How is your residential market doing?

[Fred Claus]

90% of my buisness is Residential. I have service contracts where for 120 a year I offer a managed care service. I put a piece of software on their computer and do weekly remote cleanups, monthly updates, and check for any issues. I also offer free email support for those cleints and a discount on any other services that require me to go on site. All my work can be done remotely and I can automate so I really don't need to do anything but run reports and check for issues once in a while. I charge my residential clients 120 a year, but it only costs me 24.00 a year in fees for the software. I can also offer managed antivirus, and backup as add ons. Most of my clients like that they don't have to worry about it. I have a handful of clients who take advantage of the phone support, but most of them never call me until it's time to renew.

What do you all offer for your residential clients?

 

[Cambridge PC Support]

Residential doing fine here, had my best month ever in May. Lots of competition and fly-by-nights.

 

[Fred Claus]

Residential doing fine here, had my best month ever in May. Lots of competition and fly-by-nights.

Care to share what you are doing to attract residential clients? I for one am always looking to learn new marketing techniques.

 

[Cambridge PC Support]

Nothing really, only my websites, and I haven't done anything with them for ages.

Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk

 

[Cambridge PC Support]

I'd get your website sorted Fred, what keyphrases are you SEOing for? And unless it's a US thing, it's spelt "heal"

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[Your PCMD]

i refer them to walmart

I simply tell them we don't carry that quality.

I tell them "We don't carry that LOW quality."

Anyway OP, residential here for me is steady. Take that with a grain of salt as I have very very very very few residential customers since I moved my model to business. Any "new" residential clients that call, I refer them to the other shop here in town and I get a "finders fee" so I'm happy with that.

 

[Fred Claus]

I'd get your website sorted Fred, what keyphrases are you SEOing for? And unless it's a US thing, it's spelt "heal"

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Thanks Cambridge, I'm working on the website. The "HEEL" thing was a play on words. It's for how a dog heels. I'm working on a model of Commercial and Residential but it seems the bulk of my customers are residential contract services.

 

[GTP]

Residential work here has slowed considerably over the last two to three years. I have gone from 3~5 jobs per day to ~3 per week. Virus removals are very rare now.
I think back to the heady days of 2000~2009 when I was turning business away because I just couldn't physically handle it all. I was building at least 3 desktops a week, selling at least 3 laptops a week and doing repairs/virus removal/ troubleshooting/upgrades etc as well.
Building game machines helped also.

It all started slowing down after 2009/2010 and has progressively gotten worse. There were some patches of "busy" in the next few years but nothing like it was before.
ironically, I had my best month ever in June 2015 where my turnover in one month was greater than the entire turnover from January to May!

Trying to sell managed services to residential is a task. They don't really see the benefit of it.

Residential clients are not using computers like they used to either.
Desktops are all but dead now, laptops have replaced them overall, but even laptop sales and repairs have slowed to a crawl.
People are just using their iPad/iPhone/Tablet/Phone to do what they used to on the computer. (gmail/Fakebook/Twaddle/Insta whataever/ etc...)

One good thing I suppose is the rise in screen repairs for dropped devices.
The more they handle them the more the likelihood of them being dropped at some point.

I've been actively soliciting businesses to try to keep the cash flowing.
I have found that some of my SMB/SoHo's are using iPads more now so business models are changing also.

The further we go down this road the worse it gets....

 

[lan101]

Residential work here has slowed considerably over the last two years. I have gone from 3~5 jobs per day to ~3 per week. Virus removals are very rare now.
I think back to the heady days of 2000~2009 when I was turning business away because I just couldn't physically handle it all.
I was building at least 3 desktops a week, selling at least 3 laptops a week and doing repairs/virus removal/ troubleshooting/upgrades etc as well.

Trying to sell managed services to residential is a task. They don't really see the benefit of it.

Residential clients are not using computers like they used to either.
Desktops are all but dead now, laptops have replaced them overall, but even laptop sales and repairs have slowed to a crawl.
People are just using their iPad/iPhone/Tablet/Phone to do what they used to on the computer. (gmail/Fakebook/Twaddle/Insta whataever/ etc...)

One good thing I suppose is the rise in screen repairs for dropped devices.
The more they handle them the more the likelihood of them being dropped at some point.

I've been actively soliciting businesses to try to keep the cash flowing.
I have found that some of my SMB/SoHo's are using iPads more now so business models are changing also.

The further we go down this road the worse it gets....

For my residential I've offered an unlimited remote (1 computer) for $200 per year and it includes A/V. I offer 20 percent off if a service call onsite is needed. Only have a handful that do it but so far it's worked out well for both sides I think. I just call them at the end of each of their year end and ask if they want to renew. I don't offer anything else with it. I talk to them about backups etc. Of course I make sure there's at least a good image on an external, but they are welcome to call me if there's any issues I tell them.

 

[sapphirescales]

Desktops are all but dead now...

Funny, I'm not experiencing any of this. Desktops are definitely a smaller chunk than they used to be, but they still make up at least 35% of the computers I see. People are using their computers less often, but they still need them more than ever. They just don't use them for stupid stuff anymore. Computers are no longer "fun" devices. They're devices for work. All fun is done on phones/tablets. Most of my clients try to use their computers for business or work purposes EXCLUSIVELY so they don't screw them up and have to bring them in for repair. But if and when their computers have a problem, they're immediately picking up the phone and giving me a call.

Though I still do get people that just use their computers for casual use. Just had a woman trade in a 2013 13" Macbook Air for an HP Elitebook 850 G1. The only thing she really uses the computer for is email, Google searches, and recipes. Her Macbook Air was absolutely FILTHY, covered in flour and other sticky crap because she keeps it in the kitchen most of the time. She was probably in her 30's. Good client. Dropped around $800 on the new computer and I got her Macbook Air for free in trade. There was nothing wrong with her Macboook. She just had a software issue, but decided to trade it in because she never really liked the Macbook. She uses PC's at her work and didn't really like Mac OS.

Another client I got that day just wanted a computer they could take with them between their main house and their vacation home. They already have a desktop at home, but wanted something they could easily take with them when they head up to their vacation house. They used it for email, internet, and typing documents. Not much else. Bought a $700 computer and traded in a 2 year old i7 Samsung laptop with a bad D/C jack. They didn't want to wait the 3-5 days it would take to get the jack shipped in, so they just decided to trade it in.

I also got in a 27" iMac from 2012 with a bad hard drive. I did software based data recovery on it and replaced the hard drive with a 1TB SSD. Cost them about $1,800. They only used it to look at the pictures they took with their iPhones and iPads, and for light internet browsing.

Then I got in a client with a gaming computer that a neighbor kid built for him with a bad graphics card. He corrupted his operating system by trying to reboot it dozens of times because he wasn't getting anything showing up on the screen. I also upsold him on a RAM upgrade, and a larger SSD. Total was around $1,000. My cost? Around $350.

This is all in one day at my shop, and these are just the clients that I PERSONALLY dealt with. My employees took care of probably a dozen more. People with money aren't giving up their computers. They don't see tablets and smartphones as replacement devices, but something that compliments the computer (or in the case of heavy smartphone/tablet users, the computer compliments the smartphones/tablets). You just have to market to the right type of people and you'll be swimming in high margin jobs before you know it.

 

[Porthos]

Residential work here has slowed considerably over the last two to three years. I have gone from 3~5 jobs per day to ~3 per week. Virus removals are very rare now.
I think back to the heady days of 2000~2009 when I was turning business away because I just couldn't physically handle it all. I was building at least 3 desktops a week, selling at least 3 laptops a week and doing repairs/virus removal/ troubleshooting/upgrades etc as well.
Building game machines helped also.

It all started slowing down after 2009/2010 and has progressively gotten worse. There were some patches of "busy" in the next few years but nothing like it was before.
ironically, I had my best month ever in June 2015 where my turnover in one month was greater than the entire turnover from January to May!

Trying to sell managed services to residential is a task. They don't really see the benefit of it.

Residential clients are not using computers like they used to either.
Desktops are all but dead now, laptops have replaced them overall, but even laptop sales and repairs have slowed to a crawl.
People are just using their iPad/iPhone/Tablet/Phone to do what they used to on the computer. (gmail/Fakebook/Twaddle/Insta whataever/ etc...)

One good thing I suppose is the rise in screen repairs for dropped devices.
The more they handle them the more the likelihood of them being dropped at some point.

I've been actively soliciting businesses to try to keep the cash flowing.
I have found that some of my SMB/SoHo's are using iPads more now so business models are changing also.

The further we go down this road the worse it gets....

This is exactly how I see things going on now. I could not explain it any better.

 

[Fred Claus]

For my residential I've offered an unlimited remote (1 computer) for $200 per year and it includes A/V. I offer 20 percent off if a service call onsite is needed. Only have a handful that do it but so far it's worked out well for both sides I think. I just call them at the end of each of their year end and ask if they want to renew. I don't offer anything else with it. I talk to them about backups etc. Of course I make sure there's at least a good image on an external, but they are welcome to call me if there's any issues I tell them.

That's me too Lan. I offer exactly that but my cost is 150 with the Antivirus. What area do you service? I know where I am 150 seems to be good for the fixed income people, but some of my more well off clients tell me I should charge more. If I were in LA I could charge probably 400 and make a mint, but in Buffalo, NY 150 is the cap.

 

[Fred Claus]

This is exactly how I see things going on now. I could not explain it any better.

I see more residential in my area buying the MSP plans from me than the commercial sides. Most of my clients are older adults who want that person they can call if they have a question.

 

[lan101]

That's me too Lan. I offer exactly that but my cost is 150 with the Antivirus. What area do you service? I know where I am 150 seems to be good for the fixed income people, but some of my more well off clients tell me I should charge more. If I were in LA I could charge probably 400 and make a mint, but in Buffalo, NY 150 is the cap.

The northwestern area of Ohio. A lot of smaller towns is where I service. I might get a few more bites at $150, but I don't really want to lower it. $200 is still a heck of a bargain I think, but yeah depends on your market. I really don't want tons of these otherwise I probably would go to $150 and see how it went. The reality is if they call more than 3 or 4 times a year regardless of what it is it's a definite losing situation for us. Basically 4 calls or less in my opinion it's value has been had from both sides. Zero calls then they got very little value and ten calls they got way more out of it then we did. So far the ones I got are calling like 3 to 4 times a year so it's proving to be okay for both sides.

 

[JoeTech]

It all started slowing down after 2009/2010 and has progressively gotten worse. There were some patches of "busy" in the next few years but nothing like it was before.

The further we go down this road the worse it gets....

It does seem like cleanups and virus removals peaked in 2010 once tablets started coming out. Kids stopped using their parents/grandparents pc's and loading them up full of all sorts of stuff. I remember getting so many pc's with fake av's and 5 different fake registry cleaners and 20 toolbars everyday we couldn't handle it either.

For the last year we get the occasional pc with slimware cleaner and driver updater, but that's about the worst of it. Most of the problems these days is windows 10 updates or upgrades crashing their pc instead. Luckily most of our money comes from businesses otherwise we wouldn't be able to survive here just on residential. We do sell a managed AV to residential customers but that's about as much as they are willing to pay for.

 

[sapphirescales]

It does seem like cleanups and virus removals peaked in 2010 once tablets started coming out.

It wasn't tablets that killed the malware heydays of the 2000's. Remember what things were like back then. 95% of people used Internet Explorer and most didn't have antivirus software. There were still plenty of XP/Vista users and Windows 7 had just come out at the end of the 2000's.

Security is just better these days. Most people use Chrome/Firefox (or if they're a complete idiot and have Windows 10, Microsoft has pushed them onto Edge), and Flash is all but dead. Not many websites require Java either. Computers and software in general is just more secure in the 2010's, and I imagine it's only going to get better in the future. If your business centers around virus removals, it's pretty much a dead market these days.

In my shop, virus removals make up less than 2% of our calls. Back in the 2000's, it was more like 50%. That's a 96% reduction in call volume! If all we really focused on was malware removal, we'd be out of business. Thankfully I've never liked removing malware and I'm not sad to see those days behind us. Especially now that tablets and phones are available, if computers got infected at the rate they used to, NO ONE would want to use them! They'd buy a new computer, screw it up in 2 months, then say "ah, forget it!" and pick up their phone/tablet and just forget about ever using the computer again.

 

[cypress]

Well said @Barcelona

I really miss Virus Removals as well. I will do tune ups here and there. But mostly I am setting up new computers or swapping out dying hard drives for SSD upgrades.

 

[Slaters Kustum Machines]

Well said @Barcelona

I really miss Virus Removals as well. I will do tune ups here and there. But mostly I am setting up new computers or swapping out dying hard drives for SSD upgrades.

I was just getting into business when virus removals were at their peak. It was a good money maker for us.

 

[GTP]

I started when a low specced computer cost around $4500.
For that you got a 486DX/66 processor, 8mb ram, 250mb HDD, 14" CRT monitor, 1mb Video card, Windows 3.1 with Internet Explorer 1, Creative "Blaster!" Sound Card, serial keyboard and mouse.

For the younger generation Ram, HDD and Video was in MEGABYTES!

If you wanted a 5.25" floppy and 15" monitor you could add an extra $200~$250. You had to have a floppy to install Windows! 2.5" Floppy's were cheaper when they appeared.
A 17" CRT added an extra $600.
CD-Rom was the new technological marvel that we simply had to have - but hadn't been introduced to the masses yet.

The internet was not a "thing" yet, email was talked about but no one actually had it and there was no Google.

The internet started shortly after, (about 12 months after I did) so 9600 Baud modems could be had for $600~$700!
That's if you were lucky enough to afford the blocks of hours you had to buy at $10 p/h. Min 5 hours, plus the setup costs that were horrendous!

A little later....
.mp3 was ratified and introduced.
Viruses were so rare they were only talked about on Bulletin Boards: no one had actually had a virus infection yet.

Steve Gibson made history by coining the term "Spyware" when he found Aurate running on one of his computers.
He wrote the little Opt-Out program to remove it. (The very first AV?)

Thunderbyte Antivirus* started appearing and some time later, McAfee and Norton (John McAfee and Peter Norton were college buddies) came along.

Reflecting back it's incredible, amazing, astounding and more how far we've come in only 20 years!

*Thunderbyte Antivirus was bought by Norman Data Defence, which became Norman Antivirus, then AVG, and now Avast.

 

[Karl00]

This June has been slow for me especially this last week. It's comparable to what I made in January and February, usually the slowest two months of the year for me. The phone just isn't ringing for some reason despite upping advertising. Something seems off and fishy. Only difference I've noticed is a franchise opened a store about five miles away and just one month ago. Still making decent profit but not as much as usual. We do computers and phones and other stuff here and mostly residential.