PC Repair Business - Hints and tips

Mr23

I work in IT full-time and get asked to do a few side jobs in repairs as this is something my work does not do. I was looking at doing this more frequently but was wondering what do I need in terms of insurance? I would be doing this in my spare time from home as a sole trader.

wimwauters

braken2000 wrote: »

I only work word of mouth at the moment. So I appear to be that person who "knows pc's" so to speak.

I didnt think of the Slowing down problem before. Not sure how I would get round that.

Turn it round: I normally clean up windows first (including cleaning out caches and defrag). If still slow, then suggest the RAM upgrade.

wimwauters

pgilc1 wrote: »

People seem to have their brains removed when they walk into PC World. They will bend over and get rogered for setup, more hardware than they need, repair costs, queues for the repair desk, two weeks wait on the repair, but buy from some local one man band computer store and they expect 24x7 onsite support for the rest of their lives.

PCworld isn't all bad

On the technibble forums, there's a guy in the USA who parks his car/van (with his advertising on) across the parking lot from his local PCworld/Walmart and while he has breakfast and checks his emails, people take his number or even walk up to arrange appointments.

It might be worth checking out your local PCworld and if the parking lot is big enough or if it is in an industrial estate...

motorguy

wimwauters wrote: »

PCworld isn't all bad

On the technibble forums, there's a guy in the USA who parks his car/van (with his advertising on) across the parking lot from his local PCworld/Walmart and while he has breakfast and checks his emails, people take his number or even walk up to arrange appointments.

It might be worth checking out your local PCworld and if the parking lot is big enough or if it is in an industrial estate...

Yeah i did do that. I parked our branded van right outside their door anytime i was in the area.

Liquidity

LOL great topic, a real eye opener for me considering this... special thanks to pgilc1.

djkarl

really good topic, it'd be interesting to see how nrg13 is getting on now

Lil306

djkarl wrote: »

really good topic, it'd be interesting to see how nrg13 is getting on now

Was just thinking that myself

£2000+ of business in 2 months is some bloomin good work if you ask me, once all the advertising is out of the way then it's breakeven / profit all the way

Everyone knows businesses are always expensive to startup and NRG post show this. On the road to succession I think

Personally I don't think there is enough business in PC Repair alone, but if you add on additional businesses in the same sector these could top up your wages

bonkers1_2

I feel there is money to be made doing this, most jobs have miserable customers that complain about the goods and services, most people think traders are trying to rip them off - i.e who hasn't put a car in a garage and thought they haven't messed with something ? - or gone to a dentist and thought - they have messed with another tooth that was getting on okay - UNTIL that dentist scraped / poked it :rotfl:

It's a choice of being a 9-5 slave for a bullying boss or being a slave to the tax man/your customer base.

Door to door/ any job with a customer service/ human contact aspect increases the likely hood that a disagreements will happen.

If you have a website you could always try flogging " how to repair pc" guides -that way the customer blames themselves for the failure, as it's not your fault if they are unteachable! - they might blame the book - but, again all business expects a number of grumpy gits that want refunds - you have to factor broken items and refunds into your business plan.

- I had that problem with betterware potential customers - either they didn't like the product or I was threatened with having the magazine stuck where the sun don't shine - JUST - for daring to put it through the door, I used to point out that if they tell me to pee off - the company will just assign a new person so they will still get the book - it doesn't stop, as people move homes a lot - even grumpy gits can cave in and part with MONEY - and conversion to cash is all it's about in business, one persons grumpy git is another persons cash cow.

diable

Its good to target small businesses that work from home, need help setting up equipment and sorting out safe storage of data and networking.

If you invoice them it usually is claimed as an expense anyway and not bad to earn an extra £25ph doing it.

motorguy

bonkers1 wrote: »

I feel there is money to be made doing this, most jobs have miserable customers that complain about the goods and services, most people think traders are trying to rip them off - i.e who hasn't put a car in a garage and thought they haven't messed with something ? - or gone to a dentist and thought - they have messed with another tooth that was getting on okay - UNTIL that dentist scraped / poked it :rotfl:

It's a choice of being a 9-5 slave for a bullying boss or being a slave to the tax man/your customer base.

Door to door/ any job with a customer service/ human contact aspect increases the likely hood that a disagreements will happen.

If you have a website you could always try flogging " how to repair pc" guides -that way the customer blames themselves for the failure, as it's not your fault if they are unteachable! - they might blame the book - but, again all business expects a number of grumpy gits that want refunds - you have to factor broken items and refunds into your business plan.

- I had that problem with betterware potential customers - either they didn't like the product or I was threatened with having the magazine stuck where the sun don't shine - JUST - for daring to put it through the door, I used to point out that if they tell me to pee off - the company will just assign a new person so they will still get the book - it doesn't stop, as people move homes a lot - even grumpy gits can cave in and part with MONEY - and conversion to cash is all it's about in business, one persons grumpy git is another persons cash cow.

I now sell cars part time and i can honestly say i have less hassle selling used cars than i did when fiixing PC's.