Possible To Make It On Just Resdential Customers

[JustinG30]

so my business has gone through a lot of changes in the last few months. I lost my main tech who did my business clients and have been unable to find a new one I can afford to pay as of now so I'm brokering the jobs out. So my business now is all 100% residential clients.

My question is do people have success just focusing on servicing residential customers? I charge a flat rate of $85 per job for repairs plus parts. As of now get in approx only 10-12 machines a week since the main push use to be businesses.

So what are some good up sells to bring extra income to the shop? In just wondering if it's worth pursuing this resendital side of repairs or just close up shop and call it a day.

Any other tips on finding success just servicing and repair everyday computers with no business customers?

Thanks for any advice

 

[gikstar]

I know of one local tech that has a small shop handling residential/business clients that bring the equipment to his shop and he's keeping very busy. We take some of our laptop business to him since we specialize in business... MSP, and do an occasional residential client.

I think that it's a must that anyone in this business know servers, domain controllers, etc, otherwise, what sets one apart from a Pizza tech other than a physical location?

 

[TechLady]

I think that it's a must that anyone in this business know servers, domain controllers, etc, otherwise, what sets one apart from a Pizza tech other than a physical location?

Um, you're a pizza tech if you're all residential, with exactly zero interest in getting calls at 2am about downed servers?

So what are some good up sells to bring extra income to the shop?

A good upsell is cloud backup. Residential (read: moms and grandparents) do NOT want to lose the only copies of their baby photos. But they have no clue about backups and they won't really maintain them even if you set up a traditional one. Another upsell might be surge protectors. Can't tell you how many people I find with everything plugged directly into the wall. You can get good ones cheap on Amazon and charge a decent profit on them, and still be cheaper than the old go-to that so many residential clients run to: Radio Shack. Last thing off the top of my head is password managers, either paper or digital. They all keep their passwords on the back of bread bags and envelopes.

Edit: bigger upsell? Get the residentials with only one computer in the whole house to consider a cheap secondary one or a tablet (from you of course). Best time to sell this idea is when their one and only fails, which they always do eventually.

 

[NYJimbo]

I think that it's a must that anyone in this business know servers, domain controllers, etc, otherwise, what sets one apart from a Pizza tech other than a physical location?

Many shops that don't do onsite, don't handle servers because so much of that requires onsite work. For other than general hardware or software problems, who brings a server to a shop ? Are they going to bring in their whole network ? Its like saying a cellphone repair shop that does phones, tablets and other handheld stuff is just pizza tech because they don't do phone systems.

 

[JustinG30]

Ya just because we don't do business anymore doesn't make us a pizza tech.

In regards to selling cloud backup service who is a good one that's reliable with good margins? I'd say maybe 90% of my customers don't have some
A form of backup and id love to up sell them on that.

 

[FremontPC]

If you can sell 'em a 1TB WD Elements and put Macrium Free on there with a shortcut to the backup task on the desktop, then get them on Crashplan or the like with versioning, you've got half the battle won. Call 'em, remote in and have them plug the Elements in, then launch the shortcut on the desktop and Macrium will go straight into the countdown to backup. If their HDD fails Macrium back to a new one with the Crashplan settings already in there and bring their data back from Crashplan, not so difficult.

I'm about ready to have a look at Managed Services in a Month on the recommendation of Dr. Jones:

https://www.technibble.com/forums/threads/how-much-cash-are-you-missing-out-on.64079/#post-498370

and earlier mention by others.

In the space between Residential and a biz with 15+ workstations and a server, there's some small biz crying out for help. Give a listen.

 

[Calx]

I would like to say that about 90% of my work is residential, I have a handful of small businesses and sole traders. I am not a Pizza Tech.
I work from home to lower my overheads and fit in with being Mum to 2 children.

 

[Kitten Kong]

I think that it's a must that anyone in this business know servers, domain controllers, etc, otherwise, what sets one apart from a Pizza tech other than a physical location?

I have to say here @gikstar, I take exception to your comment here.

I know not a damned thing about servers, domain controllers etc, nor do I want to right now. I am plenty busy enough, without the additional hassles of a server fall out 3.30am, with a client wanting me onsite within the next hour!.

I work from home, have done for the past 10 years, and year on year my client base has increased. I am not the cheapest tech in my area. I am certainly not a pizza tech.

90% of my clients are residential, or small businesses, and sole traders.

@op, upsells, surge protectors, anti virus sales, printer inks, cd's dvd's, laptop cases, replacement laptop adapters, malwarebytes premium, are just a few good upsells, you can sell to most clients.

If you do a good job, with great customer service, your clients will remember you, and give good word of mouth testimonials to their family and friends.

Also you do not HAVE to have a physical location. In my area, we have only one main road in and out. There is now a bypass. The number of shops which open and close within 6 months is unreal. We must have the largest amount of sandwich shops, and take-aways pr capita than anywhere else in Manchester. There is at least 30+ along the main road which is approx 2 miles long.

These seem to be the only shops which last. Anything else, apart from those who have been in business for many a year (and I'm talking at least 15-20 yrs in the same location), start up, then a few months later, theres a for lease sign in the window).

So why would I want to risk both my reputation and money in opening a shop up, where there is now little passing trade, due to the bypass, area in a economic downturn, with a high probability of not being open after 12 months. It just doesn't make good business sense to me. Also with being disabled, working from home, I can stop work, as and when I need to for a break, if my back goes. If I had a shop, this would be practically impossible. Hence why I love my little workshop, and think I will be here for the remainder of time.

 

[Cambridge PC Support]

I do OK with mostly residential customers here. Used to do the server thing years and years ago but so out of touch now.

I'm 11 stone, so if I was a pizza tech, then I'd be a helluva lot heavier

 

[Kitten Kong]

Probably where I'm going wrong then Kev. I'm just over 19st lol.

 

[Moltuae]

so my business has gone through a lot of changes in the last few months. I lost my main tech who did my business clients and have been unable to find a new one I can afford to pay as of now so I'm brokering the jobs out. So my business now is all 100% residential clients.

My question is do people have success just focusing on servicing residential customers? I charge a flat rate of $85 per job for repairs plus parts. As of now get in approx only 10-12 machines a week since the main push use to be businesses.

So what are some good up sells to bring extra income to the shop? In just wondering if it's worth pursuing this resendital side of repairs or just close up shop and call it a day.

Any other tips on finding success just servicing and repair everyday computers with no business customers?

Thanks for any advice

Depends how you define "make it" I suppose.

My advice would to focus on business customers, if possible, and if it's practical for you to do so. While it can be more stressful in some ways supporting business, due to the more urgent/critical nature of some of the work, it is generally more lucrative and steady work and, to be frank, you have to deal with fewer idiots (which, personally, I find far more stressful).

20+ years ago, I used to do 99% residential; now I do 99% business. I kept a handful of the residential customers I like and fired off the rest. And I no longer take on any new residential customers.

Working on residential machines, I found that much of the time I had to charge less that the hours worked to be able to do a good job and to charge a fair price. Frequently I'd work 3-4 hours repairing or cleaning up a system and make just £50-100. Most of the work was break-fix and I spent a lot of time taking calls, explaining stuff to customers or driving around picking up and dropping off systems. I also found myself needing to work evenings and weekends frequently, simply because many of my customers worked during the week.

By contrast, working for businesses, I charge an hourly rate and I charge for every single hour I spend working on their systems. Most of the work is maintenance or upgrades and 90+% of it is remote work. I have a constant flow of work (some of which I can charge £100+ per hour for), I usually don't have to leave my workshop more than a couple of times a week, and I get no more than 1 or 2 urgent calls a day on average. I rarely need to work evenings and weekends much (though I often choose to, just to get through my workload) since none of my customers need a 24/7 service. I do have a few business customers who are open weekends, but they'll only call me at weekends if the problem is urgent, which is rare.

 

[cypress]

Surge protectors are a nice upsell that I never even imagined either. Can't recall the amount of times I go on site and I see a poorly plugged in computer. We end up getting a surge protector but having one on you would help a lot with upsells. Cloud backup and Anti-virus are nice ones as well that you can get a good margin on.

I am not crazy about servers, I have always loved the desktop world and what I do on a day to day basis. Add me with the list of others that have chimed in. lol.

 

[SprinterTech-WI]

It all depends upon your definition of making it. For me that means a fully running company making me money where i don't have to do the work. Doing just residential pc repair where i operate in central wisconsin would never accomplish that.
As full service multi location retail... its on the right track. But thats retail stores doing more cell phones and tablets than pc's and commercial division doing smb work and a separate company doing contract IT work. Primarily enterprise level deployments and upgrades.

Can a residential only band survive? Probably. Will they ever "make it" as a business owner... not in my opinion, they may make it as being a 1 man self employed... but as a "company" they just can't get the volume and regularity that it takes to build a company.

My 2 cents.

Also in other news if you're great at smb and live in central Wisconsin call me we're hiring

 

[Krynn72]

Can a residential only band survive? Probably. Will they ever "make it" as a business owner... not in my opinion, they may make it as being a 1 man self employed... but as a "company" they just can't get the volume and regularity that it takes to build a company.

My 2 cents.

I agree that it depends on your location. I work for an exclusively break/fix residential in-shop only (no on-site at all, not even pickup/dropoff service) company that has several locations in the state. The owner doesn't do any of the repair work anymore really and just manages the business and employees. He's doing very well for himself. But CT has large populations in many areas of it's small geography so its easier to reach a large customer base that will consistently need services. For comparison, I looked up Wisconsin Rapids Metropolitan Area (Wood County?) which is 809sq miles and has a population of approx 75k. Hartford County, in which we have just two of our locations, is 750sq miles, but a population of 894k.

With residential work, in my opinion, if you have a huge population within a serviceable distance you can make a killing.

 

[axiomcrs2]

Opening a physical location says to me and many others that you're serious about making a living at IT and professional and confident enough to do it. Also, it says you don't want to take the plunge. As an aside, what population amount that will reasonably come into your shop for residential servicing will support a physical location?