As people grow increasingly “connected”, a lot of my clients now communicate almost exclusively by e-mail. In fact, I’d venture to say that 30-40% of my work is done remotely, by e-mail, or on the phone.

While the benefits of working remotely are immediately evident (less gas, less time spent on the road, easier on the environment), I am increasingly taxed by smaller requests that could’ve been resolved by a simple google search, or checking an application’s help menu. I would often not bill for many 1-2 minute things, simply because they went by so quickly. For this reason, I am adjusting the way I bill for remote assistance.

Until now, I have always billed by the minute for remote support, which includes email, phone, and remote assistance. With the new billing method, remote support billing will be done in units of 6 minutes (1/10th of an hour). I will now be able to be more thorough with electronic responses, and I encourage them, as e-mail correspondence doubles as documentation when problems can be resolved with a few instructions.

This new billing method is now in effect.