I am an experienced tech and good at repairs but you know some of the rootkits are nearly impossible to clean. I just had a Windows XP Pro machine about 3 years old come in that parts of Windows was damaged. I spent hours getting windows the function again only to find it had rootkits that were not cleanable.... Often system restore saves me on these issues, but the PC froze on system restore (big sign).
I've run into this before a couple of times. I need to develop a standard where I have a regular process that says if I can't resolve in X time then I have to reimage or reinstall Windows. Most of my customers take my advise and get a hard drive and have some type of a full image.
I've spent maybe 4 hours on the PC and now I still need to restore from an image about a year ago. When I get done, I will probably have 7-8 hours into the whole fix. I doubt that I can recover that from the customer.
How do you handle these situations? Do you have a standard process for managing this issue from a billing and customer expectations perspective?
Thanks,
Duane
Hi Dwayne,
I started out as a non tech manager of an IT tech office. So I first saw that my geekiest geeks would spend days if you let them, chasing down a stupid but unique problem that we couldnt possible bill to the business clients.
SO we made hard fast rules that if you didn't know what you were fixing (exactly) within 10 minutes, you escalate to your tech boss. If he doesn't know then we restore. If you're just picking and pecking until you hit, then you are lost in the woods and wasting inventory (you/my time). The escalation worked very well. I realize this is slightly off topic but it shows a disapline and awareness of payback for time.
I have had dozens of employees who always want to fix the computer problems "a la carte" so to speak. These bring back more problems always. NO good deed goes unpunished.
Here is what happens they do some wizbang thing and charge 30 minutes of time saving the customer a bulk of money (costing the company that revenue) and feeling like the hero (to the client) only to have that customer the next day, call up screaming that they have to take a second day off of work or school to bring the blinking computer back to me to fix it right the 2nd time as we didn't do it right the first time. And that we should be ashamed of ourselves and they demand that we now fix it 100% free. I then try to explain that we did not charge to to fix x, y and z so it is not warranty. We fixed M, N and O. They look at me glazed over and demand that I fix everything for free as they had to waste their time to come back not once but a second time.
After going through this fight a few dozen times in the decades I come to the rule that we diagnose the number of processes. (taskmanager) If excesssive we recommend a new partition and format which we call reconditioning the drive with a fresh install of OEM software.
We charge $39.99 for the first 30 minutes regardless of what we do, and $59.99 per hour bench rate for however long it takes. We benchmark repairs so we have standardized repairs. A reinstall is 1/2 hr plus 2 hrs includes oem install, driver downloads and such without the garbage software from HP/Dell and such, then we offer for 1 more hour "our security pak" all service packs, driver updates, application software installed, drivers for printers/cameras and antivirus and malware programs setup, downloaded and configured.
So that standard job would cost $39.99 +119.98 +59.99 for a total of $199.97. If a backup was required it cost $99.99 up to 1 DVD or 6 gigabytes and $59.99 per hour over the first 6 gig and first DVD.
There are several advantages to this method. First I like to average about $200 repair per client. Second, it completely fixes all problems O, M, N, X, W, Z. So you dont' fix one problem and then have them bring it back for another problem they forgot to mention yesterday. You fix all viruses, spyware, malware, corrupt windows, tcp/ip stacks, printing problems or anything from loading and unloading bad programs, forced power offs, corruption from brown outs and all the other things that could be wrong with the system. It also forces the practise of a backup if required as you must backup data. (we often do not use the hidden partition restore).
This is, IMO, the only way that I can guarantee and stand behind a repair. If the client doesn't pay the 3rd hr for the security pack and loading of software then they get the system back as is with no warranty. If they reinfect their computer putting their old backup on the pc they have to pay again 1/2 price for me to do it a second time. As that is their stupidity not mine. (when we do the backup we scan it and are responsible for reinfection).
People who pay the 3rd hr for the security pak get a 30 day warranty aganst infections. I do about 1 or 2 of these warranty reinstalls a month who knows why facebook/twitter? Porn?
I sell it as bringing your system back to better and faster than new, as I do not put back all the trash that everyone seems to market games, 90 day eval versions of antivirus and ms office. When and if we do use the hidden partition we uninstall all the junk for the client for no additional charge. This justifys our still charging the same rate and giving a standardized quality of restore.
On occation I cannot get a client to pay $39.99 plus $119 to do a reinstall so I will then offer $99.99 enhansed tune up with no guarantee. We do the combo fix, rootkill, run antivirus/malware programs and clean out some registries and uninstall know programs.
That takes 1 hr of actual time and probably about 2 hrs of bench time. However if the system is still funky or has more than 33 processes for XP or 43 for Vista and about 48 for Win7 we will highly recommend that they go ahead and get it fixed the 100% right way while they are here only paying what they would if they made the right choice from the beginning. But if they take it home and come back next month, they start the charges all over again. More than 75% at this point say ok go ahead and fix it the right way. In one sense it is sort of a test of wills between their trying not to spend money and our trying to do what is the best thing for them/their computer health.
There are maybe a handful of times each year where we will have to do a fix at all costs because the client has lost access to some proprietary oil drilling software or plummers software or some other software that is priceless and cannot be reloaded. In this case they pay $39.99 plus $59.99 per hour with no guarantee of it ultimately being fixed perfectly. In most cases we solve their problem but the costs are almost always about $100 more than a full reinstall/backup and security.
We tell folks when they are going to pay near what their computer is worth to fix or reinstall it. For example if they have a single core 1 gig of memory and the repair is $200 and I am selling used refurbs for $199. I let them know it. If they put $300-400 with the cost of repairs they can get a new custom computer and pay $50 to transfer their files to the new system.
Its a good time to put good money with it and get a new system and we probably sell about 1 in 6 customers a new computer.
