Blue screen when I plug a network cable in

[PCX]

I agree with this when possible. Its hard to do this though when a customer drops a computer off for a specfic problem and wants it done before end of day. With these we just fix the specific issue if possible . If we cant then they just have to wait till a diagnostics is complete or take it back unrepaired.

Do you get ones like this PCX or do you just refuse the job if they wont let you run the full diag ?

I tell them that it is our standard policy to run a full diagnostics before every repair or service and that it will take a day to do it. I explain to them why it is important to do this and how it benefits them. For those who insist that they can have it done faster somewhere else, I explain that anyone doing the repairs that quickly

1. is cutting corners
2. not running a full diagnostics, which is not looking out for the customer
3. or they have no business and usually for a good reason

Usually when I tell them those 3 things, they end up doing business with us. You have to keep in mind that EVERYONE wants it done today, when the reality is that they do not need to play Farmville on Facebook TODAY. They can wait. Those who can't wait that long and have a real need (less than 1%) pay more money to have their services expedited. It usually means that we stay here all night. The other less than 1% who just don't get it or are just unreasonable and feel the need to play Farmville that day, are those customer we do not care to deal with anyways. They are typical irrational, high maintenance and usually cause more problems than anything else.

In short, if you explain to them clearly why you do what you do and explain to them the benefits, they will WANT to do business with you instead of the other guy.

 

[andcorptech]

In short, if you explain to them clearly why you do what you do and explain to them the benefits, they will WANT to do business with you instead of the other guy.

I get what your saying , but not everyone wants it back today for facebook . We deal with many travellers, and small businesses who need it back for work. We also service an area where some people drive 2 hours to get to us and we fix it while they are in town. Ideally a full diag would be good but I honestly think if I told them id have it overnight for any reason they would go elsewhere.
Easy to say that is fine, but its not good business. Many dont give a crap about what else is wrong, they just want it back tonight. If we dont do it someone else will.

 

[PCX]

I get what your saying , but not everyone wants it back today for facebook . We deal with many travellers, and small businesses who need it back for work. We also service an area where some people drive 2 hours to get to us and we fix it while they are in town. Ideally a full diag would be good but I honestly think if I told them id have it overnight for any reason they would go elsewhere.
Easy to say that is fine, but its not good business. Many dont give a crap about what else is wrong, they just want it back tonight. If we dont do it someone else will.

Its good business, you just need to learn how to implement it. I have been doing this successfully for years.

As for, "if you wont do it, someone else will". You are absolutely right and I have put them those types of shops out of business too. Just because a great majority of techs or shop owners are idiots (no offense to any one in particular) or are not doing something that they should, does not mean that you should not provide a better service.

The way we do business is like this. If you want it repaired, then we are going to do it the right way. No cutting corners, no jerry rigging, no ghetto crap. If you want it done any other way, you can go somewhere else. And we tell customers that.

The type of clients you want to deal with are those who those who understand quality and those who want it done right. If you are not getting those clients, you are not charging enough.

 

[andcorptech]

The type of clients you want to deal with are those who those who understand quality and those who want it done right. If you are not getting those clients, you are not charging enough.

For the most part I agree with you. I mostly do full diags, we have our bench full of machines running diags right now (its nighttime here).

However you are making the wrong assumption that pricing gets better more agreeable customers. The ones im talking about are the kind that will pay $300 to get it back in 2 hours. Pricing has little to do with was I was talking about. I had a customer give me a $100 tip on top of charge as I fixed his internet problem within the hour and that was nothing to do with hardware, just software.

However I will politley disagree with you on letting them go elsewhere. As long as I has explained why I would prefer to do a full diag, if they refuse its not something im willing to lose a customer over.

I guess its just the way different people do business.

 

[kevinjhaag]

For the most part I agree with you. I mostly do full diags, we have our bench full of machines running diags right now (its nighttime here).

However you are making the wrong assumption that pricing gets better more agreeable customers. The ones im talking about are the kind that will pay $300 to get it back in 2 hours. Pricing has little to do with was I was talking about. I had a customer give me a $100 tip on top of charge as I fixed his internet problem within the hour and that was nothing to do with hardware, just software.

However I will politley disagree with you on letting them go elsewhere. As long as I has explained why I would prefer to do a full diag, if they refuse its not something im willing to lose a customer over.

I guess its just the way different people do business.

Totally agree with you @andcorptech. Most work can be done in a day unless otherwise (All depending on your work load of course). It all depends on the situation/problem and after a thru evaluation by a technician. A excellent, knowledgable and experienced technician will know whether to run a full diagnostics, partial diagnostics or no diagnostics after a throu evaluation of the computer and situation/problem. The most important step besides diagnostics to me is stress testing and having the customer recheck to make sure their original problem is fixed. I always run a quick check on the hard drive on all computers. But more serious problems require a full diagnostics tho. Thats my two cents.

Kevin

 

[PCX]

For the most part I agree with you. I mostly do full diags, we have our bench full of machines running diags right now (its nighttime here).

However you are making the wrong assumption that pricing gets better more agreeable customers. The ones im talking about are the kind that will pay $300 to get it back in 2 hours. Pricing has little to do with was I was talking about. I had a customer give me a $100 tip on top of charge as I fixed his internet problem within the hour and that was nothing to do with hardware, just software.

However I will politley disagree with you on letting them go elsewhere. As long as I has explained why I would prefer to do a full diag, if they refuse its not something im willing to lose a customer over.

I guess its just the way different people do business.

I'm sorry, I am not under the wrong assumption at all. I know this from experience and much research. In fact, talk to a business councilor and if they are worth their beans, they will tell you the same thing. Obviously you do not want to rip people off or overcharge for your service. But in order to weed out the bad customers and encourage those who have more money (which yes, statistically they are more reasonable and rational), you have to raise your prices. Typically those who have more money and are more practical and will go to a shop or business who charges somewhere in the mid-high range. Why, because they understand that you get what you pay for.

As for the ones who are willing to pay more to get it back in 2 hours, this is where we charge for expedited services. While we always do our best to convince them to do the full diagnostics, we know that it is not always possible. In those cases, we will charge even more and make them sign a waiver. Now, your market is obviously different than mine, but I doubt very seriously that a great majority of your business is from customers like this.

Finally, the customer is not always right and I believe that as service type businesses, we have every right to choose our customer base. I rather not deal with irrational or unreasonable customers and I would rather that they go somewhere else. Here is why. People are typically friends or associates with people like themselves, good or bad. If you make a good customer happy, then they will tell all their good customer friends about us and we will get those referrals. However, if we make a bad / irrational / unreasonable customer happy, then they will refer all their bad / irrational / unreasonable customer friends to us, and then we will have to deal with the headache all over again.

Obviously there is some gray areas and some wiggle room on these business concepts, but by in large, this is how successful service type businesses do things.

In any case, to each their own. I know that what we do works and it works for many many many other service type businesses.

 

[PCX]

Totally agree with you @andcorptech. Most work can be done in a day unless otherwise (All depending on your work load of course). It all depends on the situation/problem and after a thru evaluation by a technician. A excellent, knowledgable and experienced technician will know whether to run a full diagnostics, partial diagnostics or no diagnostics after a throu evaluation of the computer and situation/problem. The most important step besides diagnostics to me is stress testing and having the customer recheck to make sure their original problem is fixed. I always run a quick check on the hard drive on all computers. But more serious problems require a full diagnostics tho. Thats my two cents.

Kevin

A excellent, knowledgeable and experience technician knows better than to assume anything and to run a full diagnostics when possible. Stress testing is great, but it is not a diagnostics and while it may help to narrow issues, it will not pin point them. And short tests on HDDs are almost always worthless unless they are severely failing. I can almost guarantee that close to half of those hard drives you only did a quick test test on, probably was failing with a read error.

 

[andcorptech]

People are typically friends or associates with people like themselves, good or bad. If you make a good customer happy, then they will tell all their good customer friends about us and we will get those referrals. However, if we make a bad / irrational / unreasonable customer happy, then they will refer all their bad / irrational / unreasonable customer friends to us, and then we will have to deal with the headache all over again.

I think we live on a different planet as your assumptions on people are so far off base when you compare where i come from. I live in a rural town and its nothing like you are describing. But if its working for you , all the best.

 

[kevinjhaag]

A excellent, knowledgeable and experience technician knows better than to assume anything and to run a full diagnostics when possible.

Thats what I mean...if and when possible.

Stress testing is great, but it is not a diagnostics and while it may help to narrow issues, it will not pin point them.

I'm mainly talking about after you diagnosed and fixed the issue. And it is also great test during diagnostics too for certain situations.

I can almost guarantee that close to half of those hard drives you only did a quick test test on, probably was failing with a read error.

And I can guarantee that most of those hard drives are working just fine still too even after I fixed their original problem. I'm not a new kid on the block here. Probably been in business longer than you have. And I used to do a full diagnostics all the time back a few years ago. And I know the nature of hard drives and know a quick test is not always correct but if your limited on time, its better than No test. And thats what I'm getting at. More serious and weird problems justify having a full diagnostics no matter the time limit. A lot of drives do have errors and work perfectly fine. I know a few drives that have bad sectors and they work fine. Most customers will wait till they notice a big performance degradation or it just stop working for them to get it repaired then. With the recent hard drive prices its hard to justify repairing some computers when the customer can buy a new computer.
Thats why I tell all my customers to never trust their data to a hard drive and to have it backed up. And I also mention my quick hard drive diagnostics is not a thru diagnostics. Like I have mentioned before, a full diagnostics is not always feasible especially when your Onsite or doing Remote Support.

Edit: And my good customer base does not bring their computers to me... I go to them. Mostly businesses. A lot of business computers are critical computers. All of our customer base is different by the sounds of it. If we were talking about just residential computers that are used for email, web browsing, games, etc.. Then thats a different story...of course do a full diagnostics as long as you weren't onsite.

 

[PCX]

Thats what I mean...if and when possible.



I'm mainly talking about after you diagnosed and fixed the issue. And it is also great test during diagnostics too for certain situations.



And I can guarantee that most of those hard drives are working just fine still too even after I fixed their original problem. I'm not a new kid on the block here. Probably been in business longer than you have. And I know the nature of hard drives and know a quick test is not always correct but if your limited on time, its better than No test. And thats what I'm getting at. More serious and weird problems justify having a full diagnostics no matter the time limit. A lot of drives do have errors and work perfectly fine. I know a few drives that have bad sectors and they work fine. Most customers will wait till they notice a big performance degradation or it just stop working for them to get it repaired then. With the recent hard drive prices its hard to justify repairing some computers when the customer can buy a new computer.
Thats why I tell all my customers to never trust their data to a hard drive and to have it backed up. And I also mention my quick hard drive diagnostics is not a thru diagnostics. Like I have mentioned before, a full diagnostics is not always feasible especially when your Onsite or doing Remote Support.

And my good customer base does not bring their computers to me... I go to them. Mostly businesses. A lot of business computers are critical computers. All of our customer base is different by the sounds of it.

By in large I agree with most of what you say, but I have a problem with this statement

A lot of drives do have errors and work perfectly fine.

When it comes to read errors, they will work fine for a while. They typically go down this road.

1. hard drive slows down a bit (typical of a aging drive)
2. eventually it gets to the point where you start seeing a decrease in performance (this is usually when customers want a tune-up)
3. performance is severally hindered and issues like IO errors or corrupted files start appearing.

These things can all happen in a span of a week or months.

I believe that one misconception that many people here have is that they assume the only reason why I believe so heavily in full diagnostics is to save troubleshooting time. While that is partially true, I believe that it is even more important for the customer. It is because we run full diagnostics on each computer that we are able to catch issues before they start and ultimately save the customer money. So instead fixing just the obvious issues and send them on their way, just to have them come back in a matter of months for a failing hard drive, we would rather find the problem and give them the choice of repairs or putting that money towards another computer. This may sound counter productive for our type of business, but I put the customers first and ultimately, I think its why we have grown so fast as a business.

As for the running a diagnostics when and if possible. If you are in a shop, you have very little to no excuse not to. In fact it should be extremely rare where you will not be able to do so.

 

[kevinjhaag]

When it comes to read errors, they will work fine for a while. They typically go down this road.

1. hard drive slows down a bit (typical of a aging drive)
2. eventually it gets to the point where you start seeing a decrease in performance (this is usually when customers want a tune-up)
3. performance is severally hindered and issues like IO errors or corrupted files start appearing.

These things can all happen in a span of a week or months.

I believe that one misconception that many people here have is that they assume the only reason why I believe so heavily in full diagnostics is to save troubleshooting time. While that is partially true, I believe that it is even more important for the customer. It is because we run full diagnostics on each computer that we are able to catch issues before they start and ultimately save the customer money. So instead fixing just the obvious issues and send them on their way, just to have them come back in a matter of months for a failing hard drive, we would rather find the problem and give them the choice of repairs or putting that money towards another computer. This may sound counter productive for our type of business, but I put the customers first and ultimately, I think its why we have grown so fast as a business.

As for the running a diagnostics when and if possible. If you are in a shop, you have very little to no excuse not to. In fact it should be extremely rare where you will not be able to do so.

I don't disagree with what your saying and totally agree with you about diagnostics... It all comes down to time and how flexible the customer is. Like I mentioned I believe our customer base is just different and where we perform the work too. Like right now, Accountants and Tax Service places consider every computer to be critical and need it repaired same day, and if not, next day for sure. But I agree if a computer is brought into the shop then in most cases it should get a full diagnostics.

 

[PCX]

I don't disagree with what your saying and totally agree with you about diagnostics... It all comes down to time and how flexible the customer is. Like I mentioned I believe our customer base is just different and where we perform the work too. Like right now, Accountants and Tax Service places consider every computer to be critical and need it repaired same day, and if not, next day for sure. I agree if a computer is brought into the shop then in most cases it should get a full diagnostics.

Oh, yeah, absolutely man. Onsite jobs like that, its almost impossible to run a full diagnostics. All you can do is run a short diagnostics and maybe start an extended one (just for good measure) and stop it about 5 - 10 minutes in. I keep forgetting to clarify that I am speaking strictly for a shop setting.

 

[kevinjhaag]

Oh, yeah, absolutely man. Onsite jobs like that, its almost impossible to run a full diagnostics. All you can do is run a short diagnostics and maybe start an extended one (just for good measure) and stop it about 5 - 10 minutes in. I keep forgetting to clarify that I am speaking strictly for a shop setting.

Yeah, I think sometimes we are in the same book but just on a different page...

 

[PCX]

Yeah, I think sometimes we are in the same book but just on a different page...

Yeah it always ends up being one of those "ooohhh" moments.

 

[Chrisb41]

A lot of interesting talk in this post