Re: What would be a fair price?


"spodosaurus" <spodosaurus@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:e4n0dl$i2q$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Tweek wrote:
I felt the same way before I opened my own shop. I learned real quick
that I wasn't charging enough (I was charging what I used to when I did
it on the side). When you have overhead like rent, electricity, business
insurance, health insurance, alarm, etc it really adds up I found. I am
still very fair with my customers and offer the best price in the area
with flat rates for all services, except the rare occaion when I do an
onsite visit. I bend over backwards to make sure their problems are
resolved and they are completely satisfied. Happy customers tell their
friends and family about me. Remember, people are not just paying for
your time they are paying for your skills. If you don't know how to do
something, you have to pay someone to do it. I actually have a guy that
has a small on-the-side shop in a nearby town that brings me work he is
not comfortable with like laptop repairs. What seems very simple to us
(like an OS install) can be very complicated for someone without the
skills or knowlege. $60 is about right for a format and install of
windows. If you install all the patches and updates, it can be time
consuming and your time is valuable.

So, are you saying he should charge a bit more for putting on all the
updates for an XP system? What about for installing their antivirus and
firewall software and updating all that? I think a $60 flat rate for
install of XP is about right, and the client can decide if they'll apply
patches and updates themselves or if they'll pay extra for that. But then,
how much extra is the question.

Regards,

Ari


I actually include all the updates (including updated drivers) when I do an
OS install. When I talked about time being valuable I was talking about
in-home visits. At my shop I can have up to six machines on the work bench
at once so taking the extra time doesn't interfere with doing other things.
I don't want to leave their machine vulnerable especially if they are
pre-SP1 or SP2. I keep SP2 on a disk and install it. Then I use autopatcher
to install the rest of the updates. Once that is done there are less than 10
updates left on Windows Update which only takes a few minutes. Too often I
work on machines that other shops did who don't do things right. I want my
customers to stay my customers and not go anywhere else. So far, after over
a year in business I have not had one single unhappy customer.


.

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