Computer Repairs- Advice Please

[PC PROBS]

Hello

We are a small, home based P.C. and Laptop repair company based in Wiltshire and have been operating for 3 years. We have a strong, satisfied customer data base.

The recession seems to have hit rather hard. We have always operated on a "No Fix No Fee" basis, but some diagnostics can take a couple of hours to detect and if the machine has given up the ghost - a few hours of labour can result in zero returns. We charge £40 per hour but only if the problem can be rectified.

Any suggestions as how to recover such labour costs will be welcome.

Many thanks

Chris

 

[S-Marketing]

Where abouts in Wiltshire are you mate. I can advise you on this and also need a couple of computers looking at. I have an office in Salisbury.

 

[Aspect Investments]

Why dont you change your "no fix no fee", to "first hour free".

 

[Jim2k]

When we launched our domestic service (www.orbitsathome.co.uk) we had to decide whether to be no fix no fee. We decided to stick with it because if you want to compete with the 'man in a van' you have to fight hard. Luckily the domestic side is just a sideline for us because I don't think there is much of a margin in it.

Have you thought of expanding to small business IT support?

 

[stugster]

The basic Home IT Support/PC Repair business is saturated beyond belief by both professionals and cowboys alike. The problem is, the average punter can't tell the difference, and bases their decision purely on price.

You need to take a step back from just the "No fix no fee" policy and look at your business practices as a whole.

We offer free diagnosis on the basis that the client goes ahead with the repair with us. If they choose not to go ahead with a repair, that's our time we've lost and money we've not charged for, so we charge a small fee for diagnosis only.

Have you gone over all your financial figures in terms of an average job cost? Time to get to the punter, cost of petrol, cost of parking, time to get back to the office, time to process an invoice. Are you making enough margin on each sale to cover everything?

I almost always convert a "diagnosis" into a sale for hardware and repair. The only time we'll not generate a sale from diagnosing a fault is if the hardware is exceptionally dated and the customer chooses not to repair, but replace it. In those scenarios, it's usually pretty obvious that the customer is looking at buying a new one anyway, or the machine is just so old it's not going to be worth it. When that occurs, we simply tell the customer openly and honestly what the situation is, and give them the options before we do any work at all.

Customers ultimately want two things: 1. A working computer. 2. Any repairs to be as cheap as possible.

You can't always get both, but a little customer service and taking the time to understand the customer and their requirements goes a long way to converting them to a sale either way.

 

[pcproblems]

Many thanks for all of the advice that was posted by PC Probs (my Wife)

Stretchy, we're in Salisbury.. If you 'google' pc problems salisbury you'll find us.

 

[mit74]

Hi,

I'm a new IT business that offers No Fix No Fee for domestic customers and so far it's been kind to me. There isn't a single computer I haven't been able to fix as all customers go ahead with repairs. Unfortunately diagnosis can take from several minutes to several days and you can't expect a customer to fork out 6 hours labour for say a HDD that cost £30 to replace. I tend to charge how ever long it takes to replace (1 hour min) plus a small fee 1hr maybe for diagnosis and of course the part (which I may add 20% to the purchase fee. The fee can also be dependant on the customer. I will be far stricter with my hourly fees with the rich family with 2 mercs in the drive than the single mum with 3 kids who rents a flat.

My policy is no fix no fee if you want me to do the repairs. I don't do free diagnosis yet I don't always make that clear so it would be interesting to see what happens when I enforce that rule.

I do have to say though that the market is completly flooded with companies. There are 4 in the a 2mile radius near me all fighting for the same customer base. So far I'm only just keeping my head above water.

 

[PC PROBS]

To all who have taken the time to respond to my query, a big Thank You.

Some very useful comments were made - we like the idea of a nominal charge for diagostics- if the equipment proves to be beyond repair at least this would cover some of our mileage costs.

We know of at least one other computer repair business that charges £20. for a 20 minute inspection.

PCPROBS

 

[S-Marketing]

Hi Pc Probs,

I just replied to your PM.

 

[mit74]

it's amazing the price variation on many IT companies. I've seen £80 for system restores were they hit the F10 key restore to factory and give it you back no updates no essential software installed etc. something I wouldn't dream of doing. Dell quoted my last customer £350 for a callout just to check not repair his XPS desktop. I came out for free.
So yeah the No Fix No Fee means if I can't fix it you get money back rather than free diagnosis.

 

[Page]

Not on thread but related - do you guys offer and push partition back ups to people after you have fixed the software-virus side of things.

With hard drives now getting cheap compared with your time and with plenty of low knowledge users out there - they might take up the suggestion.

The idea being that you set it up and do the first one and then ... well not sure what might work best - you offer to do every 6 months or ??. See it as part of that building a relationship with the consumer and planning before problems.

Not my area of expertise so may be a daft idea and if so sorry.

 

[pcproblems]

Hi, that's certainly something to think about..

 

[PC PROBS]

My goodness what a rip off- no wonder we are poor little Church-Mice. At least we can sleep at night with a clear concience!

 

[PC PROBS]

We have not thought about this one, but if we did do that what about all the "stuff" that is put onto their hard-drive later? It is worth thinking about though. Thanks

 

[sanjiv]

Why dont you change your "no fix no fee", to "first hour free".

Because what happens to the repairs that take less than an hour?

 

[PC PROBS]

True, Sanjiv

You may have travelled 8 miles- held up in traffic, struggled to find parking, etc., etc., only to return home out of pocket.

Regards

Chris

 

[mit74]

8 miles? I have a working radius of around 35 miles and there's no guarentee to be paid when you get there. But then I've turned up for jobs were the router has reset and it's taken 2 min to put in the username and password and charged minimum fee of 1 hour. So in the end it almost cancels itself out and it's part of the job really.

 

[stugster]

Another thing you can take advantage of is remote support software to avoid the unnecessary journeys.

 

[Page]

We have not thought about this one, but if we did do that what about all the "stuff" that is put onto their hard-drive later? It is worth thinking about though. Thanks

Its not perfect but the idea is that it is a start point and better than nothing in case things really go wrong. Builds a relationship with the customer.

You can test the idea for pence plus time

Word a leaflet - put out with receipts for customers who use you and also beforehand - listen to what they say - review.

 

[K.C.Leblanc]

Another thing you can take advantage of is remote support software to avoid the unnecessary journeys.

I work in schools IT, so I don't do much domestic stuff.

I've not used it personaly but "logmein" provide this a fairly easy to use remote access solution. The trouble is in many cases these won't work if there's an issue with the user's internet connection or has a physical problem.

Have you considered uplifting PCs instead of working on them in peoples homes. Things like running a hardware diagnostic take a long time to run but doesn't need any interaction. If you've got the PC at your office you can get on with something else while it's running.

 

[PC PROBS]

Thank you for all your useful tips and ideas- this is a brilliant Forum we are most impressed.

 

[curtisclarke]

In response to an earlier post I would have to agree that the market is already saturated by people who have 'played around' with computers before advertising that they can actually fix them. The professionals who have done the courses, actively study to further their knowledge have to recoup this investment in time through higher charges, £20 here and there is nothing to a professional (it's pushing it even if you consider the good-will factor) but if you charge any more they will find another company/person that does it for less.

Unfortunately though the people who do this on the side and those who don't make a business out of it £20 is a round of drinks at the local.

Once upon a time I had friends of friends and extended family dropping off PC's for me to 'look at', I always asked why they sent them to me, their answer generally was "because other people charge a fortune", had I started charging formally for them they would have gone to find the next free lunch. When we went professional the first point of business was never to touch another home-user's computer, never to go to homes to fix, we stick to business only now and we've never looked back.

My point being is that, if competition is forcing your prices to be unsustainable or unprofitable then you either need to add value to your service or switch into something that is. There will always be cowboys in every market that will undermine professionals and you will not be able to compete on price alone.

No fix, no fee is a marketing phrase for companies that can statistically predict the amount of time/money they will lose from it in relation to the extra business the marketing will generate, you must have high sales for this to become profitable.

In your particular situation I would add value to your service to separate yourself from the cowbows/rivals who are competing on price alone. Something along the lines of a 'x free calls/x hours of telephone support after the repair', it keeps the customer in your hands and lets face it, if something is going to go wrong with the computer after you've fixed it, they're going to blame you anyway. So you're losing nothing. Give them a coupon or a voucher with an expiry date and you're sorted. Charge for call-outs though, make sure your direct expenditure is covered. Labour is much easier to give away gratis, than fuel.

 

[PC PROBS]

In response to an earlier post I would have to agree that the market is already saturated by people who have 'played around' with computers before advertising that they can actually fix them. The professionals who have done the courses, actively study to further their knowledge have to recoup this investment in time through higher charges, £20 here and there is nothing to a professional (it's pushing it even if you consider the good-will factor) but if you charge any more they will find another company/person that does it for less.

Unfortunately though the people who do this on the side and those who don't make a business out of it £20 is a round of drinks at the local.

Once upon a time I had friends of friends and extended family dropping off PC's for me to 'look at', I always asked why they sent them to me, their answer generally was "because other people charge a fortune", had I started charging formally for them they would have gone to find the next free lunch. When we went professional the first point of business was never to touch another home-user's computer, never to go to homes to fix, we stick to business only now and we've never looked back.

My point being is that, if competition is forcing your prices to be unsustainable or unprofitable then you either need to add value to your service or switch into something that is. There will always be cowboys in every market that will undermine professionals and you will not be able to compete on price alone.

No fix, no fee is a marketing phrase for companies that can statistically predict the amount of time/money they will lose from it in relation to the extra business the marketing will generate, you must have high sales for this to become profitable.

In your particular situation I would add value to your service to separate yourself from the cowbows/rivals who are competing on price alone. Something along the lines of a 'x free calls/x hours of telephone support after the repair', it keeps the customer in your hands and lets face it, if something is going to go wrong with the computer after you've fixed it, they're going to blame you anyway. So you're losing nothing. Give them a coupon or a voucher with an expiry date and you're sorted. Charge for call-outs though, make sure your direct expenditure is covered. Labour is much easier to give away gratis, than fuel.

Thank you for your comments- I do appreciate the tip in your last paragraph.

I agree that there are a lot of "Cowboys" out there- you can often judge from the way that their advertisements in the local press are worded.

In future we will concentrate on targeting the SME's in our area.

 

[mit74]

It's strange that some of the worst cowboy offenders I've seen in the last few months are actual computer shops rather than home callout. Last month I had a customer who asked me to take a quick look at a laptop because the shop they took it to said it was totally broken and wouldn't boot. When booting I noticed the DVD player was firing up before the screen went blank. I took the DVD out and it booted straight to windows... so much for a broken laptop, they hadn't even checked to see if a bootable CD inside was causing a problem.
A week later another man phoned me to ask to look at his desktop as he already took it to 2 local computer shops as none of the USB and Network ports would work and they couldn't fix it. He was at his wits end as he paid over £1000 for this gaming computer that wouldn't work properly. One look in the BIOS showed they were disabled. Surely even the most slightly clued up person would have checked this?

 

[Jim2k]

mit74, thats the problem with the domestic clients. A business wants a proper job done by skilled engineers. Joe public will let any 'man in a van' have a go at it if it saves them a few quid and will then believe the rubbish they are told. The number of times Ive had machines that others had written off as 'broken' just need a check disk or a bios setting changed. You pay peanuts....

 

[mit74]

mit74, thats the problem with the domestic clients. A business wants a proper job done by skilled engineers. Joe public will let any 'man in a van' have a go at it if it saves them a few quid and will then believe the rubbish they are told. The number of times Ive had machines that others had written off as 'broken' just need a check disk or a bios setting changed. You pay peanuts....

Well the surprising thing is computer shops shouldn't be 'man in a van' yet by experience it seems they're the worst. Maybe being a busy shop it doesn't make sense for them to spend more than a couple of hours on diagnosis.

 

[Jim2k]

Exactly, but it does pay them to try and flog them a new system. Charlatans the lot of them. Are they any worse than the big High Street shops or the like? Probably not.