Page 188 - Schooley Mitchell Marketing Manual

SCHOOLEY MITCHELL
MARKETING MANUAL
Cheat Sheets – Waste
Manual Revised: April 3 2025 Confidential
- 183 -
Waste Cheat Sheet
Fact Finding /Document Gathering Best Practices
Ask for online access to all vendors, or at least the largest accounts we will audit
Ask if there are seasonal changes and for invoices during peak and off-season
For hazardous and non-hazardous liquid waste, ask for the waste manifests
For medical, ask if they use the current vendor for their OSHA compliance training
Ask for contracts, pricing agreements, rental agreements (for equipment) and service agreements. Vendors all use different naming conventions.
Ask if they have any special requirements (pick up on Saturday and Sunday, locks, wheels, pick up after 7 a.m., etc.)
Take pictures of the bins Briefing Points
Category Pain Points
Annual price increases and regular price creep, including inflation fees may not be noticed on regular invoices.
Billing errors are common – charges for exempt services, charges for canceled services, increases above negotiated inflation charges, missed pick-up charges, over-filling charge when caused by a missed pick-up, etc.
Additional charges are incurred without notice – RMO (recycled material offset), processing fees, fuel, environmental, container refresh, state fees, overages, contamination, tonnage, admin, etc.
Implication Questions
Do you have software to monitor monthly invoices for multiple additional fees and eliminate invalid charges?
Do you have software to monitor annual pricing increases and errors in bills?
Savings Opportunities
A reduction in the base rates for services
Reducing or eliminating fees when possible (ex: Admin, Fuel, Environmental, Rental Charges, Container
Refresh/Container Maintenance)
Optimize the container sizes, pick-up frequency, and billing errors (billed for a container removed)
Real Client Stories Manufacturing Company
This client was paying $3,000.00 for a 4-yard waste bin serviced once per week. This was highly inflated as the vendor applied annual pricing increases over the last 20 years and no one had been reviewing or monitoring it. We got a quote from the incumbent for the business next door to see what pricing should be from this vendor and it was about 80% less.
Alternative options confirmed this, but the incumbent was not willing to lower the base rate at all. The client was completely caught off by the vendor not showing any loyalty or reducing the price once it was revealed they were greatly overcharging, and client gave us approval to switch vendors. The incumbent then overinflated the early termination fee by saying it was $300,000.00. One of our analysts went back to the vendor to get this corrected and the early termination fee ended up being $18,000.
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