Newbie PC repair business blues

lowbudgetlaptops

lowbudgetlaptops

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Hello, got a call from 1 of the very few customers i do get for a magic jack install & a earthlink internet install gave a senior a price of $40 for my service. Customer had Comcast service but wanted to save $ . ended up giving her clear internet service instead of earthlink, works fine then installed magic jack works choppy after 15hrs/3days of tweaking windows vista sp2 1gb ram customer is not satisfied. Can someone please tell me where i went wrong ?
 
lowbudgetlaptops said:
Hello, got a call from 1 of the very few customers i do get for a magic jack install & a earthlink internet install gave a senior a price of $40 for my service. Customer had Comcast service but wanted to save $ . ended up giving her clear internet service instead of earthlink, works fine then installed magic jack works choppy after 15hrs/3days of tweaking windows vista sp2 1gb ram customer is not satisfied. Can someone please tell me where i went wrong ?
Click to expand...

1GB of Ram to start with......
 
This post looks like it is from the mid 90s.

Where you went wrong.
Didn't charge hourly for onsite.
If it was flat rate you didn't charge enough to cover issues like this.
Took a job from someone trying to save money.
Specs of computer
 
1GB on Vista is just not enough
No hourly charge only $40 for 15 hours of work thats $2.66per hour WHOA!! dont mean to sound like a asss but you need to charge a hourly rate. Im sure you have learnt that now :)
be very aware of customers trying to save money you really at the end of the dont want those customer it only hurts your business. I speak this from my own experience when i started up few years back
so hope you learn from this and take any advice people give you on this post and grow your business. Good luck to you
 
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what exactly works choppy? The magic jack?

We had one of those a while back, and they are garbage. At least the one we had was. It would randomly hang the phone up after 10 min of talking. Just long enough to have been on hold long enough to finally get to talk to someone and then the phone shuts itself off. Nice.

As others have said, vista is a resource hog. Not very resource efficent.

I'd recommend no less then 4GB of ram for Vista. What are the other specs like? CPU, GPU? Power supply?

This could be a case where someone (hopefully not you) installed vista on a system that was barely able to handle XP. People pop in a new graphics card, maybe add in another DVD burner and think it's fine to just upgrade the OS and off you go. They don't realize that the new hardware might be too much for the current power supply and not up to snuff for a new OS. Especially Vista.

And finally why are you working for $40? I get flac on here for how little I often charge, but even for me this job would have been more then that.

Offer higher prices for the same reason others have told me to. You will weed away the type of customers you don't want anyways and people will
see the price as a reflection of what you feel your value is. I wouldn't let a mechanic with a shop rate of 19.99 an hour work on my car.
 
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Magic Jack in general is not very good I don't believe. I tried it a few years ago for a backup phone in the office, and it would beep and hangout etc. like others said. I've set the new ones up for people that just plug into the router. They seem to be better, but as cheap as they are, I'm sure issues could still arise.

Vista and 1GB yeah just not enough.

As far as customers trying to save money etc. I understand that, but you have to charge more for a callout. My very minimum callout was $75 for the last 3 years and this year I moved it up to $90. As others said, either go with an hourly rate, or at least a higher flat rate. I will always tell the customer average charge over the phone, so if they are thinking it's a "cheap" price, I save myself that headache.
 
Yeah dude you are not charging nearly enough. I charge 40 to just show up. 50 per hour which I think I'm gonna raise to 75. Vista at minimum should have 2 gb of ram 4 is better. Agreed on customers saving money customers who are only concerned with cost will be a pain, I'd rather let them walk. In fact I'm bold enough to tell people that there are guys on Craigslist who say they will fix for 10 bucks an hour, and follow up saying they may very well fix your computer, but they may end up breaking things worse. I know what my time is worth and that's why I charge what I charge. If they are not satisfied with that, go to another place down the road. You don't want low budget customers. When you are starting though you jump at any job I know. Give it a year or two, when customers start referring you and those referrals keep coming in, it should snowball for you. We are going toward our 3rd year and its starting to get that way to where we are more steady than just trickles.

Also don't cut breaks for people because you feel sorry for them. People I've done that for before seem to be the least happy. Set a fair price and stick to it.
 
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I started out charging $49ph..

I used to do various discounts, and would often help people out doing work 'on the cheap'

I used to feel bad if I charged someone who was obviously broke, full price.

These days, never.

Always full price, and I charge $120 per hour

If a person can't afford that, they are not my customer. There are plenty of 'Craigslist' type services they can access..

You have to cover your time, and also build in the time that's required to warrant your services if something goes wrong.

Listen to the guys here that are telling you to charge a full rate. We have been where you are now and doing work on the cheap is not a good way to build your business. The other problem with this is that you will create a client base of 'cheap', penny-pinching customers who will move on as soon as you raise your prices, becaus you have created a false expectation of the value of your work at the outset.

If you want to make money, buy my kit, build a website, and then tell me when it's ready. I will go over your seo for you and show you how to get rank.. I know of no better way to have continual customer queries than a high ranking website, (or a prominent shop front, but I can't help you with that) :)
 
lowbudgetlaptops said:
Hello, got a call from 1 of the very few customers i do get for a magic jack install & a earthlink internet install gave a senior a price of $40 for my service. Customer had Comcast service but wanted to save $ . ended up giving her clear internet service instead of earthlink, works fine then installed magic jack works choppy after 15hrs/3days of tweaking windows vista sp2 1gb ram customer is not satisfied. Can someone please tell me where i went wrong ?
Click to expand...

Like everyone else has said... upgrade the RAM. Upgrade the crap out of it. Max it out at 4GB. Also, tell us a bit more about the internet service you set the customer up with. I've not heard of Earthlink used since the days of dialup... maybe I'm out of the loop? What speeds is she getting up/down? Does she have enough bandwidth to support VoIP?

Also... In case you haven't heard it enough yet... Charge more. You're devaluing the entire industry when you charge bargain basement prices.

As for Magic Jack... I used it a few years back for a home phone. It worked pretty well. It had a few issues here and there, but nothing major. I definitely wouldn't recommend it for a senior citizen though... unless, of course, she's more tech-savvy than your average senior citizen. Magic Jack isn't exactly a set-it-and-forget-it solution.
 
customer bought the earthlink and magic jack on her on before consulting with me. I made her send the earth link back and made her purchase clearwire internet home modem
 
First off, I'm sorry to hear you're going thought a "headache" job... I too have honored my "advertised flat rate" price and had it completely backfire on me, wasting 10-12 hrs for a measly $69.

Although I agree to some point with DocGreen when he said you're devaluing the industry, but only if you make a habit of routinely doing $40 work... It sounds more like to thought it would be a pretty straight forward job, are new to the industry, felt like being nice to a senior citizen and got your *ss handed to you. When you're new and trying to scrape up every bit of work you can, sometimes you need to work cheap to build your experience, try to be fair to yourself.

Something I still do is bill a job based on what I think it's worth. If it's something I can do blindfolded and in my sleep, definitely full price, no question; however, if I spend 5-6 hrs on something but I know someone with more experience in the area could do it in 3 I bill 3 and chock up the remaining as a learning experience for myself. I am very skilled and experienced in some areas, but am trying to learn in others. Out of fairness to my clients I bill appropriately, they don't need to pay for my education.

All that said, I wholeheartedly agree that you should NOT seek out bargain hunters. They will complain about everything, always try to nickel and dime you to death, and will bolt the second something cheaper comes along. I seek out fair people that appreciate my work - and I treat them accordingly. I bend over backwards for my primo clients, answering questions and doing minor remote work for free, because they are constantly needing me for paid work and REFER ME BUSINESS! I ditch Cheapo Depot clients pretty quickly...

I wish you luck in getting this mess taken care of. My advice is try your best to make a happy customer and try to salvage this thing. Hopefully they will appreciate your hard work and refer you - or at least not lambaste you with negative word of mouth!
 
lowbudgetlaptops said:
customer bought the earthlink and magic jack on her on before consulting with me. I made her send the earth link back and made her purchase clearwire internet home modem
Click to expand...

So you made her send the Earthlink back, and made her purchase Clearwire internet...

You're not giving us much information at all, here... and the information you are giving doesn't make you look very good at all, lol. For starters, Clearwire is a 4G cellular internet provider... I honestly would not be recommending something like that for a MagicJack. As I remember, the customer originally had Comcast, right? I think you (and possibly the customer) made a mistake moving from Comcast to Clearwire... according to Clearwire's website, their packages start at $39.99. I just spoke to a Comcast rep about prices for their lowest internet-only package, and hear's what they told me...

Chris: Brand new customers qualify to receive Economy Plus at just $14.99 per month for the first 12 months. After 12 months, you can continue to enjoy Performance Internet for $24.99 per month for months 13-18. After 18 months regular rates apply of around $39.95 per month when you subscribe to internet only.
Click to expand...

SO... the customer hasn't saved any money, and instead is left with a lesser internet service. :rolleyes:
 
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