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Dry spell……Bench fees?
Posted on February 2nd, 2010 11 commentsAs 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?
11 responses to “Dry spell……Bench fees?”
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The company I work for does not have a bench fee per se. We do have a half hour minimum for any work done, including diagnostics. I do not believe it has hurt business. We let customers know when they bring a computer in that there is a $30 minimum charge. Our shelf always has at least one computer waiting for space on the bench.
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I used to work for a company that had a $40/hour fee for support. We also used that as our diag (bench) fee. If they had us do the work, we applied that to the repair. For us it worked just fine, and nobody every complained about it. I think that if you do go with one, make sure to post it in several visible places. We had one posted on each wall, as well as on our service counter and the sales counter. There was no missing it. If they didn’t have us do the repair work, then we were at least compensated for some of our time.
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I agree a bench fee is needed. I do part time repair work and i charge $25 just to look at it if it takes 30mins or 10mins does not matter. Then it they want me it fix i have a standard hourly rate which is 30hr in shop or 40hr for in home/office service. I found that i needed to add fee because people would ask me to look at there systems then would pull the dell think or would have someone they know fix it.
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I think that bench fees are understandable. At the shop where I work we charge a 20 dollar diagnostic fee, then there is a charge to fix whatever is wrong with the machine. Unfortunately, sometimes in the process of diagnosing a problem, the problem gets fixed. Then what do you do?
Many people do not like minimum diag fees. These are the people that look at our fees and turnaround time, and then say “I’ll take it to best buy”. Then they leave only to return humbly a couple of hours later.
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I think $30 diagnostic would be fair. Then subtract it from the repair if you do it. They’re not paying you for what you do, but for what you know, so it doesn’t matter if it takes only 10 minutes.
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Johnny2bad February 3rd, 2010 at 02:06
I charge $30.00 bench fee. If it is something simple like reseating memory then they have their computer repaired for $30.00. If there is an issue that needs to be addressed the customer is quoted the repair price. If they choose to have it repaired then the $30.00 is waived and they pay what is quoted $65/hr + parts 1hr minimum. When the computer is dropped off they sign a agreement explaining this and there are no exceptions. If it is a road call it is $75/hr 1hr minimum period. If the repair is uneconomical the customer is told so, but they still owe me for my time. As long as you do your business honestly and with integrity you have no need to worry. Your pricing should all depend upon the economic condition of the area/cost of living where you do business and what your competitions’ prices are. Occasionally you will get the asshole that wants you to tell them right now and for free what is wrong. This is not the kind of person you want to do business with and it is ok to tell them so. Times are tough all over, but my time on this earth is limited, and it is the most precious resource I have. Therefore I expect to be compensated if I am using it to provide a service to someone who is incapable of doing it themselves.
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Ben,
I had a friend that worked for best buy geek squad lasted about a week. He said they would overcharge. Try to push the lastest and greatest tech to people that had no idea. So once a customer gets ripped off by SCAM SQUAD your diag fees and turnaround time will look pretty good. If i fix the problem during the diag process then it is $25 bucks. i think it has happened only twice that i can remember. Lose memory stick and HD cable.
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$35 eval fee here. $65 hr service calls with 1hr minimum. Bench work depends on what we do, so is not hourly. Like others have said already – if there is a chance that the issue could get fixed for that fee then it is easier to accept. If more work is required, rolling that cost into repairs just sweetens the deal. Sounds plenty fair to me.
As far as our big box competition? Here most of BB’s GS couldn’t get certified if you let them do an open book test. Staples has one part timer set up on a table out front. Most of our business is word of mouth from satisfied customers, so it all works out.
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Mike,
I also have a friend that worked for Geek Squad. They apparently are not allowed to do work on hardware. They overcharge, and you risk losing all of your data, b/c they would rather wipe and reload your machine than actually fix the problem. The MRI program makes virus removal easy on them, b/c the whole process is a one click deal. Still we get a lot of clients that come to us with complaints about them, and are much happier with our prices and service. I don’t see the Geek Squad lasting forever.
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Peter Trinh February 4th, 2010 at 13:29
The consultancy I work does not charge bench fees, but anytime somebody needs our advice and requires more than 15 minutes, then we charge a one hour minimum at our normal rates.
Our end users will agree to this, since they understand that it is our expertise and time that they are asking for, and that we do not provide such for free. There are always those who are looking for free consultations, and many of them have figured out how to work things since all of our competitors in the area have similar policies.
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Chiming in the same as most here – We charge a $35 minimum bench fee. If we can fix the issue with no hardware within the half-hour labor that covers, we do. If it’s more than that and the client gives the OK we apply that half hour to fixing the issue.
Very, very few clients have any problems with this system, and the ones that do find out pretty quickly that all of our competition charges more, either right up front or in the end.
We run through ~100 – 200 repairs per month and are seeing steady growth. I don’t think it’ll hurt your business any.
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