The short answer
A return visit costs the labour, van and travel for the trip, the office time to arrange it, and the work the team didn't do elsewhere that day, which together usually come to many times the value of the part or fix. Most return visits trace back to a missing item, an unclear definition of complete, or an error made at survey or order, not to the fitters.
By Euan Pallister, Operations & Quality Improvement Consultant. Published on .
What goes into the cost
When someone asks what a return visit cost, the answer is usually the price of the part. The real cost has five lines:
- Fitters’ time. Usually two people, for at least half a day once travel and access are counted. Use your internal hourly rate, not their wage.
- Van and travel. Fuel, mileage and parking or congestion charges, plus any access equipment you have to take or hire again.
- Office time. Someone works out what is missing, orders or finds it, rebooks the team and tells the client. That is often an hour or two per visit.
- The part or the fix. Usually the smallest line.
- The work that didn’t get done. A team on a return visit isn’t on the next job. In a busy period, that pushes other work back and can mean turning work away.
Lines 1 to 4 can be added up from records. Line 5 is real but harder to count, so leave it out of the figure you show the board and mention it alongside.
A worked example
This is an illustration with round numbers. Replace every line with your own.
| Line | Assumption | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Fitters | 2 people × 4.5 hours × £32 | £288 |
| Van and travel | 60-mile round trip | £55 |
| Office time | 1.5 hours × £30 | £45 |
| Part | One missing hinge set | £20 |
| Per visit | £408 |
At two return visits a week, that is over £42,000 a year, before counting the work the teams didn’t do.
Why they happen
In our experience, return visits in businesses that make, deliver and install come from a few repeating causes:
- No shared definition of complete. The workshop, the warehouse and the fitters each have their own idea of what a finished delivery is.
- A delivery note that can’t be checked against the job. If it lists codes and quantities but not rooms or phases, nobody on site can tell what is missing until it is needed.
- Items never on the order. Fixings, fitting packs or a special that was agreed with the client but never reached the purchase order. No dispatch check can catch what was never ordered.
- Survey and design errors. Something made to the wrong size has to be remade and refitted.
- Damage in transit or on site. Often avoidable with better packing and protection.
Three checks that stop most of them
- A one-page delivery note per room or phase, listing everything that should be there, checked at loading and signed on site.
- An order check before the purchase order goes, comparing the order with the quote and the drawing, so items that were sold actually get ordered.
- Book every return visit to its job with a reason code. Within a month you will see which causes dominate, and that tells you which fix to make first.
If you’d like help working out what return visits are costing you, the free Margin Leak Review looks at a sample of your own records in about an hour.
Quick answers
What is a return visit?
Any trip back to a job that should already have been finished, to deliver a missing item, fix a fault or complete a snag. It doesn't include planned visits that were in the price.
How do we cost a return visit?
Add the fitters' time at your internal rate, the van and travel, the office time to arrange it, and any parts. Agree the figure with finance and use it for every visit, so the total is believable.
Why do we keep going back for missing items?
Usually because nobody shares one definition of complete, the delivery note can't be checked against the job, or the item was never on the order in the first place.
Should return visits be charged to the job?
Yes. If they go to overheads, the job's final margin looks better than it was and the cause stays hidden.