Dry spell……Bench fees?

As most of you can tell I’m really not that great at this blog stuff.  I think I provide good information on occasion and occasionally make you laugh, as long as I believe that I will continue on!!  Some of you are just here for UBCD4Win news also, hopefully something will be reported on that soon.  Right now though I am in a bit of a dry spell.  There is no good news floating around and nothing really good to talk about.  Sure I could follow the herd and post some BS about the crappy new Ipad, nope not gonna do it.  In my thinking though I did remember something that I wanted to talk about……….

Bench fees.  What are your honest thoughts and opinions on them?  The shop that I work at does not charge one but I am teetering on the edge of thinking we need one?  There are some things out there that bother me such as extended warranties but this is different.  I am really curious to know what real people and techs think about charging a bench fee.  The thing that drives me nuts is when a customer says “Well, I’ll just order a Dell.”  Sure give them credit for being honest but most of the time they don’t even give us a chance to compete.  They just want us to confirm what is the matter for free.

So what do you all think?  I know some shops charge as much as a $49 bench fee.  I think a $19 fee would be more reasonable or it may be too low.  Do you think bench fees are fair and do they hurt your business?