and neither survives a regulator letter.

This is not legal advice.

Scope

Covers: every booked visit that can carry a fee independent of the repair: a trip or service-call charge, a diagnostic fee, an after-hours premium, a fee to return for a missed appointment. Phone, online and walk-in bookings.

Does not cover: how to set or structure those fees and whether a given fee is permitted in a given state (see related: Trip Charges, Diagnostic Fees and Disclosure); the scripting craft of saying a price on the phone well (see related: How to Write a Price Disclosure Script for the Phone); pricing during a declared emergency (see related: Emergency Pricing and State Price Gouging Laws).

Roles and responsibilities

The handoff that fails is CSR to dispatcher: a busy morning, a customer who says "just send someone," and a ticket released with the acceptance field blank.

The procedure

1. Fix the fee wording and give it a version number. The owner writes the exact sentence that states each fee, what triggers it, and what it is credited against, and numbers it (for example, F-3). Each quarter the owner checks it against the state layer: the FTC's fee rule (16 CFR Part 464, effective May 2025) reaches only live-event tickets and short-term lodging, so it does not govern a service call, but Section 5 of the FTC Act still reaches a deceptive fee, and several states now have all-in pricing laws that do reach services. California's Honest Pricing Law (Civil Code 1770(a)(29), effective July 2024) makes an advertised price that leaves out a mandatory fee a violation, and Minnesota and Massachusetts have since adopted their own versions. Acceptance: a numbered wording on file, dated, with the states it was checked against. What wrong looks like: each CSR describing the fee in their own words. Stop rule: if an advertisement shows a visit price that excludes a fee every customer must pay, and the shop advertises into an all-in pricing state, the ad is pulled until it shows the total.

2. State the fees before the appointment is confirmed, not after. The CSR reads the approved wording after the problem is described and before offering a time slot, because a customer who has already been given a slot hears the fee as a change to a deal. Acceptance: on the recording or in the online flow, the fee statement precedes the slot offer. What wrong looks like: "we'll get someone out Tuesday, oh, and there's a service fee." Stop rule: if the CSR offered the slot first, the CSR restates the fee and asks the acceptance question again, explicitly, before closing the call. No physical hazard; the hazard at this step is an emergency call, so if the caller reports a gas odor, smoke, sparking or water near electrical equipment, the CSR gives the safety instruction first (for gas: leave the house now, touch no switches, call the gas utility from outside) and the fee conversation waits.

3. Ask for acceptance as a question and record the answer. The CSR asks "Is that all right with you?" and waits for a yes. The ticket records: accepted yes or no, wording version, CSR name, date and time, and channel. Online, the fees appear on the page above the submit button with a checkbox that is not pre-checked. Acceptance: every field filled. What wrong looks like: "accepted" ticked by default, or the customer's silence logged as a yes. Stop rule: a customer who declines or hesitates is not booked with a fee; the CSR offers what the fee buys, and if still declined, the call ends without a booking and is logged as fee-declined.

4. Confirm in writing. The booking confirmation text or email repeats the fee sentence word for word from the approved version. Acceptance: confirmation sent within 15 minutes of booking, delivery status saved. What wrong looks like: a confirmation template that says "fees may apply." Stop rule: if the confirmation cannot be delivered, the CSR notes it and the tech restates fees in step 6 with the customer's acknowledgment captured on the device.

5. Gate dispatch on the acceptance field. The dispatcher does not assign a truck to a ticket whose acceptance field is blank or says no. Acceptance: zero tickets dispatched with a blank field in the weekly audit. What wrong looks like: a blank field overridden because the customer is a regular. Stop rule: a blank field sends the ticket back to the CSR to call the customer before dispatch; if the customer cannot be reached and the job cannot wait, the ticket is dispatched marked FEE NOT ACCEPTED, which tells the tech step 7's no-record branch applies.

6. Restate on arrival, before any work. At the door, the tech restates the fee in the approved wording and asks the customer to acknowledge on the device. Acceptance: acknowledgment captured with a time stamp before the first measurement or tool comes out. What wrong looks like: the fee mentioned for the first time when the invoice is printed. Stop rule: if the customer disputes it, go to step 7 before starting anything. The tech stays at the door or in a common area while a dispute is open, does not begin opening equipment, and leaves the property if the customer becomes hostile; a fee is never worth a confrontation inside someone's house.

7. Resolve a dispute at the door from the record. If the ticket shows acceptance, the tech states what the record shows (the date, the time, the CSR) without reading it as an accusation and offers to call the office. If the ticket shows no acceptance or FEE NOT ACCEPTED, the fee is waived for this visit, and the tech says so plainly and records it. Acceptance: the dispute ends with either an acknowledgment, a waiver, or the customer declining the visit, each recorded. What wrong looks like: the tech negotiating the fee down on his own authority, which teaches customers that the fee is negotiable at the door. Stop rule: only a no-record ticket gets an automatic waiver; a recorded acceptance that is still disputed goes to the office lead, who decides within the same call.

8. Audit weekly. The office lead samples 20 booked tickets, checks the acceptance field against the recording or online log, and counts dispatched tickets with blank fields. Acceptance: 20 of 20 tickets with a matching acceptance, zero blank dispatches. What wrong looks like: an audit that checks the field without listening to the call. Stop rule: any mismatch triggers a review of that CSR's last 10 bookings and a retraining before their next shift.

The record this produces

Each ticket carries: fee wording version, accepted yes or no, CSR, channel, date and time, confirmation delivery status, arrival acknowledgment time stamp, and any dispute outcome (acknowledged, waived, declined) with who decided. The weekly audit sheet carries the 20 ticket numbers, matches, blank dispatches and corrective action. The office lead reads the audit weekly; the owner reads the quarterly fee-wording check; anyone answering a complaint reads the single ticket, and the call recording if the shop's notice to callers meets the state's recording-consent law (some states, California and Florida among them, require every party's consent).

A worked pass

An HVAC shop charges a trip fee on every visit, about a fifth of its typical repair ticket, and a diagnostic fee credited toward any repair the customer approves the same day. Wording version F-3, checked against the state layer in January.

• Step 2 and 3, booking 1: a Monday call. The CSR reads F-3 before offering times; the customer says yes. Ticket shows accepted, F-3, CSR initials, 9:42. Pass.
• Step 4: confirmation text delivered 9:44. Pass.
• Step 5, booking 2: FAILED. On the same morning, a second customer said "just get someone here, it's 90 degrees in the house," and the CSR booked the slot without asking. The field was blank. The dispatcher, behind on the board, assigned it. Stop rule should have sent it back; it did not, so it reached the tech with no marking at all.
• Step 6 and 7, booking 2: the tech restated F-3 at the door.

TECH:     Before I start, there's a trip fee for the
          visit and a diagnostic fee that comes off
          any repair you approve today.
CUSTOMER: Nobody said anything about a fee.
TECH:     Let me look at your ticket. You're right,
          it doesn't show anyone went over it with
          you. So there's no trip fee today.
CUSTOMER: And the diagnostic?
TECH:     Same. Today's look is on us. If it needs a
          repair I'll price it before I touch it.

The tech waived both, recorded the waiver as no-record, and found a failed capacitor; the customer approved the repair at the quoted price.

• Step 8: Friday's audit sampled 20 tickets. 19 matched; booking 2 was the 20th. One blank dispatch. Stop rule taken: the CSR's last 10 bookings were reviewed (9 clean, 1 more with the slot offered before the fee but acceptance asked afterward, as step 2's stop rule allows), and the CSR was retrained Monday. The dispatcher's board now refuses to assign a ticket with a blank field unless FEE NOT ACCEPTED is set, which turns step 5 from a habit into a lock.

References

• FTC Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees, 16 CFR Part 464 (scope limited to live-event tickets and short-term lodging)
• FTC Act Section 5, 15 U.S.C. 45 (deceptive acts and practices)
• California Civil Code 1770(a)(29) (Honest Pricing Law), and your own state's all-in pricing law where one exists
• See related: Trip Charges, Diagnostic Fees and Disclosure
• See related: The Federal Fee Rule and the State All-In Pricing Laws