1st Customer Satisfied!

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Well I started advertising around base for a PC repair shop I'd run out of my apartment. My first customer called me a couple of weeks ago and I just now delivered her laptop. Rather, her husband came and picked it up, I charged the exact price of the part plus shipping and $15/hour. Total came out to $86, not a bad price to pay for a fresh 160GB HDD and clean Windows install plus a boot disk. Well the gent handed me $105, I didn't count it till I was back inside the door, I'm wondering if they were so satisfied in my customer service that they tipped me $19, or was it a mistake? The wife is telling me I should call tomorrow and find out, what do y'all think?

 

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You'll never know if you don't check.

Then again, you'll never lose it if you don't check either.

Qs

 

I'd phone asap.
If it was meant as a tip, surely something along those lines would have been said. $105 seems strange, why not $100.
If it was a mistake and they realise at some point, they won't remember the great price or the great service, only that they're pretty sure you stole from them.

As I'm sure you've now figured out, check the cash before you let the customer leave.

 

My dirty mind is working overtime, that title sounds sooo wrong

 

If you're charging only $15 an hour, you're seriously underpriced. Most "home" PC repair start-ups charge two to three times that (leaning towards the 3x value). I charge almost eight times that, and tech support companies charge ten times that rate. And people will gladly pay that much for good service.

 

i have been doing pc repairs for the last few months, I have worked out that.......

1. if you dont charge a decent amount an hour folk dont take you or your business serious.
2. its no worth the bother actually doing the work and putting in the effort for such a small amount of pay.

every job now cost's at least £40.00 cause frankly am no doing it for any less. Im a big tattoo fan and for me to get some art work im charged £50.00 an hour

Now im no saying tattooing isnt a skilled job but its no as hard as IT thats for sure and my tattoo artist wont have student loans to pay back either

Congrats on the first job and yeah i would call back just to check it looks more pro aswell

 

Well done on a good job and yes I would phone thembecause if they have made a mistake they will see your honesty and say we will use him again or they will say it was tip for doing the job either way you will win.

If you don't phone they may realise their mistake and say to people that you are dishonest for taking their money.

And I also think your undercharging but whilst you build business it may be a good idea to stay at your prices. When I have done jobs for people in the past I have charged £25 per hour which I think is ok.

 

That's pretty much where I would start- £25ph.
As for the tip, I would contact them just in case. f they did tip you, you could find out why

 

Key.

Congrats on the first job!
As stated above, your rate is very very cheap... sort it out.
Maybe keep the $15 for a '50% off First Service' offer for each person. Any things after that, you will charge at $30/hour. Might be worth having an offer for referrals too.. 'If you refer somebody, they'll get the 50% off and you can get 10% off hourly rate on your next service! (maximum 3 hours)'.
Then after you get 10 people under your belt and personal customer experience... rack that rate up to $40/hour or whatever suits you. I know how awesome it is for you to get your first/2nd/3rd customer/additional potential income.. and it's easy to agree on a low rate, but don't sell yourself short mate!

 

Haha yeah, I went with the low price because the local Exchange does computer repair service for everyone. I wanted to break in on their monopoly and this was the way to do it I think. They charge $30 for a consultation then its like $25-$35 per component they replace or service they provide and parts. I was just thinking I could do it quicker and cheaper and pickup a few bucks along the way to pay for books/exams. I'm leaving here in a couple of months so it's not a very serious business anyhow. After I'm settled in California and have a decent job and more experience I'll think about starting it up again and raising prices to at least $30/hour.

All in all this was just good experience working with customers and on other peoples machine.

 

$25-35 per component... times 3 components an hour... is $75-105 per hour... PLUS the $30 on top of that! So $15 is waaaaay too low. Doesn't matter if you're leaving next week or next year... charge what you're worth.

Besides... does the local Exchange do the job RIGHT? If you provide BETTER service, you're worth at LEAST as much as they're charging, and likely more. Unless you don't believe your service is as good...

Nobody's gonna twist your arm to make you to work for more money... but you really ought to be charging more like $40-50 in the heartland of the US... and MORE in California or New York due to the cost of living out there. $30/hr @ 40 billable hours (and dude, it's HARD to get that!) for 52 weeks is about $60,000... not that much in California. A more realistic figure is 20 billable hours (and 20 hours finding new clients or billing existing ones), and then you're making $30,000... sheer poverty in Cali. You can't live on that. Even worse if you're doing it "on the side", cause that's like working overtime, bro!

Trust me, you'll wish you had charged more when you get that one customer who doesn't pay you, or for that one time you've gotta work for free because a customer perceived you messed something up, or for that one time you get sued because you DID mess something up. Haven't ever been sued, myself, but I've heard it happen before (that's why tech companies take out insurance on themselves)... and I have had the other two things happen.

 

Ouch, hmmm.... These are great points to think about.

We'll see what the road brings in Cali, I still need to get a few more certs and finish my Bachelors before I can do any moonlighting seriously.

In the future I will definitely be charging more, this was more or less just an experiment to build my confidence as a tech. Good thing I passed!

 

Great news!!!

Second customer called me today, and I pick their HP laptop up tomorrow evening. Hopefully I'll be able to pay for my new Garmin Forerunner footpod with this extra cash soon!

 

get in there lad
how much u chargin?

 

good stuff!

How are you advertising?

 

The people live in the same building as my last customer and this is a very small community so I'm not going to raise my price, for fear of reappraisal.

I'm advertising by fliers that are put up by elevator banks in a bunch of apartment buildings around base. In a month I've gotten two customers.

 

At $15/hr, I'd hire you, then send you out to clients and charge them what you're worth!

Maybe you could switch your flyers with ones with a higher rate... ;)

 

Sold....

Now when will you be sending my tax forms so I can get 'em filled out?
Do you have a medical/dental plan?
I can't work 3rd shift sorry...

 

I'll give you exactly as much as your last client gave you.

 

Fine with me for now, that would mean that I'm going from an almost non-existant income to $15/hour. That's a healthy jump in profit depending on the way you look at it.