Comments on: Should Phone Support Be Our Most Expensive Service?

By: PCamateur

PCamateur — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 16:13:25 +0000

Just an idea:

Can’t you guys say you can’t give over the phone support because it is a liability? Liability gets to people quickly. “I can’t help you because it can cause some damage if you misunderstand me and that can get me into trouble, lawsuit etc…”

PS I am not a tech: I am reading this website with the idea of getting into repair on a part time basis. Lot of good info.
Lot of good info.

By: Derek Iannelli-Smith

Derek Iannelli-Smith — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 21:58:09 +0000

Regarding Remote Desktop solution, I highly recommend TeamViewer. I am currently working with CrossLoop to work on some bugs, but at this time it is not reliable. Logmein’s subscription fee is VERY expensive and the extra kudos outside TeamViewer are not worth it. Getting the Technibble Computer Repair Business Kit will assist with documentation. TeamViewer is a LIFETIME license when purchased and a one time fee until an significant upgrade. Here is what I have learned about remote software and open source. You get what you pay for…IMHO

By: Derek Iannelli-Smith

Derek Iannelli-Smith — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 21:53:50 +0000

A lot of good info here but not what I was looking for. I am looking for a statement to put into our maintenance & support agreement that notifies the customer that “regardless of time of phone support at a minimum they will be charged 15 minutes toward their agreement and more if the call time support allocates”, here is what I mean. Many of my M&S agreement clients, call for phone support and now that our business is growing, 5 minutes here, 10 minutes there, it translates into abuse because being ‘nice’ translates into more phone calls. I don’t mind the support calls, I just see it as money left on the table and there is no value to it if it is not billed. So here is what I am looking for, a ‘legalese’ statement to insert into the M7S agreement that includes phone support in 15-minute minimums and increments.

Lets translate this into $. On average I receive 2-5 calls a day. Previously these have been ‘free’. Kudos so to speak for our M&S clients and starting a new client. However, my flat rate of billing is $139 (outside of a M&S agreement) so, if I receive 5 phone calls (implementing 15 minute billing), then that translates into $34.75 x 5 = $173.75 that was left on the table and a business loss.If it was from the same client, they just got a free hour!!!

Please do not hear me ‘nickle and diming’ our clients, I am promoting value on the services they receive and retaining the integrity of our company. I want to be professional about this. I do not want to implement separate billing for phone support as this becomes a logistical nightmare for finance and the tech.

sorry about the long post, but again, I am looking for a good statement to include into our M&S agreement and to educate our clients with.

By: Evan S

Evan S — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 05:24:38 +0000

Shane Fowler. you asked for some good open source remote desktop programs. take a look into cross loop and Team viewer. If you business is more lucrative try instant house call or the very expensive but awesome log me in’s rescue me.

By: Duane Norman

Duane Norman — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 07:37:16 +0000

Man what a fantastic website!! Finding other techs that understand what I’m going through! lol. I am in a situation where I live in a small town in New Zealand called Te Kuiti of around 5000 people. I gained A+ years prior (not that that means anything) but someone asked if I could fix a computer and so on and so fourth and now we have a retail store and over 1500 return customers. Problem being…. Small town, Word of mouth and working from home. Bascially for the last 5 years I have been going to the ends of the earth to help customers. Turning up after hours, Phone calls up to 11pm using the classic statement “Sorry for calling so late I just wanted to pick your brain for a second) ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh And living in a small town everybodies ya mate but realising that “Bad Word of Mouth” travels twice as fast. Downside is I have a reputation for being the real nice guy. “Phone calls”. “I’m sick to death of that telephone”. We now have an answer phone message that is on all day that states how busy we are and how many phone support calls we get and that we have now been forced to charge for this service. This gives the person on the other end of the phone the opportunity to leave a message knowing full well that they will be receiving an invoice. This also is a good way to deter the time wasters. Check messages on the hour and this is also stated in the message. Let’s face it “The most important clients are businesses” and they call my mobile anyway. If it’s that important for “Jo Bloggs” then they’ll also call it. Really interested in the Script for the beginning of the “Remote Session”

By: Tonya

Tonya — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 18:11:34 +0000

I don’t do phone support. I worked in a shop before where we charged the same $75/hr phone support as we did working on it ourselves. I hate phone support. Now in my own shop I don’t do it. You can’t get people to follow your instructions and sometimes with their odd descriptions of the screens you can’t figure out what they are seeing.

I got a guy on the phone one time saying he needed help getting an icon back on the screen. He had no idea what the URL used to be. I ask him how he got it on there in the first place and he couldn’t remember. Then he told me it was there but the icon was different. Ok, so is it there or not? Geez! Sorry to rant. So after that I tell everybody “Look, you have to bring it in or let me come work on it. No phone support, sorry.”

By: Ron

Ron — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 14:31:11 +0000

I don’t offer phone support at all because it’s too much of a PITA to deal with. If I am going to do any sort of a remote support, there is an executable that can be downloaded from my website that will allow me to access their PC after they have paid me first.

If it’s family or freinds and it’s something simple such as just adding a printer or something that only takes a few seconds to a few minutes, I still have them download the executable.

I’ve found it to be far too frustrating to both the EU and myself when they don’t understand the basic terminology that is used to explain things to them. (Icons, desktop, etc) It’s just faster for me to do it than it is to try and walk them through it over the phone.

By: Shane Fowler

Shane Fowler — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 21:21:40 +0000

Phone support…ehh
Last year I had a customer call me with a computer problem a popup that she couldnt get to go away. It was called the Contra Virus. After fixing the machine I went home and posted several blogs about it on my wordpress blog account. To my surprise I started getting 3-5 phone calls a day asking for assistance in removing this “Virus” Sometimes it went well and sometimes it was just plain agonizing trying to get the customer to do what you want them to do and knowing that they followed your instructions correctly. I would say that if you are going to do phone support you limit yourself as to the number of calls that you take per day as you can get burnt out quick especially fixing the same problems over and over again. Within about a week I got sick of taking the phone calls and just posted some more helpful info on my site to let users fix the problem themselves. That cut down on my frustration level significantly, but it didn’t help me to make any more money. Personally I prefer driving to someones house or working on thier computer remotely. Does anyone know of any open source remote control software out there that they use?

By: Vaidas

Vaidas — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 09:30:31 +0000

Our company charges the same rate for onsite and remote work – just onsite is minimum 1 hour, and remote is 15min.
As we try not to go onsite (most of our support work can be done by phone and remote) I plan to order payed phone line – there will be no questions how, when and why to charge, they will pay say 1$/min.
I am very interested in script Harold told about. Harold, could you share more information or sell the script?

By: New Jersey Computer Repair

New Jersey Computer Repair — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 04:16:07 +0000

I get the same yahoo calling me at like 9pm asking me stupid stuff like, how can I recover data from a hard drive, can you walk me through it? Yeah sure np pal!