No more residential

[ComputerClinic]

I don't really care.

I'm sick of even dealing with these people right now man.
I got a call a few minutes ago, wanted me to fix his printer, I told him $65 an hour and he told me to go **** myself, in those words.

That is why I don't like residential customers.

Wow. That's ridiculous! I've never had a customer disrespect me like that before. Most of my residential customers are super friendly and I haven't had any problems so far. In fact, I'm thinking of specializing in residential computer repair.

 

[14049752]

I got a call a few minutes ago, wanted me to fix his printer, I told him $65 an hour and he told me to go **** myself, in those words.

Those people are ridiculous.
Residential customers are our main source of income, and most of them are fine. (but then again 99.9% of our jobs are in-shop repairs).
We had one lady about a year ago wanting us to come out for $25 an hour for two reasons: 1) her ex-husband used to repair computers on the side and he charged $35 an hour. and 2) She doesn't know us and "doesn't know that we're even worth the $25" she was willing to pay. We told her to find someone else even if she did decide to pay our rates. Then she started yelling at us over the phone, using various profanities until we simply hung up.


Sort of off-OP's topic, but on topic about the printer repairs: Couple of weeks ago, we had a guy call us because we have "HP Certified Printer Technician" listed as one of my certifications. The guy called us, basically asking what we charge to work on printers; We tell him that we don't and refer him elsewhere. He got all huffy and said that our website says that we do (it doesn't and never has)...then starts asking for people by name as if the certificate holder will give him a different answer. The guy would not take "No" for an answer about a service that he wanted us to provide.

Anyway.. I don't mind residential customers so long as they bring their system to me. I hate almost any on-site job, business or residential....I just don't like them. Unfortunately, I have to take the good with the bad and take care of both.

 

[NickCat11]

I don't really care.

I'm sick of even dealing with these people right now man.
I got a call a few minutes ago, wanted me to fix his printer, I told him $65 an hour and he told me to go **** myself, in those words.

That is why I don't like residential customers.

Well, if I had customers like that I guess I would feel the same way you do. That's crazy how rude they are. How do you even respond to something like that

 

[MichianaComputers2]

Residential Customers

When you set a boundary, some people will test it. When they don't get there way they will sometimes get angry. Just keep your composure and remain firm.

The customer we had today we went to about two weeks ago. Her problem was her at&t dsl was very slow. The at&t guy told her it was her computer. We went and found that her dsl was slow. We took a laptop with us and hooked it to her router and showed her the speed test on our computer. It was slow too. And we have a fast computer. I spent two hours on the phone with at&t to convince them they were the problem. I charged her our standard rate of 65 per hour for 2 hours plus 20 for trip fee so $150. I gave her a 15% senior citizen discount. She paid the entire amount anyway and refused the discount. How nice.

During the week she called and talked to Alex a couple times and emailed him many time. One time he was on the phone witfh her for 45 minutes. We did not charge her for that.

Now today she called and said her email is not working and wanted us to come to her house to fix it. So we did. Her password was bad. She accidently changed the settings in her email program so she was downloading emails twice and not getting her other emails from her second account. Her password she gave would not work. So we called at&t and reset her password . And started her 200 emails downloading. I gave her our invoice and she got very upset that she had to pay. She said we touched the computer last week so whatever we did must have made it break this week. I explained that it was like changing the tires last week now the engine was broken and we have nothing to do with it.

She paid us grudgingly. And we left.

 

[NTS]

Residential customers are actually what is keeping my business going at the moment. Yes, I personally prefer business customers as they respect what I do and don't think twice about paying me.

However, I work a full-time job Monday through Friday from 8 - 5 pm and generally cannot go after the business customers as much.

I can visit Residential customers after 5 pm and on weekends... so I am somewhat tied to them.

Most of them are easy to deal with... only had a couple of crazy ones so far. But, I generally get out of sight as quickly as possible when dealing with them.

I think I will always be there for both Residential and Business customers. Places like Geek Squad and other places that don't know what they are doing is what got me into this business in the 1st place.

I want to be there for people and provide a valuable service for a reasonable price...

 

[iladelf]

Just had one yesterday; new customer. Wife calls first (the family pants-wearer, as I found out later), then gives the phone to her husband. He's the actual computer user. Tells me there's a problem with his browser; closes upon startup (which version, I don't know). Tell him I can make an appointment, had already told his wife my fees, and set a time.

Got to the house; an elderly, nice gentleman, and the overbearing, watch-over-your-shoulder wife. I couldn't tell what the problem was at first, told this lady I didn't know yet (as she kept badgering me about what was wrong, complaining about my charges, etc.), and finally determine that their problems started last Thursday. Look at Windows Updates on this Vista machine, and sure enough, a whole slew of them, including IE8. I make a judgment call to revert to 7; that doesn't fix it, but IE stays open long enough to see that there are (seemingly) a KABILLION frickin' toolbars installed! Think that caused your problem? So I disabled every last one of them, and sure enough, IE7 was working fine. Since she was obviously clock watching, I stopped immediately, got a check for an hour's work and got the hell out of there. Could I have done more? Yes, but since she was SOOO concerned about price, I decided to vamoose.

Won't work for her or her husband again. It's another reason why I quit giving out business cards upon arrival to a new customer's location. I'll give those out only AFTER a smooth experience with said customer. Don't need a bad customer giving my business cards out to other bad customers.

 

[azcpuguy]

i dont mind residential at all, ive got a nice base of repeat and referral customers. I do take new customers, but if they sound sketchy, i just tell them i'm all booked up for the week. I dont even go onsite any more, strictly a customer drop off and pick up to my home and business keeps improving. Its so nice to work in the home or shop without a customer over your shoulder.