When is FREE support too much?

AdviceIT

AdviceIT

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We have a few customers who are not on managed services plans, and often call many times a week with things going wrong and expect them to be fixed for free. Had several emails today and when responded saying it was chargeable had zero response after that. How do you deal with customers that see zero value in what you do? Do you flick them? Or upfront that you are running a business and need to charge even for those 10 minutes how to phone calls. Interested to know what everyone does.
 
Explain the you are running a business. If they don't value you, then get rid of them. I think they do value you, because they are calling. There computer issues aren't going to go away, so its only a matter of time before they need help. They may not call you back, but they will call someone who will probably charge.

This is a good time to sell your unlimited remote support managed services offering! Tell them you offer this option for those company's that want to pay a flat fee for unlimited support vs nickle-and-diming.
 
I think the issue is that they see it as a commodity item, and that its sort of like friends helping friends. They don't see any value in it. The cost of the unlimited support option for them locked into a contract would not be an option, because they think they can get away for it for free.
 
Do you have a ticket system? If I get these "freebie" sounding emails, I just convert it to a ticket and send back a response. They get the point. Lately I've had a rash of people sending me texts after hours. So I installed Smart Keyboard for Android and made some canned responses: "Please email support@yadayada.com or call 123-456-7890 to create a ticket".

If they call on the phone, let them explain the issue, and then say "I'm sure we can help, I'll just open a ticket for you." Every ticket has the time tracked and then you bill for the time. If you don't mention a ticket, then you're giving it away for free. I still give away lots of advice for free, just depends what it is.

What I have found I need to absolutely stop doing, is offering to explain to someone how to "DIY." Because that just opens the door for an endless stream of questions from them, all week, for the next month so that they can "Do it Yourself." Obviously since they're doing all this themselves, they can get all the help from me for free!! Ugh.
 
CTL said:
Explain the you are running a business. If they don't value you, then get rid of them. I think they do value you, because they are calling. There computer issues aren't going to go away, so its only a matter of time before they need help. They may not call you back, but they will call someone who will probably charge.

This is a good time to sell your unlimited remote support managed services offering! Tell them you offer this option for those company's that want to pay a flat fee for unlimited support vs nickle-and-diming.
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Well said. I just get to the point if it becomes an ongoing trend "I wouldn't know what the problem is without looking at it, what day would you like to schedule an appointment?" I did that with a couple clients that were trying to get free advice and I hadn't seen in over a year. Once they got the idea this was going to be billable they stopped.

I separate business from pleasure. I like to have a good relationship with my clients and give them excellent service but at the end of the day they are my clients and not my friends. Because if they start becoming your friends, then they will think you can't charge them. You know the rest... lol
 
cypress said:
Well said. I just get to the point if it becomes an ongoing trend "I wouldn't know what the problem is without looking at it, what day would you like to schedule an appointment?" I did that with a couple clients that were trying to get free advice and I hadn't seen in over a year. Once they got the idea this was going to be billable they stopped.

I separate business from pleasure. I like to have a good relationship with my clients and give them excellent service but at the end of the day they are my clients and not my friends. Because if they start becoming your friends, then they will think you can't charge them. You know the rest... lol
Click to expand...
This was one of the more lengthy lessons I had to learn when I started out. I'm in a very small town, and I knew many of my clients as friends before they were my clients. So I got a lot of, "Hey, what does this mean...?" calls. After one particularly frustrating day of looking at the books, I decided that had to stop. My favorite line was similar to yours, "It could be a lot of things, I would have to put it on my bench to sort it out. I've got a couple of customers ahead of you but I could probably get it back you in a day. You want me to come grab that today?"

Telling them they were in line with other customers made it clear that they were customers too. At that point the wheat separated from the chaff fairly quickly. Not that any of my friends who decided not to pay didn't remain my friends, but they know that I am running a business and only come to me when they really need something and are ready to pay. To be honest, the butterflies were entirely in my own stomach, and none of my friends/customers had any issue paying or deciding not to call. It was actually pretty pain free and simple.
 
'putertutor said:
This was one of the more lengthy lessons I had to learn when I started out. I'm in a very small town, and I knew many of my clients as friends before they were my clients. So I got a lot of, "Hey, what does this mean...?" calls. After one particularly frustrating day of looking at the books, I decided that had to stop. My favorite line was similar to yours, "It could be a lot of things, I would have to put it on my bench to sort it out. I've got a couple of customers ahead of you but I could probably get it back you in a day. You want me to come grab that today?"

Telling them they were in line with other customers made it clear that they were customers too. At that point the wheat separated from the chaff fairly quickly. Not that any of my friends who decided not to pay didn't remain my friends, but they know that I am running a business and only come to me when they really need something and are ready to pay. To be honest, the butterflies were entirely in my own stomach, and none of my friends/customers had any issue paying or deciding not to call. It was actually pretty pain free and simple.
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I like how you mentioned after looking at the books, you made the decision it had to stop. At the end of last year I looked over all my invoices and tickets and noticed the amount of either free time or discounts I was giving away. I left too much money on the table. I made a decision to make my time worth it and turn things around, so far so good!
 
One thing that I've been doing lately that helps what I would almost call an offer of compromise. If they have somewhat of a legitimate reason not to pay, I ask them to review our work online, say on Google, so that we at least get a good review out of the job.

I plan to do this soon for a client that I recently helped out on a new Windows 10 laptop. Got her all working on things, including print&scan which actually took some time with her older HP all in one. There was what appeared to be a major Win10 update that I left installing upon shut down when I left the client's house. Next day she emailed me saying it wasn't working again. I went back and fixed it. Didn't charge. But you bet I'll be asking for a review. I actually had a similar scenario with another client earlier in the month and she happily agreed to leave review.

Also, for friends of friends or family of friends, I'm telling them that I'm no longer able to help completely for free. I need them to at least leave me a good review on one of these public sites. Then I can take that review and put it on my website's testimonial page.

I figure the best publicity is happy clients and if they review me, then awesome.
 
It's a bad habit, you've gotta offer them help by setting up appointments and explaining charges. People will take anything for free, and they won't respect you for it at all. They just go 'oh free!' and then go about their business. If you get zero response, that speaks volumes about what they're prepared to pay for your time, experience, attention, support, and knowledge. Once you charge a reasonable fee for additional support, it naturally repels the freetards.
 
I agree with all of the above, but mainly the part about using the phrase, "opening a ticket". It helps me greatly to actually HAVE a ticket system finally, and if they are not on the Support Plan, anything that takes me more than 90 seconds to answer is a ticket. A TICKET, understand? Believe me, they understand. Otherwise, you get used, abused, and finally grumpy. And no one likes a grumpy tech.
 
Till the question is YES, or NO, the call is okay, but if I'm still having other calls from the same person, I will ask him to come at shop!
 
callthatgirl said:
Yeah, takes awhile to train the good ones to get used to it being billable. Whatever works for you, is the best answer.
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I've heard Matt say that for years, and I certainly agree. Question is, how do you "re-train" your clients who are already used to the free support? I really need to take charge of this. As altrenda stated, if they're not paying for it., they are not really customers... :(
 
I offer a warranty on labor. It has to be EXACTLY what was done on the ticket to have that warranty honored. These are very few and far between because I button up. As stated by others, if its not a yes or no question, they raise a ticket. Our time isn't free, neither is their support.
 
I get people to get the idea(even if I have an idea what it might be), by saying something like, "well, I can't tell you exactly what's going on without looking at it". Then explain to them that it's 40 just to come out, and 75 per hour. Most folks usually get the point.

A couple of folks I've just gotten a little mean with and said that I don't give free advice. There is one guy who I will give free advice to on small things sometimes to keep him off my back. For example, he called last week, I'd just changed the hard drive on their system a couple of weeks ago, his system caught itself on a reboot and would not turn off, so I explained to him how to hold the power button down for 30 seconds and restart it.

But a lot of folks that ask free advice...Ever heard the term give them just enough rope? If they insist on doing it themselves, give em just enough advice to where they are dangerous. If they decide it's too much, they may bring it in.
 
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