How to get quality customers and rid the cheap ones?

[Mr. Ingram's Computer Repair & Shoppe]

Those drives are very old and what the company is doing is they're wiping the SMART data to make them appear new or low use.

I haven't had a single person come back, complain, write a bad review, or any type of complaint of one of my hard drives failing? they COULD be doing this.... but I've been using these drives for almost a year without, to my knowledge, having one die on a customer.

 

[BlackLabTechs]

cheap does not equal junk.
What is the difference between the $36.90 for a seagate 750GB drive from: http://www.amazon.com/Generic-750GB...&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s00

and the seagate $48 1tb drive: http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Deskt...d=1462812803&sr=1-1&keywords=seagate+desktop\

aside from the obvious size difference and the warranty.

Other major differences include the Seagate is 7200 RPM while the generics are 5400 RPM drives and the Seagate has at least 4x the cache.

 

[gadgetfixup]

In other words: Fraud. It is the computer equivalent of rolling back the odometer and pouring engine honey into the cam box.

Yeah back in the days before gigabyte hard drives and the Internet we had some hard drive "repair" places that would sell refurbished hard drives locally. What they would do back then is fire up Norton Disk Doctor and find all the sectors marked bad and change them to used. This would fool chkdsk and not show any bad sectors. As long as nobody formatted the drive the bad now marked "used" sectors wouldn't be written to so they thought it was "ethical". Then they wonder why computer people are looked at like used car salesmen by some consumers. LOL

 

[Mr. Ingram's Computer Repair & Shoppe]

Yeah back in the days before gigabyte hard drives and the Internet we had some hard drive "repair" places that would sell refurbished hard drives locally. What they would do back then is fire up Norton Disk Doctor and find all the sectors marked bad and change them to used. This would fool chkdsk and not show any bad sectors. As long as nobody formatted the drive the bad now marked "used" sectors wouldn't be written to so they thought it was "ethical". Then they wonder why computer people are looked at like used car salesmen by some consumers. LOL

So if I were to keep buying from "generic" is there anything I can do to ensure the drives are in good health?

 

[cypress]

If you just opened your second store a couple months ago then you must be pulling a big volume of clients. The problem is you are working harder, not smarter. What I mean by that, is that you need to focus on the clients that value your services and want quality over quantity. Those penny pinching clients are the worse. If they want to go to John down the block and have everything done for $60 then let them.

Raise your prices and don't even flinch, if you do great work there is no need to justify it. Let the work speak for itself.

 

[Mr. Ingram's Computer Repair & Shoppe]

If you just opened your second store a couple months ago then you must be pulling a big volume of clients. The problem is you are working harder, not smarter. What I mean by that, is that you need to focus on the clients that value your services and want quality over quantity. Those penny pinching clients are the worse. If they want to go to John down the block and have everything done for $60 then let them.

Raise your prices and don't even flinch, if you do great work there is no need to justify it. Let the work speak for itself.

I pull 9-5 open door hours, where I'll work in 1-3 computers for about 5 hours each + some days ill put an extra 2 hours in. average week is around 50 hours.

I do roughly 15 repairs a week.

the problem I have is penny pinchers are like 12 of the repairs XD I can't live off 3 PCs a week...

 

[nlinecomputers]

I pull 9-5 open door hours, where I'll work in 1-3 computers for about 5 hours each + some days ill put an extra 2 hours in. average week is around 50 hours.

I do roughly 15 repairs a week.

the problem I have is penny pinchers are like 12 of the repairs XD I can't live off 3 PCs a week...

That's cause you are doing break-fix work. I almost never FIX a computer. I replace computers and migrate data and applications over. I sell MSP services that allow me to earn recurring revenue. I manage networks and monitor firewalls. I provide clients with cloud based mail servers, sharepoint services, setup so that users can remote in and work from home. That's how you do better than the pizza techs.

 

[Tech Savvy]

Sometimes I will hide behind "someone in charge", people know when you're the owner you have pull, so a lot of times I act as just a regular employee. And simply say sorry, I'm not allowed to do anything about the price.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Mr. Ingram's Computer Repair & Shoppe]

Sometimes I will hide behind "someone in charge", people know when you're the owner you have pull, so a lot of times I act as just a regular employee. And simply say sorry, I'm not allowed to do anything about the price.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

admitably, I've done that before... though on my website I have a picture of me with the word "Owner" in size 48 font right beside it.... So I can't do it all the time...

 

[gadgetfixup]

I replace computers and migrate data and applications over.

What are you using for migrating applications? I've used a couple different programs but not really happy with either of them. Wondering if you found something that works better?

 

[nlinecomputers]

Me either. I reinstall them.

 

[mikeroq]

So if I were to keep buying from "generic" is there anything I can do to ensure the drives are in good health?

Yes you quit buying "Generic" and start buying brand new drives with full warranty from the manufacturer.

Plus you never know how many may have failed. Some people might feel slighted by their "new" hard drive failing in under a year and just go to another tech, replace the computer, trash the computer. Who knows, some people aren't confrontational at all.

 

[Mr. Ingram's Computer Repair & Shoppe]

This fails my basic test of ethical behaviour, I'm afraid: Do you tell your clients that you're doing this? If not, why not? Could it be that you feel just a little bit ashamed of what you're doing?

You can safely assume that if you don't tell your clients that you're using sub-standard materials then one of your competitors will. This might be why you never hear from them again.

What makes these worse than buying from the manufacturers? I am using two of them personally and still don't have any problems.

 

[mikeroq]

What makes these worse than buying from the manufacturers? I am using two of them personally and still don't have any problems.

1. They are drives of various quality, age, used, smart data wiped etc.
2. If you get an OEM drive from say a Dell or HP computer it has no warranty. If it is a retail or bulk drive it may already be out of warranty.
3. No ethical issues with a new drive. "Yes maam this is a brand new factory sealed hard drive with a 1-5 year warranty."

 

[Mr. Ingram's Computer Repair & Shoppe]

1. They are drives of various quality, age, used, smart data wiped etc.
2. If you get an OEM drive from say a Dell or HP computer it has no warranty. If it is a retail or bulk drive it may already be out of warranty.
3. No ethical issues with a new drive. "Yes maam this is a brand new factory sealed hard drive with a 1-5 year warranty."

Fine.... I'll buy the expensive drives...

 

[mikeroq]

$54 (WD), $48 (Seagate) for a 1TB isn't really expensive, the generic is only $42 Also when on Amazon I try to always buy items sold directly by amazon if I can. Especially when you get into phone chargers, laptop chargers, batteries, etc the listing may say OEM Genuine but who knows which of the dozen sellers on the page actually ship the OEM one and not a generic one.

In Stock.
Want it tomorrow, May 11? Order within 8 hrs 50 mins and choose One-Day Shipping at checkout. Details
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.

 

[Mr. Ingram's Computer Repair & Shoppe]

$54 (WD), $48 (Seagate) for a 1TB isn't really expensive, the generic is only $42 Also when on Amazon I try to always buy items sold directly by amazon if I can. Especially when you get into phone chargers, laptop chargers, batteries, etc the listing may say OEM Genuine but who knows which of the dozen sellers on the page actually ship the OEM one and not a generic one.

I also get the benefit of amazon free 1-day shipping on certain items which helps alot!

 

[nlinecomputers]

24% of the reviews are 1 star negative reviews. That's not a good sign no matter what the product is.

 

[cypress]

I pull 9-5 open door hours, where I'll work in 1-3 computers for about 5 hours each + some days ill put an extra 2 hours in. average week is around 50 hours.

I do roughly 15 repairs a week.

the problem I have is penny pinchers are like 12 of the repairs XD I can't live off 3 PCs a week...

That's rough. Time to start looking into turning some clients into recurring if you can.

 

[sapphirescales]

I don't ever advise giving "discounts," but in the short-term if most of your clients are demanding discounts, then raise your prices for them and then "discount" it down to what a normal person would pay.

In the long term, increase your prices. The more you charge, the more quality clients you'll attract (or better put, the less cheap wads you'll attract). Sure you'll have less business, but you'll get more money and less stress and BS in the long run.

Increase your advertising, and I'm not talking about Craigslist ads. Facebook ads, Google, and some print advertising will help bring in higher quality clients than you'll get from Craigslist.