One of the many things I would like to discuss to day is some signs you can trust a repair business.
Usually, a legitimate company will try to give you a real idea of the cost
before leaving the shop. It's one thing to find more issues and it ended up
costing more, but that's a rarity overall. Most cases I find it's either what I
expected it to be initially or something more simple. At least half the repairs
don't require a part replacement and the cost is all labor based. If it's a
laptop about 4 yrs old and the motherboard is bad, it may not be worth
repairing. I don't mind informing a client that a PC repair costs is close to
the worth of the PC itself. But that means I won't push a $300 repair on a
client and so far, I have only had one repair cost more then $250 (upgraded 3
parts). These are just some examples of the real cost a client should be
paying, not $100 onsite fees just to show up (then a diagnostic fee before we
even get to the repair cost).
This is a strange industry with few
standards on experience, ethics and price competition. I do hold some respect
for a few competitors, but there are plenty who prey on clients who have no
computer education. Between Craigslist technicians who work from home (no
standard, no ethics and you can't hold them accountable) and the family friend
who fixes everyone's PC, you have no idea what your getting. Are they really
experienced? Will they use legimate software? Can they find you the best
prices? Will they warranty their own work? Are they really using new parts or
old ones? What's the chances you will hear from them again after you pay them?
At least with a business, you can hold them accountable for bad work (usually
they care since word of mouth is how we advertise best). Plus we usually have
manufacturers and distributors to find us lower part prices then you can find
on your own.
The larger companies are a
different issue all together. Instead of just being a repair shop first, they
are a store with marked up prices. They would prefer you to buy something new
or spend a lot of money per repair. Geek Squad for instance, most repairs are
not competitive price wise at all. They would offer expensive warranties that
don't cover nearly what they make it sound like. Then it's a $150-$300 repair
charge with most PCs and $100 onsite fee just to come to you. No promises on
how long it will really take to fix it nor will the technician be truly
qualified. Many of the big companies that are getting involved in the computer
repair industry are not offering an affordable services for what they offer.
Just because they have an established name and money, doesn't make them a good
source for technology services. If they are a store first, it's a conflict of
interest overall and they have to charge more because of the huge overhead
costs. My company has low overhead, therefor I can charge much less per repair
job.
This week, I made a point to price shop my competitors again. We try to shop them every few months or so for comparison and to see if our prices have impacted their business. Wouldn't be the first time that we lower our prices and force the competition to do the same. One company located right by us was one of these competitors. They gave us 4 different prices on virus removal that ranged from $30-$100. This doesn't include anything they would add to the bill such as virus protection, data transferring or a diagnostic fee. Another business near us tried to tell us the only way to remove a virus was to reinstall the windows operating system. This can be true with some viruses, but not the one we mentioned. We remove the FBI moneypak virus every week and it stays gone without having to replace an OS. Just something to be careful about and don't take your PC anywhere that doesn't have some kind of warranty in place.
