How To Bill For Remote Support

[DocGreen]

Hey guys!

I'm trialing LogMeIn Rescue right now, and have been in touch with their sales staff about signing up... at this point the price seems right and the features are everything I've ever wanted. My only question now is, how the heck do I bill my remote support customers?

Ideally, I would be able to bill them directly through the remote support session, as opposed to taking a CC over the phone. In a perfect world, they would get the prompt to enter their payment info on their end and I never even have to mess with it. Is this possible with LMI?

What I'm wanting accomplish end game is to have LMI integrated into my website so the customer can initiate a support session on their own and make their way into my queue (if a tech is available). Ideally they would never have to even call if they didn't want to, but of course the phone is always available.

As far as pricing, I plan to bill as follows...
$60 for the first hour (minimum charge)
$30 for each additional hour, billed in 15-min increments.

With that in mind, I would (in a perfect world) want to pre-auth the customer's card for $60, then finalize the charge once the session is completed... that way I know I'm at least getting $60 out of them, and they're not able to skip-out.

How do you guys handle this? I'm sure plenty of you guys have asked yourselves the same questions... someone has to have found the right answer, lol. For the record, I'm currently using Square to process cards in-person and over the phone, and also have a Stripe account setup and linked to my Mhelpdesk account for online payments.


Thanks in advance guys!!

 

[acscva]

Be careful with Logmein as they have screwed a lot of resellers over the past year with outrageous price increases. Both Screen Connect and Instant house calls have the capability for billing also.

$60 seems very cheap per hour.

 

[DocGreen]

Be careful with Logmein as they have screwed a lot of resellers over the past year with outrageous price increases. Both Screen Connect and Instant house calls have the capability for billing also.

$60 seems very cheap per hour.

It is cheap, but unfortunately the market here won't support a higher rate... at least not at the level I'm at. The big dogs in town get away with charging (according to rumors) upwards of $200/hr for business support, but they cater to the big corporations and multi-site factories, etc. They also offer WAY more than I ever could... fiber & wireless internet access, for example. I've got a ways to go before I get there, I'm still a 1-man show for the most part, lol.

As for LMI... I don't see how they increase their rates anymore than they already have, lol. But I'll definitely keep a close eye on it.

 

[callthatgirl]

LMI Rescue is worth the price if you are doing sessions everyday and need many sessions going at once, viewable in a desktop app or via the browser. Been with them since I almost started in 2007. Married to them but I do have clients now well trained on "what is the 6 digit code" lol

Here is what I do for remote support. Very simple process.

Book appointment. --alert them of the fees.
Send client your agreement form (very important!!) You can setup your agreement form to forward to your credit card page. Have them pay a deposit there or the flat fee rate.

If you don't book an appt, remote in, have the client fill out your form and pre-auth their card or secure payment. I do both depending on the job. Sometimes I auth $139 for the time being and end up with a bigger invoice later and collect it.

Always secure a credit card before doing anywork. It took me years of figuring this out, it just makes sense, no point in chasing invoices for fast remote work.

Pricing: $60 is a bit low for pricing, but hey...you can always raise the prices.

15 min, $25
30 min, $45
45 min $55
60 min $60

That might work for sliding, I still have the quick 15 min jobs I just bill $49 for usually.

 

[16bwhitt]

I am interested in this as well. All helpful replies will be much appreciated

 

[nesrinamb]

Do 60 per hour, don't give them a discount for additional hours. 30 per hour probably wouldn't be worth it unless you're okay with taking home what would probably end up being minimum wage. Taxes and expenses quickly bring that 30 per hour down by a lot.

60 per hr seems good if thats what the market can support. If bigger companies can get away with charging 200 per hour then you really need to look into that.

As for the idea of you not being able to charge 200 that isn't based on the ability to provide fancy fiber and wireless Internet access. That's based off of what level of service you provide to your customer and who your customer is. If you deal with mom and pop shops then yea 200 is out of the question, but look at getting into some medical offices.

 

[DocGreen]

Fair enough, $30/per is too low. I'm sticking with the $60 for the first hour, but I want the pricing to be clear and easy to understand, so... $15 for each additional 15 mins? Not sure how to best word it, but that way it's still the same hourly rate, broken down into 15min intervals.

@callthatgirl I'd really like to see your process in action. The only way I have setup to accept online payments is using Stripe w/ Mhelpdesk, but that requires having an invoice.

Here's roundabout what I would like the customer experience to be:

1. Visit my website, fill out 'request for support' form giving all necessary customer info, agreeing to terms and billing, scheduling a time slot, etc.
2. Request come to me, I generate the LMI 6-digit code, confirm the timeslot, and send them the code & link to my billing page
3. Billing page takes their payment info and pre-auth's the initial $60, then forwards to "enter the code" page
4. After session is over, customer gets the survey page and is done.

I could probably handle the requests with Mhelpdesk with some tweaking, but using MHD's billing page won't work because it won't allow me to modify the charge to reflect the final amount. I also don't know if I can get the MHD billing page to dump them out on the "enter the code" page.

I'm using Stripe for online payments, and Square for in-person/phone payments. As far as I know, Stripe can handle the type of charge I want, I just don't know how to set it up to do that, lol. I could use Square for online payment if I REALLY had to, but I doubt it would let me modify charges, so it would end up with customers getting 2 charges from me.


Any ideas?

 

[callthatgirl]

Let's do an appointment so you can see it in action.

Schedule an appt here. http://bit.ly/1C2IoEO (select Outlook and Office 365 service call)

Follow along until the payment part, which is at the end. Then just don't pay.

Then I will do the appointment with you when you book it and we can fake client it up until it's done.

 

[callthatgirl]

You just did the appointment and I ask for a $49 deposit on the appt.

Tomorrow when I call...pretend you're a client and I'll do my usual song and dance and you will see how easy it all is

talk to you tomorrow!

 

[DocGreen]

You just did the appointment and I ask for a $49 deposit on the appt.

Tomorrow when I call...pretend you're a client and I'll do my usual song and dance and you will see how easy it all is

talk to you tomorrow!

I like everything except the Paypal processing... does vCita have alternatives? Am I correct in assuming you're using the Bus. package? Just wondering if I should look into it for myself, or if I can get MHD to do what I need.

 

[Poetik92]

Might want to tell your significant other you're expecting a very important phone call from a call girl tomorrow and you are not to be disturbed during it. You know.... to make sure you're all on the same page

 

[DocGreen]

Might want to tell your significant other you're expecting a very important phone call from a call girl tomorrow and you are not to be disturbed during it. You know.... to make sure you're all on the same page

Ha!

 

[callthatgirl]

You can use any processing you want, that link to pay comes off my website once you submit the client agreement form, has nothing to do with vcita or mhelpdesk.

The client agreement form gathers the info and I have to manually type in all the info in mhelpdesk.

So again, the client schedules with me, pop up from vcita tells them to fill out the form on my website, the form after submitted takes you to the payment page.

Then I accept the appt, and input everything manually into mhelpdesk.

 

[DocGreen]

I just did a bunch of updating to my website and included remote support booking using Square Appointments. I still need to see how the actual billing will work with this, but it does require customer's to reserve the time slot with a credit card to help avoid no-shows. Have a gander and let me know what you think: http://www.pcpitcrewsb.com/services.html

 

[Gotenks64]

Thank you for this. Square appointments looks very simple to use!

 

[DocGreen]

Thank you for this. Square appointments looks very simple to use!

Haven't had a chance to bill anyone yet... interested in seeing how that part works.