Pricing Considerations for Process Serving

When considering how to price your services speed of delivery is another factor to consider. It is one thing if you have a court document that needs served; it is another thing if your client needs it served right now.  Charge a rush fee for that.  Why?  Well, beyond the obvious, let me put it to you this way.  If you have five routine papers you need to serve and four of them are all situated in one general locale, but then you have the fifth one needs to be served that day … no, that very instant. Oh, and it is on the other side of town, thereby taking you away from the $240.00 you will make off of the four other papers, it just makes good business sense that the client needs to understand (and they typically do) that a premium charge will be assessed.  After all, you are now delaying serving four other papers just to insure that one is served.  Do not be shy about charging for a rush.  Sure, if you want to score points with the client, then perhaps you might occasionally consider not charging the rush fee.  Do that too often however and you will find yourself working harder for a lot less profit than you can reasonably expect to make.

The level of difficulty of the assignment is also a key factor.  Say you have to deliver court documents on a military installation and/or may have to wait two hours at a particular location for the defendant/witness to appear so you can serve them?  What if you have to develop some sort of complex operation, in order to find yourself in front of the defendant/witness, because they have been or are known to evade service?  Factor these into the equation on a case-by-case basis.

Number of documents served is another area to keep in mind.  Now I have seen this vary from server to server.  What happens if you have two different types of documents to deliver to the same individual? Should you charge for that extra document?  Some servers do not while others do, but at half the price of the first document ($30.00). Still others charge full price for the second document ($60.00).  In terms of pricing second instruments (or second documents), to charge or not to charge is the question.  If you ask your client, especially those who operate in family law, they do not like being charged per document for the obvious reason that it increases their costs.  In the case of family law where you typically see second, third and sometimes fourth instruments, you should consider the issue of your time. Various affidavits of service come with serving those extra documents; there is the factoring in that should you forget to deliver one of those extra documents that could mean the difference between a court appearance or a cancellation. You also have to consider your liability towards your client goes up considerably if you fail to complete or fail to serve everything properly.  What I have mostly experienced is charging second instruments at half the going rate of a first instrument.  Very few servers charge nothing for the extra document, and those that charge full price very rarely get the business or get it from a very loyal constituent of clients.

In my next post, I will provide you with two prevailing rules of capitalist economics.  First, charge what you can afford.  Second, charge based on demand. 

Are you ready to start your own Process Service business? Check out my book “The Business End of Process, Running a Process Service Company From the Ground Up” available on Amazon.com. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=%22The+Business+End+of+Process%22&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3A%22The+Business+End+of+Process%22&ajr=0.