Old thread; just listened to the podnutz episode on this and thought I'd add my two cents for what it's worth...
A good portion of my clients are older and are fine being without a computer for a while--in fact by the time they call me they are usually so disgusted they are GLAD to see it get out of their sight for a while. But for the percentage that really don't want any downtime, I have a $200 Asus netbook I can loan them. It has Windows 7 starter on it, and being a little netbook it's easy as pie to set up and take back.
The guys on the podcast talked about using loaner machines as a way of upsellling new systems, but I avoid that route. People can smell opportunists, and also if you give them a machine that impressive then it will also be impressive--and extremely disappointing--if they disappear with it. I don't really have the funds to try that anyway. The netbook solution works perfect, and I don't even need to reimage most of the time.
P.S. I got the very last one last year on a black Friday sale, which is coming up again!
A good portion of my clients are older and are fine being without a computer for a while--in fact by the time they call me they are usually so disgusted they are GLAD to see it get out of their sight for a while. But for the percentage that really don't want any downtime, I have a $200 Asus netbook I can loan them. It has Windows 7 starter on it, and being a little netbook it's easy as pie to set up and take back.
The guys on the podcast talked about using loaner machines as a way of upsellling new systems, but I avoid that route. People can smell opportunists, and also if you give them a machine that impressive then it will also be impressive--and extremely disappointing--if they disappear with it. I don't really have the funds to try that anyway. The netbook solution works perfect, and I don't even need to reimage most of the time.
P.S. I got the very last one last year on a black Friday sale, which is coming up again!
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