If you're gonna do it , than do it right . Might as well take on the Requests for Service ( Can we Service ? ) surveys as well . They go hand in hand , and sometimes can be preformed at the same time on the same route without back tracking .
As far as what to charge ; send a man out one day , and have him pretend to cover a bunch of imaginary tickets with varying degrees of difficulty ( 10-20 entire propertys , 1 mile of road construction , 3 EMERGENCY LOCATES , 10 determine UG or OH , and don't forget a couple of remarks ,etc . , and spread these out over your entire coverage area ) . have him record the time spent on each ticket . Track all associated expenses : payroll ( hourly or salary ( and performance or commission ) , gas/fuel , tolls , supplies , etc .
Now determine your damage exposure ; are you responsible for repair/replacement ? If your are already in the business , as you say , than the material costs will hurt you the most , but , don't forget insurance to cover the inevitable outages and threatened lawsuits , even if they never get filed . If so , you got to factor some percentage of that in , which possibly could vary depending on the expertise of your personnell and the accurracy of the locating equipment . I always went for the best I could resonably afford or finance .
I think you and the MSO should nail down a few loose ends regarding liabilitys before you commit to a rate . Once you all got that square , start doing all your factoring and estimating based on what that one man did on that pretend day , and what it cost you , your coverage area , average daily ticket load . Figure in equipment financing/replacement , annual raise , additional locators or office personnel , office equipment ( telephone , fax , computer , vehicle maintennence , etc. , and if there's any room left , your profit margin .
Remember , this is a whole different ball game . The MSO looks at this as Risk Management , and are paying you as the insurance against damage occurring . This must be a profitable service by you to them , and not just an additional service available to them by you ( hope you understand what I mean ) . Good Luck
ps. some one if not all your locating personnell will have to attend many occassional meetings/training sessions .
