PC Repair Home Business

jetdynamics

Is anyone here have there Home PC Repair Business? I would like to know how did you start it.

Right now Im only doing it with some friends or a referal of a friend and I would like to expand my coverage. I would like to use my home where I can fix the computer. Pick the computer to the client and deliver them when Im done I just dont want somebody showing up in my front door how do you offer this kind of service. Any idea would greatly appreciated.

skrpune

I worked for someone who ran a shop out of his house, but he did have people showing up at his doorstep, computers in hand. He welcomed it though, and if you do not, then you'd just have to draw that line.

The way he started his business was by accident - he was sponsoring someone for citizenship and was allowing him to live in his house, and the guy had a PC repair business. They shared some clients - my former boss was in industrial sales and had contacts in the restaurant industry, and so he referred people to this guy. But then after a year or two, my former boss kinda wanted his home back to himself and he asked the guy to leave...which he did, but he embezzled a bunch of money on the way out the door. My boss tried to clean up the mess this guy left behind and found out that he was doublebilling people. Since these were HIS contacts, my boss decided to try to make good by performing PC tech services himself. (He'd always been interested in it and had dabbled before, but this was the determining factor in him diving in head first.)

He built up his business from references from those people - he didn't have to tell them that they'd been had and he didn't have to make it up to them either, but he did, and that spoke volumes for his honor. And so they recommended him to other people, who in turn recommended him, and so on. And 10 years later, he's now busy as can be and has 3 tech's on board to help him.

So I'd say word of mouth and great customer service and honesty are KEY to growing your business. If you have the money for advertising, then go for it, but be cautious about publishing your address as you will have folks popping by. You might want to invest in a PO Box or mail service so you can use that as your business address so you don't get any surprises.

One more thing - since you'll need to go to your clients, you probably will want to charge some sort of site visit fee or pick up/drop off fee for work that can't be done at the customer site. Either that or bump up your fees to cover travel time & gas.

msteinhilber

I run sort of the same operation for residential customers, but all of my residential clients for the most part are real estate agents for the company I work for currently. Since our services only cover the machine they bring to use in their office in our building, I get side jobs fairly often for home machines they are having issues with. I typically do pickup and delivery and fix it in my house, or I will offer on-site services at a higher rate. Having managed a retail computer store previously, I know better than to advertise my services to the general public without doing so out of another location (office/storefront) because some people can be flat out persistent and pushy and will stop at no ends if they are the unreasonable type that thinks you have wronged them for whatever reason (perhaps their teenager reinfects their computer all over again). There are (at least in my area) plenty of these types of people out there that you risk having them find out where you live. It's a risk you take if you operate business out of your house.

The other business my wife and I operate we have a box at Mailboxes Etc. for business use. This is nice because it's not a PO Box so you don't run into restrictions on shipping, and if you get UPS/FedEx or other deliveries they can sign for them on your behalf.

My jobs I do on the side are basically all word of mouth, most of them originate from the real estate agents at my day job while some originate from referalls from the PC store I previously managed when they are too busy to do on-site work (which they generally don't do much of). I get a few from businesses that I used to deal with through my time managing the PC store that must have liked me and tracked me down to continue to support them. All of this can be summarized into customers attained through good customer service for the most part.

jetdynamics

Thanks for all the suggestions. The Mailbox Center seems to be a good idea

The other business my wife and I operate we have a box at Mailboxes Etc. for business use. This is nice because it's not a PO Box so you don't run into restrictions on shipping, and if you get UPS/FedEx or other deliveries they can sign for them on your behalf.

Can you use a particular Business Center as your Bussiness Address? My idea is to have that as my buss. address on my card and will work exclusively on pick up or delivery for computers. In that way my home address would not be exposed to anybody