How do you know up front if you will have to tear the laptop completely apart to run the diag?
Not everything is going to be obvious, you have to use your best judgment. We always make the customer turn on their computer (if able) and show us the problems they are having before we will check in their computer. From there you can make a pretty good assessment on what will be required to diagnose the computer. If it does not turn on, it's an immediate $75 for the extensive diagnostics.
I keep seeing you make this claim over and over in threads that if people charge a diagnostic fee and do not perform a full diagnostic on all aspects of the computer then they are somehow lying or cheating the customer. I don't agree with this and it is probably just a matter of semantics.
When we charge our diagnostic fee, which is $25 and not paid up front, we are charging the customer to diagnose the issue they brought the computer in for. If they brought it in because they have programs popping up saying they have 164,594 problems with their computer, we will check it out and let them know what it will take to fix it. If they are not willing to go forward, they owe us $25.
When I go to the doc with a sore throat, he runs a set of tests/diagnostics related to my complaint and let's me know what it will take to fix it - usually some type of medicine. He may look in my ears and nose, but he does not run a full PET scan, do lots of blood work and so forth when I came in for a sore throat. Likewise we may do a quick look around for any other obvious problems, but we aren't going to spend a whole day running extensive diagnostics when they are complaining about their YouTube videos not playing right anymore.
I just don't like this "lots of people charge a diagnostic fee, but I'm one of the few that actually does it." Again, when you sell a customer a diagnostic, you may be selling a complete check of every system. But that is not what everyone means when they sell a diagnostic and we make it clear to our customers.
Yeah, I guess it could be up for interpretation just as quality can be up for interpretation. One of things that separates us from our competition is that our standards of quality or what we would consider a quality service is much higher than that of our competition. So yeah, I guess you could leave it up to interpretation if you want to.
The simple fact of the matter is, most techs turn on the computer and see a broken screen or see a virus and say "yep, your screen is broken" or "your got a virus" and that is the end of their diagnostics. Do you really think that they customer is paying you for a diagnostics to tell them what they already know? If so, then why are you charging it at all?
Aside from that, as most experience technicians already know, software issues can be caused by hardware failures, and even if that is not the case like with a virus, half the time the hard drive is failing anyways, so why would you not check for that?
What about screen replacements, at least half the time the hard drives are also failing due to the nature of the accident. I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that I am one of the only shops around here that will check for things like failing hard drives for screen replacements.
My customers know everything about their computer before and after they get it repaired. They are all able to make an educated decision on what to do with their computer or whether or not they should invest their money into a new one instead (yes, even if that means I do not make squat). So if a shop owner is to lazy to run a full diagnostics on each computer (in a shop setting under normal circumstances) especially when it is so easy, then that is on them. I truly do believe that at that point, they are doing their customers an injustice.
As for the doctor analogy, try to get a better one that fits the situation better. We are talking about parts that can be easily tested within a day for pretty cheap . . . not even close to the same thing.
