Going to offer loaner PC's again.

[JosephLeo]

So I am going to start offering loaner PC's to my clients who's computers I pick up. I did this back when I was in Florida and it was a hit, but I've since sold off all the computers I had (Moving is expensive, why take the extra space)

I'm considering buying 3 Netbooks, and 2 Desktops. The netbooks will be used as replacements/loaners for laptops, and the desktops, well for desktops. Netbooks will likely be your typical 'el cheapo style and the desktops will have to be custom built. I'm thinking something like this.

Mini-ITX Case, Mini-ITX motherboard (Maybe an AMD E-350 zacate processor?), 2x2GB memory, 500GB hard drive (they're cheap these days), CD/DVD Writer a flash memory card reader and it has to have built in Wi-Fi as well. Should only cost me around $350 a pop for them.

Also, I'm thinking of offering my prices as follows.
No-Service Rental: $29 / week
w/ Service Rental: $19 / week

It's not a huge money maker, but it's a nice way to make an extra $20 per job, and if the customer would like to buy it off of me, I can sell it at the price I payed for it- or even less if I got my moneys worth out of it.

It also gives your company image a little more "oomph" if you throw in some branding as well. Throw your logo on the case and the desktop wallpaper and you've got your self an impressive showpiece.

Also, of course these things will have a backup image so when I receive my hardware back all I have to do is run the image over the hard drive and presto- back to new.

There is a small concern over legal issues regarding the fact that rentals may require some sort of license. Anyone know anything about this?

 

[Velvis]

IMO, I wouldn't think a free loaner would be worth charging the $20 a week, after all who is going to use it for a full week when a typical repair last a day or two the most? I think if you lent a customer a cheap laptop for a day or two for free they would remember that and call you next time or recommend you to a friend and that's worth more than 20 bucks.


I also wouldn't bother with a desktop machine, just leave them with a cheap laptop. No need to hook anything up or unhook it when you return.

 

[talmart]

I've been thinking about doing this for awhile. What kind of agreement do you have them sign before handing over the loaner?

 

[JosephLeo]

Free would be better for the customer, but I would need to recover my costs somehow. If I go the way I want to then I'm going to have to drop about $1,500 for the hardware. At $20 per rental then I can recover my cost in about 75 rentals. I would expect at least 3 rentals per week on average, so my recovery time is about 6 months. If I absorb the cost as Advertising, Marketing and Branding then my entire years budget for that category is completely gone.

Rentals would probably be only a couple days, yes. But what if I have a computer in for a while? Say I get a laptop repair that needs a power jack replacement and I'm forced to wait for the parts to arrive. I've had times where shipment took more than a week (never order from those people again, but yeah). Then say I need that loaner for another client and I'm out of extras. I'm losing the rental capabilities and not getting anything for it.

The desktops thing are somewhat of a requirement though. Originally when I was in Florida I was using netbooks but then got some complaints like "I hate laptops" and "my hands are too big" so I've opted into getting a couple desktops.

In my opinion getting potential referrals have a value, but potential is not as valuable as actual income. But still, I think it *might* be worth considering the variables here.

If I give out rentals for free, then everyone will likely take one. So let's say I give away all 5 away and lets also make an arbitrary 10% referral rate and 100% of those referrals turn into customers. That's 1 new customer referral per 10 loaners, or 2 weeks. I can probably make around $80 to $100 (or, $40 to $50 per week) on that customer referral.
If I give out rentals at a cost of $20/week then I can probably expect 3 of them to be gone per week (again, arbitrary). this is $60 per week. So in the end I'll be making $10 to $20 more per week, which is chicken scratch. Also, for the loss of that $10 to $20 extra per week. I'm also gaining the addition of +1 customer to the portfolio, and a potential return customer as well.

So in the end, I think going free might be in fact best, but it will eat my years ad budget.

 

[JosephLeo]

I've been thinking about doing this for awhile. What kind of agreement do you have them sign before handing over the loaner?

Simple agreement really. I state that I am the owner of the computers and that I am allowing "the customer" to temporarily take use of the computer at a fee of $x per week. I then make it clear that I am not to be held responsible for anything "the customer" downloads, adds, removes, generates or in any way shape or form modifies from the computer. (this covers me for things like child pornography, pirated software/music/movies/ etc.) I also claim to hold the customer liable for any damages done to the computer while in their possession this includes if the computer was stolen, confiscated, lost, broken, damaged, hacked, etc.

Nothing really fancy, but I did have a lawyer skim across it long ago and said that it has its weaknesses regarding the billing since a repair can take less than a week and a client can dispute whether or not they got their moneys worth.

 

[amallette]

I've also been thinking of offering something like this. I was wondering what operating system you would install on the system? I think it has real potential. To Charge or not to charge has been my problem. I was thinking instead of charging weekly rate what about a flat rate, they get the loaner pc until theirs gets fixed.

 

[JosephLeo]

I've also been thinking of offering something like this. I was wondering what operating system you would install on the system? I think it has real potential. To Charge or not to charge has been my problem. I was thinking instead of charging weekly rate what about a flat rate, they get the loaner pc until theirs gets fixed.

Gonna go with Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit. These things of course will need that resale value, so I'm going to have to install windows on them. Also, they're going to come packed with Microsoft Office as well (I have a lot of spare copies lying around, with licenses to boot)

Originally I was going to go with the charge, but now I'm leaning more towards the free part. I will have to be a little creative with how I bill these towards my advertising. My budget for the year is only so much, and surely these things will eat at that entire budget.

 

[NETWizz]

Problem with using Windows 7 is they might use a tool like Nirsoft's Product key manager to get the Product key you use.

What if they don't return the loaner?

Also, you should re-image the loaner between each customer. I would recommend setting up something like Clonezilla with PXE boot for this purpose.

 

[Velvis]

Would someone who could/knows how/wants to pull a product key for Office off a machine actually hire someone for a computer repair?
90% of my clients can barely turn the things on...

In addition:

1) I would focus more on a quick return of a clients computer than dropping $1500 bucks for rental hardware and trying to make a profit at less than $3.00/day
2) I would say 95% (maybe even higher) of my clients have more than one computer in their office or homes.

In my experience I don't see the benefit of outlaying that much cash. Put an ad in a local newspaper with the money.

I have a whole bunch of laptops and desktops at my house that I could lend out in case of an emergency situation that warranted it.
For me its never been a situation where someone NEEDED a computer for the period of the repair I had it. Either they were fine with me having it, they had a second computer, or they needed it back ASAP which means I moved that to the top of the list.

Most people that NEED a computer, NEED THEIR computer for the files/email/programs that are on it. They don't NEED a empty PC.

Just my experience (ten years) anyways.

 

[vdub12]

I use old computers as loaners. The loaner I have right now is an old Toshiba notebook with a broken screen. I just hook it up to there monitor, keyboard, and mouse, and toss it under the desk.

I was given the notebook by a customer about a year ago and it just wasn't worth spending the money to replace the screen but it has had a useful life as a free loaner PC. I have an image saved on my file server that I use to restore it every time it comes back.

 

[Painless]

I have a couple of old laptops with XP on them. Most customers can survive without their own machine for a couple of days but for those that seem panicky about being able to access the internet the old laptops are a good pr exercise.

The image I put on them has my logo and phone No as the wallpaper and screensaver - so they get reminded who lent them it everytime the use it. The laptops are also old enough that nobody would want to keep them.

For those of you talking about buying new machines you need to consider what you do if the customer badly damages the machine. One of my customers closed the lid of the laptop rather forcefully with a USB dongle on top of the keyboard. The screen looks impressive but is totally unusable. Because it was a really old machine I am not too bothered and will use it for my assistant to practice on and see if we can find an old screen to fit.

I try and keep the whole process informal and friendly - all part of the good customer service process.

 

[adam12]

I don't have a loaner program, although I have considered it. I agree with the above posters that say a client can be without a computer for a few days, or they will find access to another computer. If it is a business stoppage we will just work as fast as possible to get the computer repaired on-site.

Securely erasing the hard drive and re-imaging the computer for $20 a week just isn't worth it in my book. I do keep an extra ESXi host around that I can convert an image to a VM and put it back in the clients office, but I have only had to use that one time on a win 2000 server up when the hardware was not worth replacing. Once we got a new server ordered and delivered I took the Host back.

Another thing to consider is having to support the loaner computer, home users are very particular about how they use the computer, and there is no way can have it set up the way they are used to it. I can just imagine the phone calls one would receive asking how to use a different OS or even a different web browser.

 

[gikstar]

I wouldn't put any money into 'loaner' computers, I personally use older desktops that I've taken in on trade.
I also do not advertise providing loaner computers, as I want to make the decision as to whom I am willing to provide this service to. You can make more money in setting the computer up at the clients' office - installing their printers, setting up their email, etc which provides more profit than $20 for a week.

I also have on hand a Core2Quad computer setup with a good video card and Raid 1 drives for clients that have an immediate need for a high-end business class system. If need be it can be available as a temporary or permanent fix to their problem, whether as a loaner while I build a new system for them or as an outright sale.

 

[arrow_runner]

I use a pair of DV6000s. They look nice and I wouldn't feel comfortable selling them.

 

[JosephLeo]

I use a pair of DV6000s. They look nice and I wouldn't feel comfortable selling them.

Giving a DV6000 to a client who's giving your their PC because it's broken is like giving someone a skateboard because they broke their arm on a bike.

How often do you need to fix those things

 

[arrow_runner]

I've never fixed the motherboards on them. They are still 'good' from factory. I got them with other problems like broken screens or failed hard drives.

But that is a funny analogy.

 

[AdamsAPlus]

I really like this idea. In fact I have been working on getting this instated in my business. Been tossing ideas about it back and forth for several months now.

 

[Checkmate]

I use a couple of Optiplex G250s, tiny little guys, 2GB ram, loaded with Linux Mint. Have had no one complain about using Mint. LOL had a client ask, after getting a Win 7 new PC if I could install that linux on it. I do not loan out any laptops yet.

 

[atlanticjim]

I have two Dell laptops with XP on them as well as Adobe, flash, MSE, Firefox, and MS Office. I have a selfbooting clone disk for each of them and it takes me less than 3 minutes of real time to clean them up. There is a warning box when they start up the computer that states that they must save all their data because it will be un-retrievable after they return the laptop to me.

I only charge $25 for the loaner for as long as I have the client's computer. The reason I have a flat fee is that I don't want the client to think that I am keeping their computer for a longer period just to milk some more rental money from them. With flat fee the incentive is for me to repair their computer, return it and get my rental back to rent again.

I offer it to all my clients, whether it is their only computer or not, and I get a lot of takers.

The rental agreement includes a $250 deposit clause but what I do is take a check and return it to them when I get the computer back or take an image of a credit card.

 

[wtigger]

I do a few loaners based on the individual. I've only done a few, that needed Internet access to Email and such, when I had their computer more than a few days. They really appreciated it. But I don't do it often, to stimulate me to get things fixed FASTER I have plenty of older systems suitable for Internet use, and I am holding them for that use if needed in critical situations. Almost all of my customers have 3 or more computers in their households...