Onsite Hourly charges

[certifiedtek123]

Hi ,
Once in a while you run into a situation on-site Where a problem takes a long time to solve to completion say a few hours,all virus/spyware scanning aside if that be the case. I wanted to know what other techs who have their own business like myself charge the customer, If they make adjustments to their hourly charges? or bring the PC back to shop and charge a shop rate for everything after the 2plus hrs they were onsite or charge less?
To be honest if you saw that particular problem with that particular PC before,
You know you could have had fixed it quicker. Furthermore, Lot of these customers Can tell because there just worried about the clock ticking Constantly asking you know what's wrong with it and how much more is it going to take.

I've heard customers talk of the previous tech company that was there spent serveral hrs there only to later discover they needed a hard drive or whatever, And They were upset they got billed all that time figuring out the problem.And that's why they've called someone else(me) the next time they had a problem.

 

[Methical]

Just an idea, thought I would throw it out there..

Maybe for some of your services, have a flat rate? Instead of a hourly rate...
Just as an example..

Virus Removal - $99
Software Installation - $20
Hardware Installation - $40
Wireless Internet Setup - $50
System Clean Up - $70

(Do not quote any of that, it is an example )

 

[computergeek1]

I charge £30 p.h and have a min of 1 hour, after that i will take it back to the workshop for a set fee, with the customer agreeing the price there and then. i have some set prices like virus/spyware removal £50, software installation £50, pc tune up £75 etc.

 

[MrUnknown]

I will generally try to work out the problem on-site for an hour before taking it off-site to do a fixed price repair. I consider that hour "diagnostics" and do not charge separate for it because all of my fixed prices cost at least as much as 1 hour of on-site service. That 1 hour cost covers my expenses to get the computer and return it anyway so I don't really lose anything by doing this.

If the client insists on doing it solely on-site, then they will pay hourly no matter what I am doing, I at least gave a choice.

The only issue with flat-rate billing is if you have a mixture of problems to solve. It can become quite expensive for the client to have the computer fixed. I am still trying to figure out how to fairly charge for these extra services.

 

[bagellad]

I think you generally know if the problem is going to be a quick fix or not after an hour and you have to go with your gut in this situation. If its going to be a long fix its best to take it back to the site.

Example: I had a computer the other day with tons of viruses/Spy so nasty I couldnt even put on an antivirus to start removing it, After tinkering for 30 minutes I managed to get the programs I wanted on and started scanning and get access to windows to start removing stuff.

If I had been there an hour and still not been able to get stuff on. I would have taken the computer back and reinstalled windows.

So I would say, if you know its going to be a long fix, call it quits on site within the hour. I also tell my customer that I am "rolling the first hour" into the total price. So although I am just charging them an hour of my offsite fee.. It sounds like I am doing then a favour!

 

[ProTech Support]

The only time I really charge by the hour if it is an on-site job.

For most cases in the shop I stick with the flat-fee setup. It is prob. your best bet, and I am pretty sure most of the members here go this direction.

 

[@ncient geek]

Several years ago we did on-site work for private customers. For a very long time there was not much to complain about, except for the fact that we had to adapt the rates for multi-hour interventions.

Three years ago we completely stopped on-site for residential and private customers (except for handicapped and old persons).

I firmly believe that in 4 cases out of 5 it is impossible to correctly repair a computer on-site today without either loosing money or botching the job. I do not mean maintenance but repair here.

Residential repair has turned out to be largely virus removal, registry repair, simple data recovery or migration. Either the intervention times are too long (virus work) or work is complex in which case I refuse my techs to do any transfer of technology.

I know today that in the past we have made many mistakes in the education of our customers. We have always accepted people to watch us perform our work, commented what we where doing, let them see the utilities we use etc. I firmly refuse this today as it is what kills this business IMHO. The vast majority of software we are using has been developed by myself or by one of my children. We have been watching our software being used by our competition (because CDs were "misplaced" on-site) as we have observed unqualified persons use our techniques and technology for their own purposes.

What we do today is simple : we have one employee per shop who's activity is the on-site pre-screening of residential computers. All he does is perform simple repairs (installation of software, printers, scanners and small maintenance). Anything which would exceed 45 minutes of work automatically goes to the shops for repair. This allows for small on-site bills (pleasing the customer), insured transport to and fro, and customer satisfaction as most of the work is done on a minute basis by a technician who is optimising his time servicing 3 computers at the same time. The mean of our residential bills have dropped by thirty percent, our work volume has increased two-fold.

 

[Vetal]

I'm curios to see the software you use)))

 

[krutoi]

We have always accepted people to watch us perform our work, commented what we where doing, let them see the utilities we use etc. I firmly refuse this today as it is what kills this business IMHO.

Very good point...

 

[gunslinger]

I charge $35 per hour + $1 per mile for anything over 10 miles from my shop.

We have always accepted people to watch us perform our work, commented what we where doing, let them see the utilities we use etc. I firmly refuse this today as it is what kills this business IMHO.

Actually I agree with this. If its a bad case of spyware removal for example I will take the system back with me. One reason is time another reason is that I have actually lost some customers because they figured out how to use Ccleaner and malwarebytes...lol.

If someone is just standing there looking at me while I work I will take it back with me most of the time.

 

[cmonova]

Usually it depends on the situation. Sometimes older people ask if they can watch and to me that is fine becuase typically they start watching but in reality all they want to do is have someone to talk to. I have no problem working and listening to them at the same time. Plus, I have no doubt they are not even watching/caring what I am doing.

By the same token there are others that really do want to watch and try to learn and to those poeple I politely say no. Did a network job yesterday and the female said i'd like to watch and see what I can learn (she is taking courses and informed me how the class tried hacking into this system)..kind of crazy I thought but oh well.

Told her what I was hired for and if she wanted or the company wanted her to have "individual" training then they could contact me and we could set that up.

 

[certifiedtek123]

How do you tell the Residential customer to not stand over your shoulder

This keeps happening and they make me nervous and cloud my thinking How do you tactfully tell them to let you work without Offending them.
Thanks for any input.

 

[Normann]

This keeps happening and they make me nervous and cloud my thinking How do you tactfully tell them to let you work without Offending them.
Thanks for any input.

I have only had a handful of calls but this is happening to me too. It also does not help that I look real young although I am almost 40. At the end you are just someone who they do not know, or not know well, and you may be looking at their personal data, etc. If they want to watch, there isn't much you can do about it on-site. But if they want me to train them too so be it. But flat pricing and max 3 hours is no more in that case.

Another thing that I find annoying is when they have already tried several fixes before calling. If it is a case like that I will tell them that all I can do is take it, do a full reinstall and data migration for a flat. I will not even try to spend my time fixing someone else's screw up while he keeps telling me "I have already tried this", or "you might want to try this".