In a past article called “giving away too much information and dealing with time wasters” I talked about the dangers of being too helpful on the phone, to the point where you essentially talk yourself out of a job. In this article I’ll show you how to do the opposite and make sure they decided on you as their computer guy.

Just yesterday I had a client call me up saying that they had a virus and they would like me to remove it. I personally try to get onsite the same day of the call typically within a few hours so they don’t figure it out themselves or have enough time to call their techie cousin over.

However, yesterday I was too busy to get out there so I had to recommend the next day. I didn’t want them to call around and find someone else who could come out the same day so I said the following:

“Sure, I can remove the virus, that shouldn’t be a problem. I can also install a free antivirus which I believe is one of the best (I use it on my own machines) and patch up your system to help protect you from such a thing happening again”.

After I said that they locked me in for the next day and I got the job. They may have called around before calling me, I don’t really know, but you can bet they chose me over the others because I gave them better value.

Making a computer “internet safe” is something I do by default and I am sure many other computer technicians do the same. Always make sure your customers know exactly how much value you add and you’ll land those phone jobs.