Having Customers in Your Home

When working from home there will be times when your customers visit to avail themselves of your service. You should decide how this is going to impact on your home life as well as your business.

Customers are the back bone of any electrical repair business. Without them you will not be able to earn a living. Contracts with companies will come and go but your general bread and butter work will be from individual people.

House Calls

When working from home your contact with customers will be mainly through house calls to their home where you will endeavour to repair their electrical items in the house. Sometimes items are taken back to your workshop where you will complete the repair and return the item back to the customer. This will not necessitate the customer visiting your home.

Your Home Workshop

Where is your home workshop? Perhaps you have an integral garage that is suitable for you to use as a workshop or a garage or large shed in the garden. Some people use a spare room within the house which is fine until customers start to visit your home in order to deliver items needing repairs or want to wait whilst you carry out a repair. Where will the customer wait? Will your family approve of strangers in the home?

Privacy in the Home

If your workshop is within the home you do not want strangers traipsing through your private property and interrupting your family’s private life whilst they wait for their repairs. Either say no to customers who wish to drop off items for repair or allow them only to your front door and not to step over the threshold. Make sure that customers are aware that you do not accept visitors to your home and that you only make house calls.

Hours of Work

If you allow customers to your home then stipulate times they are allowed to visit so that your home life is not interrupted.

A Waiting Area

If possible have a room next to your workshop, or built within your workshop where customers can wait whilst repairs are carried out. Do not allow them into your workshop area as it is not conducive to good working practices to have customers watch while your work on their repairs.

Safety and Security

Having strangers visit your home and workshop could be a problem as the layout of your home will become common knowledge and could affect security if the wrong sort of person is allowed to infiltrate the privacy of your home. This could also affect the safety of your children and belongings. Check that your home insurance is not compromised by your working from home or that working from home does not affect any business insurance that you hold.

Planning for Customers

When deciding whether to work from home plan carefully how you will treat your customers who want to come to your home for business. Decide on where they will be allowed to wait and the times that they can call. Failure to set guidelines could mean customers waking the family late at night and interrupting meals and your family home life and privacy.