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Set a Service Price You Can Explain and Sustain

A price for a more involved service must account for the work behind it without confusing internal effort with customer value.

By WWA Editorial Team 4 min read
Close overhead editorial photograph of a dog-grooming workstation with clean brushes, clippers and folded towels beside an empty wash basin in crisp daylight, with no labels or writing.

A groomer is about to add a more time-intensive appointment to her menu: a hypothetical service for dogs that need a longer wash, careful drying and a more detailed finish. She knows the appointment uses direct supplies and leaves more cleanup. It also occupies a booking slot that could otherwise serve another client. The hard part is not seeing that the work costs more. It is setting a price she can explain without handing a client an internal accounting lesson.

That distinction matters. A price built only by adding every internal cost can be difficult to defend when a client asks, “What is different about this appointment?” Business Development Bank of Canada guidance says pricing should consider customer-perceived value and the business’s ability to explain that value, rather than rising internal costs alone. It also says a business should assess what customers value and whether it delivers that value consistently .

For the hypothetical groomer, direct supplies are one part of the decision: shampoo, conditioning product, drying materials and the consumables used during the service. Preparation and cleanup are another: setting up the wash area, sanitizing tools, laundering towels and restoring the station for the next booking. Capacity is different again. A longer appointment changes the number and timing of appointments the business can take. These are real operating considerations, but they are not automatically the client’s reason to choose the service.

The client-facing explanation should instead name the outcome and the work that makes it possible. The groomer might describe the appointment as a longer, more thorough grooming session with added wash, drying and finishing time. She should only promise elements she can deliver every time. If the service includes a calmer pace or a more detailed coat finish in her actual process, those may be meaningful features; if they do not, they do not belong in the explanation. The point is clarity, not a longer description.

BDC’s 2023 pricing guidance identifies operating costs, demand fluctuations, competitive advantage and price perception as relevant factors. It also frames customer research around the tasks customers need completed and what makes those tasks difficult . Applied here, the groomer can listen for the practical problem behind the request. Is the customer trying to book a dog whose coat takes longer to dry? Do they need a service that accommodates a fuller grooming process? Are they comparing services based on the finish, the booking experience or the certainty of what is included? Those conversations help test whether the offer addresses a defined need rather than merely recovers extra effort.

A useful internal exercise is to place the service in two columns. One contains the work the business must sustain: supplies, preparation, cleanup and the booking capacity used. The other contains the value a customer can recognize: the scope of the appointment, the care built into the process and the finished result the business is prepared to describe. The columns should inform each other, but they should not be treated as identical. A client does not need to approve the towel-laundry routine; the business does need to ensure its price can support that routine.

This approach also avoids a common reaction to changing costs: treating a price update as an automatic pass-through. BDC’s 2021 guidance recommends examining processes, costs and the customer offering instead of automatically passing every cost increase to customers . For the groomer, that could mean checking whether the longer appointment is consistently taking the time anticipated, whether the setup can be improved, and whether the stated service scope still matches the work performed. The 2021 guidance’s economic context is historical; its process-focused pricing principle is the relevant point here.

Before publishing the new service, the groomer can pressure-test one plain-language sentence: “This appointment is priced for a longer wash, drying and finishing process, with the time needed to complete it properly.” Then she can ask whether the booking length, operating process and delivered experience make that sentence true. If the answer is yes, the price has a foundation stronger than a vague premium. It reflects both the capacity the business is committing and the service the customer can understand.

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