How would you feel if your landlord let you know that they had been overcharging you by 10% on rent for the past 3 years? What if they apologized and made good on their promise to reimburse you the thousands of dollars you are owed?
There’s a certain similarity between this fictitious landlord and your waste haulers. Your waste haulers have almost certainly been charging you 10-30% more than necessary. But they’re probably going to be the very last people to admit this, and there’s no way they’re going to reimburse you.
So what can you do? Hold them accountable. Stop doing these three things:
Not capping rate increases
Getting too many pick-ups
Not eliminating waste fees
These are issues we’ve fixed for many of our clients in the past 19 years, so we know that fixing these key issues will affect your bottom line positively.
Problem #1: No caps on rate increases on your waste hauler contract
Haulers, like all of us, like making profit. The problem is that most of them like doing it more than we think is fair. Haulers will raise their prices 1-4 times a year at a 10-15% increase each time! If you have multiple properties, this represents thousands of dollars in overspending.
Haulers can do this because there’s likely nothing in your current contract that limits these price hikes.
Solution: Attend to your contract. Pay attention to when your contract is up for renewal. Make sure that the “Notes” section on your contract includes price caps.
Different haulers will allow different rate caps. It depends on your region of the country and it often depends on how many competitors are in the area.
Problem # 2: Receiving Too Many Pick Ups from Your Waste Hauler.
70% of companies are getting too much service from their haulers. Why? Because haulers are compensated based on quantity of pick-ups. The more times they visit your locations, the more money they make.
So they tend to err on the side of too many pick-ups! We currently have the technology to monitor your fill levels to ensure you’re not receiving too much service. (This technology also lets us know if your hauler has missed service, and if you are due for reimbursement.)
Solution: Reduce the number of pick-ups at one of your locations. Test out how many you really need. Or, give us a call and let us do all the legwork!
Problem #3: Allowing ancillary fees on contracts.
Waste fees are fees like “administrative fees” or “waste cost recovery fees” that appear on your invoices. Most typical waste fees don’t have to be included on your contract.
And, like price hikes, if they’re not prohibited by your contract, there’s a good chance that you’ll get them on your invoices.
And we find that most waste hauling companies do exactly that.
Solution: Get all-inclusive, flat rates for your waste fees. When we negotiate client contracts, we include all fees and waste charges in one rate that is capped at a certain percentage growth. We allow the haulers to increase the flat rate at specific intervals in the contract term.
It’s fair to the haulers and it’s fair to our clients. The haulers can incrementally raise their prices to keep up with their own rising costs, but only within fair constraints. And our clients know exactly when and by how much their waste costs will rise, which really helps budgeting.
Solutions for Your Top Three Waste Problems
90% of companies have these waste problems at their locations - regardless of industry. These simply aren’t problems that most people are aware of.
But if you do the following, you will save yourself 10-30% on your waste expense every year:
Cap price increases
Reduce the number of pick-ups
Eliminate ancillary fees
Doing these three simple things will help protect your bottom line and prevent future overspending.
Have you ever tried one of these solutions for your waste management?