Tipping Installers

[Rlanham]

I had a tree problem early this summer. Installer showed up around 8pm. (dark out).. he got delayed..
Took down my superdish and put up a dish 500 on a pole in a different spot.
He did this mostly in the dark.. Called dish up and gave them some type of excuse so I didn't have to pay anything.. $20 tip was money well spent IMO.

 

[585960]

Gee, so sorry us Dish folks are so frakking poor. Must suck for you... Sheesh...

No, I agree with you. It must suck MORE for you!!!

 

[jokeworm]

I have worked my ass off for people, to get a coke and a thanks. Some people.

Its the people who EXPECT the tip that never seem to get one from me.

You do your job well .. good for you... so do I ... But you turn up EXPECTING a tip - and you will probably go away disappointed. Pretty much everyone out there can do the job that they are hired to do on a daily basis .. only when you do something above and beyond should you expect to get a "bonus" for it.

You want to work for tips .. go get a job in a bar or restaurant... and as long as my food arrives in a timely manner and my glass never runs dry .. you will be tipped handsomely.

 

[585960]

I NEVER go in with the idea of being tipped, never. When the job shows its obviously not a run of the mill job, and you go in and make it work, effortlessly, and the customer knows, just by the amount of time you're there, and no breaks, etc., its the same old. Some people are generous in nature, and some aren't. Its the way it goes. Its nice when you get a customer who see's and knows when they're getting a good/great job done for them.

 

[rcdallas]

Average about $20... or sometimes lunch even or rare sit down and have dinner with the family!

The most I ever received for a honest no bs tip was $100. Customer had previously been told he couldn't have service, I went out of my way to verify LOS and sure enough finished my route and came back to him in the freezing cold weather, very thankful to say the least. Second best $40.

I never sold extra remotes or anything like that, the guy who gave me the $100 actually set me up at first asking about doing all this extra work/remotes for a fee I told him no I don't do that... I guess as a test for my ethics?

Anyhow If the installer goes out of his/her way to provide excellent service treat em right.

 

[mattopia]

I tipped $20 after my E* installation. I was prepared to tip $30-$40, but I consider the work done "average" and not great. Installer did not seem to be expecting a tip.

Had to have him out again to realign a few days later and troubleshoot issues with a secondary 211. He was here about 45 minutes and I got the feeling he expected another tip, which I did not give.

Also, I was not amused that on the secon visit he explained transponders as being "smaller satellites that are in orbit close to the main satellite"..... He also believed that switching transponders in the point dish screen was necessary to find the one with the best signal. I am not an idiot...

 

[Sadoun]

The installer gets paid for the installation job by the contractor and a tip is not part of the deal or excepted from the customer. However, if the customer believes that the installer did a great job above and beyond the call of duty, a tip or a word of appreciation would not hurt.

 

[Van]

Gee, so sorry us Dish folks are so frakking poor. Must suck for you... Sheesh...

Maybe your poor but I was making good money when I left, as it is I would have been just as appreicative if not more so to have a customer do that on every four room install that I ever did. I cant begin to think at how many times I rolled on a four rim sitting on a slab that had all four tv's sitting on inside walls and there was no cable in the house and I had to put the dish on a pole mount 150ft from the house.

 

[chadzx11]

Maybe your poor but I was making good money when I left, as it is I would have been just as appreicative if not more so to have a customer do that on every four room install that I ever did. I cant begin to think at how many times I rolled on a four rim sitting on a slab that had all four tv's sitting on inside walls and there was no cable in the house and I had to put the dish on a pole mount 150ft from the house.

At least yours actually have 4 tvs. I hate those sumbitches who are getting installed in october who are giving TVs to their kids for christmas, but expect you to install a 625 and a 322 anyway, like they will remember how to hook it up. Morons.

 

[chadzx11]

I was prepared to tip $30-$40, but I consider the work done "average" and not great.

Why would you tip on an average install? That's like tipping at a buffet where the server only brings you a drink once. What's the deal with tipping at buffets anyway? If you take a job at a buffet for $2/hour, you probably deserve $2 an hour or you wouldn't be working there. :

 

[JEFFinINDY]

What would be an appropriate amount to tip an installer? My 722 was installed today. It was a simple reciever swap out, that took about 45 minutes. I gave the guy twenty dollars, and he seemed surprised that I offered him anything. Was that enough?

I typically don't tip professionals. Service industry people should be tipped of course (restaurants, hotel staff, bellhops, etc.), but I don't think you need to tip folks like plumbers, cable/satellite techs, etc..

 

[steve4810]

I think folks should tip if they want and not tip if they want. But never feel like you "ought to" tip a dish installer.

Tipping is most commonly the way minimum wage service workers are paid (but only as long as they do the best they can. If the wait staff just phones it in a "thanks" is all I figure I owe but I'll usually leave about the expected amount anyway figuring everybody has a bad day.)

Tradesmen, including dish installers, have learned a trade and are paid what their time is worth. And it's critically important to note they are almost always hourly employees. Long jobs pay more than short jobs.

Of course there are independent contractors out there too and they are not easy to identify or compensate correctly. All things considered they are responsible for pricing their labor what they think it's worth. It shouldn't be your responsibility to guess thatthey may not not make enough for the work they did so you need to give them a break and help them out.

And about "free installs": It's none of anybody's damn business if or what I paid for the job.

Last wrinkle: Anybody doing a personal service for me gets treated well. "No hurry" and "how about a cup of coffee or soft drink?" are standard and personal as well as "Thanks, you did a great job" at the end. But I don't figure which of us has more money or who gets paid more should be considered by either party. It smacks of the"big spender" tucking a twenty down the cleavage of the drink girl and patting her on the cheek with a "buy yourself something pretty, honey." Whoopee, your rich. I'm impressed.

 

[rsmith7]

Offer them a nice cold drink. Do not spoil them into thinking they will always receive a tip.

 

[steve4810]

You know the one that makes me nuts? Barbers! If the haircut costs 8 bucks they can't be making much money and tips are probably pretty important to them and I do whatever I can afford with more for a particularly nice job and less for a chop job.

But what about the $150.00 cut? 20% is 30 bucks. Who do you think needs thirty bucks more? Course if you pay a hundred and fifty plus thirty for a trim, that's what you deserve... In all meanings of the word.

 

[Jim5506]

Dish installer came to replace my 129 LNB because of LNB drift.

I was in the process of swinging my 61.5 dish around to 148 to get locals.

He did the aiming for me, flipped the J pole so the D500 cleared my D1000 and replaced the cable to my Dish500 wing dish, so I tipped him $10.

 

[Van]

I typically don't tip professionals. Service industry people should be tipped of course (restaurants, hotel staff, bellhops, etc.), but I don't think you need to tip folks like plumbers, cable/satellite techs, etc..

Would you consider a waiter/waitress at a 5 star resturaunt a professional then considering that they are bringing out $100 salads? Cable and satellite is a service industry, it became that as a definite when the consumer started expecting to get everything for free.

Offer them a nice cold drink. Do not spoil them into thinking they will always receive a tip.

As an ex installer I can tell you that not a single one of us ever expected to get a tip from each customer that we did a job for. What we did expect was to arive at a clean house with a clean yard ( averaged %50 of the time ) to have someone at the house that wasnt going off on a wild hair because we show up at 8:30am when they felt we should be there at 8am ( happens %70 of the time ) and to have someone who would stay out of our way / off our ladders / keep the kids out of the way / and not tell me how to do my job ( happens about %70 of the time ) and to have someone there that will walk through the pre install with us to work out a plan thats amicable for both parties ( only happens %25 of the time ), thats what we expect thank you very much. Tips are appreciated and accepted graciously as is the customer who actually knows what they are doing and helps out but the above would be nice to have as well but we dont expect this either so for anyone reading this please consider these points the next time your installer comes out.

 

[papalittle]

last week I did a 4 room install (HD, DVRs). I pulled all the old cable out and replaced it, hid as much as i can and cleaned up after I was done. 100.00 tip.

Last month did a 2 room install (625) and hooked up thier DVD, home surround system and VCR. 100.00 tip.

Most tips though are 50. and under.

 

[chadzx11]

last week I did a 4 room install (HD, DVRs). I pulled all the old cable out and replaced it, hid as much as i can and cleaned up after I was done. 100.00 tip.

That wasn't a tip, it was custom labor. No where in your job description does it say to pull out the old cable. I worked for a company once that wanted us to leave anything the customer already had intact, to make it easier on the customer if they decided to drag up and go back to cable. This was in Louisiana, and I think that they have a 3 day right to rescind or some such. I was in an area with no locals and it never failed that little old ladies would order satellite thinking it would give them a better picture on their locals. Of course, most of them would tell you that they never bothered to ask anyone about it before hand.

I moved to memphis so I would not have to deal with that BS anymore. There is more than one way to skin a cat.

 

[papalittle]

That wasn't a tip, it was custom labor. No where in your job description does it say to pull out the old cable. I worked for a company once that wanted us to leave anything the customer already had intact, to make it easier on the customer if they decided to drag up and go back to cable. This was in Louisiana, and I think that they have a 3 day right to rescind or some such. I was in an area with no locals and it never failed that little old ladies would order satellite thinking it would give them a better picture on their locals. Of course, most of them would tell you that they never bothered to ask anyone about it before hand.

I moved to memphis so I would not have to deal with that BS anymore. There is more than one way to skin a cat.

the retailer i work for does not want us to use old wire, saves on service calls and some of our customers live over 100 miles away.

 

[Mainstreet]

Satellite installers dont expect tips. Receiving a tip is more of an exception than the norm. It is, however appreciated when received.

Over the course of the last 9 years, I have received my share of tips. A few (3 or 4) times it was $100. More commonly, it would be a $20. The strangest tip was probably a case of beer from the guy who worked for Coors, or the homemade wine from an old guy in Oklahoma.

I do pay way more attention to detail than an average installer, and always take longer than I should to make it right. I hire techs to do the work for me now, but I definitely don't mind them accepting gratuities for going above and beyond for a customer.

The main point is, don't feel bad if you don't tip, but if a tech does an excellent job and does more than required to make you happy, tip away. Even a $5 or $10 will buy a snack or lunch for the tech on his way to the next job.