Do you charge if a system develops an unfixable problem?

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layoric

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If you're working on a system, whatever it is (phone, tablet, pc, laptop..), and you repair an existing problem which the customer brought the system in for, but in the course of the repair, another part fails - but that part CAN NOT be found and replaced, how do you charge the customer?

My situation relates to my question regarding a tablet parts supplier. I already spent time and repaired the original problem, but another part literally fell apart during reassembly. Just would seem weird to hand a customer back a broken system, when it was brought in working, then they pay money for that. On the other hand, I'm not doing this for free and it's not my fault the thing is a piece of cheap crap! :p
 
It depends if you told the customer it was a bad design before you started working on it and you were not taking any responsibility for it. If you didn't you should take the hit and put it down to lesson learned.
 
Take it on a case by case basis. For me it is about keeping the customer happy.. and if I were a customer and my tablet was working and now it has another broken part it will probably be pretty hard to convince them that "it broke on it's own" even if that is the case. You will have to weigh the pro's and con's of either having your name drug in the mud by an unhappy customer vs. putting the money out for part or replacement.


I occasionally get laptop DC jack replacement job just to find out the Motherboard is shot too. In such an instance, I will test that the board is getting power from the DC jack and as far as I am concerned, I did my job. Full price.
 
Tough situation for sure!

When I personally deal with situations like this I usually do not charge, but always ensure to explain in depth exactly what happened and why I am not charging. Some people are going to take the lack of charge as an admission of guilt on the technicians part, but I find as long as I am 100% honest we both walk away feeling good about the situation. I kid you not I have had customers actually offer to pay me something in a situation like this after I explained in depth why I am not billing them. This stuff happens, and if I feel like if I can't deliver on the agreement made following my diagnosis, I don't feel as though they should have to pay. It's almost like adding insult to injury to me.

Just my two cents!
 
Yeah, this thing has turned out to be a pain in the ass. It was an easy fix, but the thing turned out to be shoddy crap. Not my responsibility to know if it was 'a bad design before you started working' from the get go. That comment was just wrong.

I got off the phone with velocity micro. Man, this company stinks. A guy in the business office there told me that they are not designed to be serviceable. He said they have NO parts, and actually recommended I cannibalize another to repair it. WOW. Straight from the manufacturer. Yeah, probably all they do though is stamp their name on it at the factory. The guy couldn't even tell me the contact info they got it from in China.

One thing I DID learn is that the T408 and T410 are interchangeable. Woohoo, great help there, still can't find any. Ah well.... Time to tell the customer they bought a POS.
 
If it's assumed I broke it, I did not. It fell apart.

Just because you lift the handle of your car door, and it broke from failed internal parts, you didn't break it, it was the failed part.

Just making that clear.

Time to call the customer.
 
Funny, customer said he just bought it, and is just going to return it to the store. If I'd have known that then I wouldn't have spent so much time trying to find a replacement cable! However, going through this I did find out that this brand name product is cheap crap, and the company isn't any help either

If it was a $70 system, I wouldn't have even started, but it was $200 new. Oh well, customer isn't out anything anyhow, that's the most important thing.
 
Almost impossible for this to happen. The system can almost always be repaired at some cost.
 
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Just a thought; there's a saying that goes something like;

happy customers don't always talk, but unhappy customers tell EVERYONE how horrible you are.

I think making the customer happy (within reason of course) is more important than a few bucks.
 
I agree with the others - if it broke while in your possession, then it is going to look like it was your fault regardless. I would replace it.

I keep a laptop on my shelf that I purchased from a customer when I COULDN'T afford it. I had tried to replace a DC jack before I knew what I was doing - you can guess the outcome. Next to that is a broken screen I had to replace when I knocked a customer's netbook off my workbench accidentally. It's a good to keep visual reminders. :)
 
Cornerstone Technologies said:
I can see some clients not buying this.
Click to expand...

Doesn't matter. He understood, I didn't charge the work I did do (removing his trapped SD card by taking device apart), and he returned it to the store for a full refund.

The only one who got stiffed out of payment is me. He was happy about the no charge as well. I recommended he purchase a different brand tablet. ;)
 
I had a co-worker's laptop that I went to remove a TERRIBLE amount of Spyware from (as a free favor). Anyway, it was so terribly messed up that I took an image of it before working on it because I figured it might become unbootable or ultimately become unusable in which case it is potentially possible to have to Undo my work and try a different strategy...

Suffice it to say, everything worked out well and I returned the laptop. About 24 hours later, Windows won't boot :mad: She says, "it was working so well now it says SMART is detecting a problem with Hard Disk... contact Dell..."

Suffice it to say, I felt responsible. <== Probably bounced up and down in the car too much or something!

Regardless, I brought it back to my work bench replaced her 20 GB (this was years ago) drive with a 40 GB drive I just happened to have as a spare. Then I restored her image and REMOVED the spyware all over again! <=Deja Vu!


Returned the laptop, which was working great with a LOT more free space. :D Was it my fault? NO
 
Thankfully, this situation has only happened to me once.

Long story short. I explained the situation to the customer who appreciated my dilemma. I indicated how much time I had spent, and the efforts I had made to repair it.

In the end I charged him a small fee (£30) to cover some costs and offered to perform a data backup/transfer at no cost. (Data backup was the first thing I did).

He was happy with that. My conscience was clear and I kept the sucker, sorry, customer.
 
I understand the desire to be nice if a similar thing happened to you, but I always try to find the best option which doesn't make me lose a lot of money, yet keeps the customer happy.

If the same thing happened to a mechanic, I believe (in my experience) they would just tell the customer the same thing, and just charge the customer the extra part cost maybe sans labor...

My original question was to charge or not, by reading all your comments I determined I should not. Thank you all for your replies. I hope I didn't seem argumentative; just don't see the same outcome for the replacement of the device.
 
If you cant give it to the customer in the same condition they brought it in or better then you dont give it back to them

Weather or not the item is a POS isnt the issue it was given to you and you accepted it so you accept responsibility for it

When i say YOU, i mean generally on how i would do that as YOU being ME

If i cant fix it, i pay to fix it or buy them another

For example a tech of mine broke a customers phone, i got the part overnighted and had it fixed and refunded them the money they paid

Obviously there was a loss on this issue, but thats just business
 
one word: disclaimer

I'd highly recommend you put together a disclaimer for all of your services. You can find some good examples on google and ad lib some of your own policies.

ie:
payment terms, refund terms, collections, release of liability, potential risk of damage/loss, permission to disassemble, security rights, access to property, permission to modify, permission to install software/hardware, not responsible for indirect damages, force majure, attorney fees, etc...

This may seem like it'd be a put-ff to clients but I have NEVER had a problem with a client signing my agreement and I always offer to leave them with a copy. ALWAYS CYA!!!

Of course its in your best interest to make good of something you did wrong but if you are genuinely are not responsible for the damage, then this will end all argument of liability. If a full disclaimer were part of your example, you could charge for the work you did, offer to repair the new problem for an additional charge, and if there were any dispute, it would be settled by the written agreement... DONE!
 
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