PC Repair Shop Business - Worth doing or not?

Hammyman

rob7475 wrote: »

Also, there's always someone who comes along and undercuts your rates. or people who want to haggle the price down. For example, had an email this morning from someone who thinks their DC jack is broken on their laptop. I quoted £10 for the DC jack and £30 fitting. They have come back saying they can get the DC jack from Ebay for £6 so can I do it cheaper.

TBH, yeah you are taking the mick to an extent. Most jacks are about 60p to a quid if you decide to use Maplin, not £6 and definitely not £10.

You are far far better off quoting a price for DC jacks inclusive of parts and not mentioning the parts cost at all.

Hammyman

Mayflower10cat wrote: »

What I really appreciated was, he charged a flat rate of £30 an hour and the few things we needed him to do took less than half an hour - rather than taking the money and waving goodbye, he said, 'No, you've paid me for an hour, anything else you'd like some help with?' which was another bit of great customer service. He spotted the newly unpacked wireless printer I'd been (nervously) about to install and said - 'd'you want me to do that for you?' And he did. And I was very glad as it was a bit more involved than the instructions implied! He also did a quick tidy-up of the laptop registry and off he went, just on the hour.

If you could offer service similar to that, I think you'd be busy!

That is exactly the type of service I offer. I also give customers a quick 5 minutes "routine maintenance" how-to. Gets you great word of mouth advertising.

spud17

spannerzone wrote: »

The only issues I really had was and I hate to say this as it'll upset some people, but teenagers usually caused most problems for their parents PC. They'd download anything and click on everything and screw up the PC. Then mum/dad uses the PC and it's slow and unusuable so they think they broke it and call me out to sort. - When I'd identify the issue (usually pointing to when their child was doing something) they'd be sure it wasn't the child as they were very knowledgeable about PC's.... I'd ask why they called me to fix rather than get their kid to do it and they didn't really know why!

Totally agree, I'm always being told by work mates that the kids are the ones with the knowledge.

One guy, with 2 early teen daughters, pays £30 every couple of weeks for a "really clever bloke" to sort his PC.
From his description of the work done, all matey boy does is a system restore or, in severe cases, a factory restore.
But he's really good and sorts it in no time at all. :cool:

A chippie on site has just spent £1500 (?) on a 27" iMac because, despite his son being a 'genius' with computers, he's fed up with his Win 7 PC being un-usable due to infections.

cit_k

spud17 wrote: »

Totally agree, I'm always being told by work mates that the kids are the ones with the knowledge.

One guy, with 2 early teen daughters, pays £30 every couple of weeks for a "really clever bloke" to sort his PC.
From his description of the work done, all matey boy does is a system restore or, in severe cases, a factory restore.
But he's really good and sorts it in no time at all. :cool:

A chippie on site has just spent £1500 (?) on a 27" iMac because, despite his son being a 'genius' with computers, he's fed up with his Win 7 PC being un-usable due to infections.

Sounds like the really clever bloke is ripping of the customer, far better to just charge to set up a disk image of the pc in working state, and leave instructions on how to restore it.

Fair enough if at that point the customer says no I want you to do it every couple of weeks for 30 quid instead of me just following simple instructions....

spud17

cit_k wrote: »

Sounds like the really clever bloke is ripping of the customer, far better to just charge to set up a disk image of the pc in working state, and leave instructions on how to restore it.

Fair enough if at that point the customer says no I want you to do it every couple of weeks for 30 quid instead of me just following simple instructions....

The Thatchers Gold was working well last night.

Many people seem to think if they're paying money it must be good. :cool:

I'm just an ordinary guy (self taught, the little bit I know) and have given up trying to help the ones that won't listen.

On a wider note why is there not an organisation of independent computer engineers, e.g. basic check of competence, logo to be displayed on bills etc.

Lil306

spud17 wrote: »

The Thatchers Gold was working well last night.

Many people seem to think if they're paying money it must be good. :cool:

I'm just an ordinary guy (self taught, the little bit I know) and have given up trying to help the ones that won't listen.

On a wider note why is there not an organisation of independent computer engineers, e.g. basic check of competence, logo to be displayed on bills etc.

Why not start up an MSE approved competency of engineers

m00nie

i wanted to do the same, was going to incorporate it with a internet cafe(appreciate dongles took a lot of the need of but investigating at other internet cafes people stiil used them) and also look at offering training sessions also.. (cheap phone calls was one thing that seemed to be popular also)

found decent area which was a good mixture of students and residents with no other similar shop around for a good distance.

am more a dreamer than a doer though so never really got round to it

spud17

Lil306 wrote: »

Why not start up an MSE approved competency of engineers

Wot? I prefer, (MSE) Approved Repair+Security Engineer.

ahmjt

How about data recovery business?

Richie-from-the-Boro

Lil306 wrote: »

Why not start up an MSE approved competency of engineers

You tried that one about a year ago .. .. .. remember ? :beer: