PC Repair Business - Hints and tips

mcgee

Hi all

Thanks for the great replies, and sorry it has taken me soooo long to reply.

So I got some cards printed (for free- only paid the postage) and made up some flyers of my own and put them through about 300 doors in the local area. And how many calls have I had? 1! Just 1! But it was simple enough job, just setting up a BB connection for the client. So thats cool.

But how do I increase the response?

I really would like to get this going and give myself a little boost to my income to get the debts paid quicker.

So if anyone has any ideas let me know please!

Thanks
James

motorguy

If you were looking for a local plumber, where would you look?

Your local paper i suspect? As i've said before, stick a simple lineage ad in your local paper along the lines of 'PC Repairs & upgrades, broadband installs, free collection & return", something like that.

Any notice boards in local shops?

sho_me_da_money

MikeFishcake wrote: »

Hello...

Long time MSE lurker here

After 10 years, I have recently finished a job working in a computer repair department for a large public sector organisation, where we mostly fixed peoples personally owned equipment, and if I had the opportunity to do it privately, would I?

NO.

Not a chance.

It's far too much trouble. Although I'm a geek at heart and I enjoy tinkering around with computer equipment, after a decade's experience of dealing with people with computer issues, there is no way on God's green Earth that I would consider doing it again.

Like a few people have mentioned above, people don't want to pay £60-£70+ for a service when you can get a brand new computer for a few hundred pounds, and people don't see the difference between you fixing a power supply unit exploding, and weeks later, their kids downloading "free" programs that litter their PC up with nonsense.

I won't lie, you do get a lot of people that are happy to pay a fair price and do take care of their equipment, and the feeling you get from fixing a problem and cheering someone up is wonderful, but the hassle you get from people (whether justified or not) isn't worth the stress.

If you have lots of spare time and fancy a bit of pocket money, why not give it a try. But don't expect to make a living off it.

The only way I could see anyone earning a living from private computer repairs (without ripping people off) is if they already have a workshop where they can have several things on the go at once. Most computer fixes are software related and generally involve sitting watching progress bars, so if you have 5 on the bench at once, youcan click a button, then tackle the next PC in the row, but that requires a lot of pre-investment and you'd need a massive throughput of work to gain a profit.

As far as virus removal services go? Nuh-huh. There's not a single anti virus / anti spyware package out there that can remove all of the nasties out there and most of the time after throwing several removal / cleanup programs at a system for hours at a time, the computer is still dragging its feet and a format and re-installation is what's needed. I've worked with some incredibly skilled and experienced people, and there have been many, many times where they've just sat at a PC, looked at it and thought "I just can't be bothered".

And for the love of all that is good and true, whatever you do, DON'T provide a service building new PCs for people. With rapidly shrinking margins and price wars with the big manufacturers, it's just not worth it any more. Apart from the fact that you won't be able to beat the likes of the Dell weekend offers (or HP, Acer etc), any calls you get from people will immediately piddle all over what tiny markup you made on the systems anyway.

If you do choose to ignore this advice, pay attention to pgilc1.

Just to add my 2 cents - i completly agree with the above post.

I really want to start this as a sideline but there seems to be far too many stresses involved.

But i think im going to bite the bullet and give it a go!

And that whole virus removal thing taking hours - i too am one of them guys that say "F It, i cant be bothered, gonna rebuild it".

In an ideal situation, id like for someone to pay me for the JOB they requested rather than expecting extras plus telephone support thereafter. Is that going to happen?? Highly Unlikely!

motorguy

... so you reformat it, and then they say 'oh, what about my pictures / rare software that i dont have the disk or serial number for / internet connection that i didnt mention earlier even when you asked me directly' (delete as appropriate)

So you're left trying to do what you can for *free* or they tell all their friends / colleagues / neighbours that you lost all the stuff on their computer.

motorguy

DEFINITELY buy a cheap pay as you go mobile so that when you get sick to the back teeth of it you can turn it off.

patrick999

Great thread btw, just wondering though.

I have a list of services, which I have a standard rate for each.. but should I have an hourly rate too?

For example, if your hourly rate was £30 p/h and you was doing a spyware/malware/adware etc scan which you charged £20, and it took you 2 hours, would you charge £80?

This is confusing me, as I think that's a bit much lol..

Maybe a flat rate of £20 with first hour free for set services would be better, with every hour thereafter £30.

For just random calls of "my pc isn't working, whats going on?" then an hourly rate is obviously used, but for set services I don't know.

motorguy

I would charge a callout, say £30 to include the first hour, then £20 or whatever per hour thereafter.

Also, if the machine has malware / viruses it may work out easier to take their machine away and sort it out over a couple of evenings for a fixed price. This will be better for the customer and saves you having to make polite conversation to them in their spare room / study for several hours.

Browntoa

and some peoples homes are not the place you want to spend long in !!

I went to one that the cat seemed to use the carpet as a toilet

Poppycat

I use to repair friends pc's and friend of friends many years ago. I got out as it was just too much aggravation being rung up, oh can you come and do this etc? and then get very little on the way of reward

I also have a friend who works in the trade, he deals with the public and business. He enjoys working outside the office but he does get some stress at work. When I asked him why doesn't he pack it in and just do odd jobs for the public, he said its too much aggravation, point taken

I do the odd family pc and that's about it now.

patrick999

pgilc1 wrote: »

I would charge a callout, say £30 to include the first hour, then £20 or whatever per hour thereafter.

Also, if the machine has malware / viruses it may work out easier to take their machine away and sort it out over a couple of evenings for a fixed price. This will be better for the customer and saves you having to make polite conversation to them in their spare room / study for several hours.

I thought about this.. doing a callout charge of £30 which covers first hour, then doing so much an hour thereafter.. but instead of sitting there for 2-3 hours fiddling with it there (which wud cost the customer a lot of cash), i'd say what i felt needed doing, then offer them one of my fixed price services.

Good idea?