Upset :(

So here I am relaxing and enjoying my day at work(LIES) when this russian lady comes in. I help run a computer repair shop and had worked on her laptop 5-6 months back when her windows desktop was taken out by a virus. Back then we spent a week or two researching and working to find a way to restore the machine, but in the end we ended up having to reformat it since that was the fastest method to getting her computer back to her. It had a ton of viruses and no way to restore to an earlier date. We tried every fix out there with no luck.

We ghosted all her data to another drive first so she wouldn't lose anything important during the format and backing-up process. After the machine was finished we went over the data with her and made sure that she got what she wanted. She wasted a lot of our time complaining and making us install various russian language programs back on the machine. We only charged her a measily two hours($130) worth of work to be nice.

So she came back this morning after so many months and explained that the same thing happened again(her desktop completely disappeared), but this time she managed to fix it herself through some online research. She didn't know if it was the same problem(same virus,etc) but demanded that we give her her money back and stated that she was more experienced than our own technicians. She continued to ramble and verbally attack me for about 10 minutes stating that we were incompetent before I sent her away and asked for her to contact and speak to a manager about the matter. I've never seen such a fruitcase...much less been attacked by one. I just maintained my composure and tried to cool her off so she would leave.

Am I the bad guy in this scenario? I couldn't fix her problem last time but got permission to work around it with a backup/reinstall. I don't believe her recently issues were the same ones that she had when she was here last.

I'd like to help people like this, but there's not much you can do when they won't cooperate with you.

KG

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Comments

jescab

I would request my money back also.

KGhaleon

Smallguy

probably not tthe corect response but if someone yelled at me for 10 minutes I'd probabably ask her why she ddin't fix it her self the first time

it probalby isn't the same issue but woh knows if it;' been a few mnoths maybe someone has found a fix or made a tool to fix the issue by now.

with out her provding all the details you wil never know

I woludn't sweat it she just sounds like an unreasonable person to me.

Plantwiz

WOW,
Perhaps you are just taking an opportunity to vent, but if any of this post came through in the fact-to-face with this client...no wonder she's a bit ticked.

KGhaleon wrote:

So here I am relaxing and enjoying my day at work(LIES) when this russian lady comes in.

Guess I missed the point to this comment

KGlaleon wrote:

I help run a computer repair shop and had worked on her laptop 5-6 months back when her windows desktop was taken out by a virus.

Here is a great opportunity to educate the client prior to starting any work. Does your shop have an 'eval' period?? Where you can inspect the system with the client present or they can leave it and you'll call them with an ETA and $$$ to complete the work? If not, I'd highly recommend this.

KGlaleon wrote:

Back then we spent a week or two researching and working to find a way to restore the machine, but in the end we ended up having to reformat it since that was the fastest method to getting her computer back to her.

So you had her system for 2 weeks? Wow!!! Also, as a repair shop (and here's my mistake) I'm assuming your company has handled a virus or two in the past, no?? Why 2 weeks to research? Maybe consult with another company and share the work load, but 2 weeks is WAY too long to have a client box when you are not waiting on parts (INMSHO). This is giving your client reason to be angry.

(and no, it's not right for people to be unreasonable about their PCs, but no everyone has more then 1 box...and those who have more then 1 box usually can fix it themselves

KGlaleon wrote:

It had a ton of viruses and no way to restore to an earlier date. We tried every fix out there with no luck.

Again, way too long to hold onto a client box to determine a format:reinstall is the best resolution.

KGlaleon wrote:

We ghosted all her data to another drive first so she wouldn't lose anything important during the format and backing-up process. After the machine was finished we went over the data with her and made sure that she got what she wanted.

KGlaleon wrote:

Good

KGlaleon wrote:

She wasted a lot of our time complaining and making us install various russian language programs back on the machine.

If you or your company doesn't wish to do business with different ethnicities....then recommend them to another shop and do not bother to charge them. If you are in the US, this sort of behavior mostly died out in the 60s, but maybe the memo hasn't made it to your boss yet??

Doesn't matter what the client wants on or off their system. Design yourself a fee system and charge them accordingly for the work. You take your car in for an oil change...regardless of the ease or difficulty in changing the oil...it's a flat rate with built in hours of labor.

If the client brings you their disks (which should be required) then the fee is 'x'. If they don't and you are required to download them...the fee is 'y'.

It's just business, No more. No less.

KGlaleon wrote:

We only charged her a measily two hours($130) worth of work to be nice.

If you only charged her 2 hours then that's what your boss or someone decided the amount of work that was performed was worth. No one charges a rate to be 'nice'. If your costs aren't being covered then you are pricing things too low or the staff isn't skilled for the task. In either case, as a businessman once in a while as a practice service or a good is compansated 'in good faith'. However, if this becomes the norm...you won't be in business long

KGlaleon wrote:

So she came back this morning after so many months and explained that the same thing happened again(her desktop completely disappeared), but this time she managed to fix it herself through some online research.

Not uncommon, particularly if someone reads posts on the forums and reads how 'easy' this sort of work is and how many people are getting certified without real experience but using their cert as a reason for being competent, etc.. One difference about being a great tech vs just a tech is knowing when one is over their head.

This client obviously had some trust in your company as she returned (or was playing the odds that the staff likely turned-over since her last visit).

Congratulat her on her effort and ask her what you can do for her today. She either solved some of the work for you and you can charge her for what needs to be done. Or she messed things up real bad....and you can charge for for the work to fix it.

KGlaleon wrote:

She didn't know if it was the same problem(same virus,etc) but demanded that we give her her money back and stated that she was more experienced than our own technicians.

Call the boss immediately. No reason to make people more angry just get them to someone who can make a decision.

KGlaleon wrote:

She continued to ramble and verbally attack me for about 10 minutes stating that we were incompetent before I sent her away and asked for her to contact and speak to a manager about the matter.

If she gets too abusive, she can be asked to leave or you can just call the police. (CHECK YOUR LOCAL LAWS AND KNOW YOUR RIGHTS). Maybe she just had a bad day and you were in the line of fire. But for no reason stand there for 10 minutes and let her rant infront of other clients...get the boss involved and diffuse this before it gets out of hand.

Also,
it may be a wise practice to offer 'virus' classes/seminar at your shop and even at the time of service explain to your clients that you have fixed the problem as of this point in time. Through surfing, e-mail, disks etc...new infections may appear again. Recommend a AV or Malware program and educate them about keeping it up-to-date.

KGlaleon wrote:

I've never seen such a fruitcase...much less been attacked by one. I just maintained my composure and tried to cool her off so she would leave.

You haven't worked retail long enough if this is your first and only you've seen. Do I have stories

KGlaleon wrote:

Am I the bad guy in this scenario?

Yes and no.

Yes, because if any part of the tone of this post (and I don't know you I can only go by what is written and I can appreciate you've likely abbreviated it for us here). If anything came through in your face-to-face dealings with the client, she didn't trust you, period.

It happens. It sucks the first few times, but some clients prefer to work with some techs. I worked with a guy how was wicked smart and very talented regarding working on PCs and networks. However, he was from another country and the locals would not permit him to work on their boxes....they actually preferred the tech who was incompetant and overcharged for his time. The good tech finally finished school and left the area and is now in FL. The other guy, still there and still lazy but has a following.

People do have prejudices. Maybe just, maybe not, they exist and as a businessperson you need to be aware of them and identify them to match your staff up to the appropriate client.

And the NO, because of what you have written here:

KGlaleon wrote:

I couldn't fix her problem last time but got permission to work around it with a backup/reinstall.

You explained what could be done to get her system up and running and finally accomplished it. Good!

KGlaleon wrote:

I don't believe her recently issues were the same ones that she had when she was here last.

This was an opportunity to look at her system with her present and inspect what was happening. If you remembered everything from the last time...great! Maybe she had forgotten some of it, so if you keep a history on each client (invoice)...if you don't I highly recommend it.. then you could review teh history with her, then begin looking at the current problem.

KGlaleon wrote:

I'd like to help people like this, but there's not much you can do when they won't cooperate with you.
KG

I'm going to let this commment go....I've gone on too long, but thanks for reading and good luck moving forward.

DirtySouth

KGhaleon wrote:

So she came back this morning after so many months and explained that the same thing happened again(her desktop completely disappeared), but this time she managed to fix it herself through some online research.

Two words....Bull ****. This sounds like a typical computer illiterate fool that doesn't know jack. There is no way to know what she "fixed". For all you know, she could have changed her background color and thought she "fixed" something.

Don't sweat it...you can't please everyone.

Slowhand

Having dealt with countless customers like this, I can honestly say that you didn't do anything wrong. She paid you for your work the first time around, she paid you for the time spent doing labor. She can't get that money back, regardless of if she "could have fixed it herself". I'm sure no car mechanic would give a refund to a customer after that customer goes off and takes an automotive repair class. No matter what she may have learned between then and now, you did the work those five months ago, not her.

bighornsheep

I dont think you did anything wrong. You say you help at the store, so unless you have managing rights or ownership to the store, I am pretty sure there were shots you didnt get to call.

I would take this as a learning experience. IT is so product driven that people on the front end forget their Business 101, if you're a pc shop technician, you have to remember that rarely do customers come for one time, and one time only. If that is the case, your store is in big trouble.

It's been said that 20% of customers make 80% of the complains, and
80% of business (sales) come from 20% of the customers.

I dont know the situation well enough to make a fair judgement, but I would think that;
1) you guys took too long to "fix" the computer
=> this plus the fact that she was a bitter melon, you set yourself up for the nasty fruit fest.

2) you charged too much?
=> I might be wrong about this one, but what's the going rate for virus cleaning, or computer maintainence down in the states? I know places like Best Buy up here charge 69.99CAD, which is just a little more than 60USD, and that comes with spyware removal, disk clean-up (format), and a firewall + antivirus software installation.

Having said that, I dont think you did anything wrong, it's just that I think you guys had left yourself a ticking mess when you took that kind of money from somebody who wasnt completely satisfy. The fact that she probably wasnt exactly computer savy, meant she had a large level of discomfort with putting money down on it to begin with, that plus the fact that she didnt "get what she wanted", created great cognitive dissonance in her mind.

I'm surprised she hadnt come back sooner, she probably was too busy with her matters she didnt visit you guys sooner, until the next time the similar problem arised, and she remembered the whole thing. Which was why she had reacted the way she did, because it was long over-due.

I dont know if this makes sense for you, but I remember very clearly from my days of working retail and customer service in various industries (6+ years), you never let a customer walk out unhappy, unless
A) you dont plan to ever let or want them return to your store

you're the only living soul in a 50km radius who have what they want

sprkymrk

Sorry to post a reply that does not address the OP, but it has relavance to the topic:

bighornsheep wrote:

I dont know if this makes sense for you, but I remember very clearly from my days of working retail and customer service in various industries (6+ years), you never let a customer walk out unhappy, unless
A) you dont plan to ever let or want them return to your store
you're the only living soul in a 50km radius who have what they want

I heard a statistic once in a business conference that said something to the effect that the old adage of "the customer is always right" doesn't always make good business sense. They claimed that on average, about 5% of the customers cause 95% of a business' problems, and that by identifying and dropping that 5% you can actually free up enough resources to add another 50% to your customer base without increasing staffing levels or workload. This means more $$$ in your pocket. Sometimes it's worth letting a customer go do business elsewhere. Of course this needs to be balanced against any negative advertising that customer may cause - what's the rule of thumb? It takes 10 good referrals to balance out 1 bad one?

To the OP - I think you can probably have a clear conscience about the way you handled the incident just by the fact that you didn't argue with her or throw her out of the store.

bighornsheep

sprkymrk wrote:

I heard a statistic once in a business conference that said something to the effect that the old adage of "the customer is always right" doesn't always make good business sense. They claimed that on average, about 5% of the customers cause 95% of a business' problems, and that by identifying and dropping that 5% you can actually free up enough resources to add another 50% to your customer base without increasing staffing levels or workload. This means more $$$ in your pocket. Sometimes it's worth letting a customer go do business elsewhere. Of course this needs to be balanced against any negative advertising that customer may cause - what's the rule of thumb? It takes 10 good referrals to balance out 1 bad one?

right, and I agree with you about choosing when necessary to "let go" and cut your losts. Neither you or myself negated what I said above though, no?

My point though, KGhaleon, is that if you (or your store) decides to sort of disregard this customer, as sprkymrk stated, you have to prepare for the bad referrals, are you in among large Russian population?

sprkymrk

bighornsheep wrote:

Neither you or myself negated what I said above though, no?

Yes. I mean no. I mean, right.

Your comment is valid, it just brought to mind my little story. I was simply adding a #3 to your list.

Plantwiz

It is ok to not do business with people, that's where I was going here (there was so much more to address):

Plantwiz wrote:

...
If you or your company doesn't wish to do business with different ethnicities....then recommend them to another shop and do not bother to charge them. If you are in the US, this sort of behavior mostly died out in the 60s, but maybe the memo hasn't made it to your boss yet??
.

There is a downside to this, and if the decision is based racially, there will be HUGE ramifications.

Personally, if some store didn't want my business...there is a good chance I wouldn't want to do business with them.

And yes, the 80/20 priciple does apply as well as the way to increase revenue and improve the efficiency of resources is to cut some of that 20% problem group out.

There is opportunity cost with each business decision. I'm a little surprised there aren't more seasoned (US) tech disappointed with the racial commentary that was so easily thrown out

People really still act like this in the US?? Come on

Who cares what nationality she is? She is in your store and wants to pay you to fix her PC. She paid for her service at the time, and actually bothered to give your shop another chance several months later.

Right or wrong on your stores part, she's back and it is your opportunity to shine.

As a techinican, if you cannot empathize with your client and appreciate that the person who is giving you their distressed PC (their life in many cases), and you treat it like it's no big deal, or it's 'easy', or they are stupid and they'll screw it up again regardless what you do to it, etc... TAKE NOTE....this is that part of the customer relations aspect on the A+ exam that is 'common sense'. This is the part where you are expected to answer the question correctly on the exam, but also ACT that way at your job.

There are customers and situations that can make one 'nuts' in retail. Guess what? These are the people who are paying your wages. There are very thin margins currently on electronics (for small stores) and everyday that a GC sits on a shelf the margin shrinks.

Service is what can save a small shop and Customer service is lacking in so many businesses today, that being 'bored' by a retail customer is unacceptable.

While KGhaleon may not have 'done' anything wrong....as a technician and customer relations person...I'm not hearing that he did his job to satisfy her either. He merely did enough to keep his job where he works. If that was the goal....then sure he did fine.

Not sure about your area, but there is a LOT of 'competition' for PC service work and too many are undercutting their pricing. It was commented that your $130 for 2 hours was low??

I'd say it was spot on IF the service wouldn't have taken 2 weeks.

I can only guess that your area is flooded with PC Tech's and recent A+ techs who can 'fix' computers. Yippie. There is more to being a Tech then plugging in parts and Format:Reinstall. If you want to be successful or you want to develop a great reputation to where the word of mouth advertising has your boss needing to hire 6 new techs to handle all the work...the service has to be 1st class.

FWIW

NetworkGod

those "russians" on brighton beach man.. they're the worst, they'll argue with you over 5 cents and then request their money back..

keatron

To be honest with you, it was probably something she was doing at home. Perhaps a habit? For example maybe a certain Russian, French, or US website she frequently visits that is known for harvesting viruses, trojans, and spyware? I've seen this happen on a number of ocassions. I had family member who told me that they took their machine to a repair shop with similar problems. The repair shop ended up doing a complete re-install (similar again to your experience) then a month later, he had the same problem again. Except this time, I was to be home for the holidays a week after he told me about it, so he waited until I got there. Did some basic forensics on his box to find out that he was absolutely getting nailed by some trojans from a "secure" web server he was getting content from on his college campus. His feelings were slightly like the feelings of the client of the OP, but after I showed him how he was repeatedly re-infecting himself, his entire attitude changed. After I formatted his machine and re-installed I simply did a demonstration. I made him take note of his dsl modem activity immediately after the re-install. Let him do his normal browsing for two days (minus the web server on his college campus). Activity light (during the times he wasn't browsing) increased slightly but not much at all. Then I told him to resume his normal browsing for the rest of the week (including the files and things he often downloaded from the college campus web server), and kaboom. His modem was constantly sending and receiving stuff from $%$#$^&$%# at a record breaking rate. That green activity light was basically constantly on.

I know you obviously didn't have the opportunity or authority to go to her house and do the same I did, but I just wanted to tell you to relax; It sounds like she was guilty of the same type of thing my brother was.

Plantwiz

n3tw0rkg0d wrote:

those "russians" on brighton beach man.. they're the worst, they'll argue with you over 5 cents and then request their money back..

Couple additional things as it seems as though the point has been missed.

1. This is an international website. Take care in those you freely insult due to ingnorance.

2. If you live in a region with a growing culturally diverse community, it may be in your best interest to understand how other cultures opperate. What you may see as 'normal' they may find offensive. Something that you find annoying, they may do as 'normal' business.

And no, you don't have to 'like' everyone. However, understanding how other cultures function, travelling, etc... you'll soon see there are many more similarities then differences.

Slowhand

KGhaleon wrote:

She wasted a lot of our time complaining and making us install various russian language programs back on the machine. We only charged her a measily two hours($130) worth of work to be nice.

I've come across a lot of this kind of thing, as well. I think the real issue here is that only two hours' worth of work was charged for (assuming that the work took longer than that,) and installing additional programs is usually an extra charge in a situation like this. Cleaning out viruses is one thing, restoring a computer is one thing, and installing any additional software, including language packs, is another. She obviously wasn't charged anything extra for the additional language pack installs, and she doesn't exactly seem like she appreciated the effort put in for free work.

As I said before, you're not the bad guy in this situation. If she went out of her way to complain, didn't pay for all the work that was done, and then went on to demand her money back for work that had been done, she's downright malicious. Again, regardless of if she "could have done the work herself" or not, you were the one who did the work. If I leave my computer at a shop to have a new version of Microsoft Office installed, I still have to pay for the labor, and it doesn't make one bit of difference if I'm MCSA certified, A+ certified, or even if I was the head of the Office development team. Someone else did the work, they should be paid for their time.

mikej412

Suck it up. Drive on. And use it as motivation to study for your next CCNA attempt (or some other Certification)

You could look at this as a wake up call -- time to look beyond the other side of the current counter (and next irate customer).

Plantwiz

keatron wrote:

To be honest with you, it was probably something she was doing at home. Perhaps a habit? For example maybe a certain Russian, French, or US website she frequently visits that is known for harvesting viruses, trojans, and spyware? I've seen this happen on a number of ocassions. I had family member who told me that they took their machine to a repair shop with similar problems. The repair shop ended up doing a complete re-install (similar again to your experience) then a month later, he had the same problem again. Except this time, I was to be home for the holidays a week after he told me about it, so he waited until I got there. Did some basic forensics on his box to find out that he was absolutely getting nailed by some trojans from a "secure" web server he was getting content from on his college campus. His feelings were slightly like the feelings of the client of the OP, but after I showed him how he was repeatedly re-infecting himself, his entire attitude changed. After I formatted his machine and re-installed I simply did a demonstration. I made him take note of his dsl modem activity immediately after the re-install. Let him do his normal browsing for two days (minus the web server on his college campus). Activity light (during the times he wasn't browsing) increased slightly but not much at all. Then I told him to resume his normal browsing for the rest of the week (including the files and things he often downloaded from the college campus web server), and kaboom. His modem was constantly sending and receiving stuff from $%$#$^&$%# at a record breaking rate. That green activity light was basically constantly on.

I know you obviously didn't have the opportunity or authority to go to her house and do the same I did, but I just wanted to tell you to relax; It sounds like she was guilty of the same type of thing my brother was.

An opportunity to do 'educate' the client and offer some fantastic service!!

Perhaps it isn't practicle, but it is an opportunity to teach instead of complain and risk facing this similar situation again and again.

Good comment Keatron!!

KGhaleon

Well, 2 weeks may have been an exaggeration...at least a week. The place I am employed at is a small company with few employees, so I'm usually jumping back and forth between a number of machines. I can't dedicate all my time to researching and working on one machine...which is why it took a while. Formatting is just a last-resort.

I say she's russian because I don't know her name and her english was bad.

She had a bunch of russian-language programs that she wanted installed...and it really wasn't my job to set them up for her. I can't speak the language. o_O

When she came back after 5-6 months, it was because her laptop had broken(does not power-on) and she tried to fix it herself by opening it. It looks like she brokes pieces off the motherboard. In addition, she wanted her money back from her last visit and the above event happened.

I'm nice with my customer's and I charge fairly. It's $65 an hour for in-house labor, so I only charged her for 2 hours. That just includes reinstalling the operating system and putting Office, virus and spyware apps, among other applications back on and transfering her data.

Most customer's are pleased and happily recommend the store to others, so it's rare to have a customer like this. She says she fixed the problem by changing a key in the registry, but when she showed me...it was something that I had already checked when she was here last. I went through every registry fix available that would correct the problem.

Sorry, it just left a sour taste in my mouth.

Plantwiz

Thanks for the additonal clarification. I was merely going by what was posted

Yep, it is frustrating and sometimes you can run into an interesting client...best thing is to document (with great detail) the steps you take while working on someone's box. A lot more work for you, but there is little room to dispute what you did and the charges incurred.

My apologies if my comments sounded strong, though I'm a bit disgusted when clients are so easily brushed off and then the complaints that there is no work, or the jobs are leaving the country start. WE as technicians need to protect our jobs and if it means our job moves into more of an advisor role (as systems become more user friendly), then that is what we need to do.

Again, thanks for the additional information. Hope the experience was something you can take with you moving forward and perhaps find an additonal opportunity to work with this challenging client. If that doesn't work...refer her to another shop.

Good to hear back from you

NetworkGod

Plantwiz wrote:

n3tw0rkg0d wrote:

those "russians" on brighton beach man.. they're the worst, they'll argue with you over 5 cents and then request their money back..

Couple additional things as it seems as though the point has been missed.

1. This is an international website. Take care in those you freely insult due to ingnorance.

2. If you live in a region with a growing culturally diverse community, it may be in your best interest to understand how other cultures opperate. What you may see as 'normal' they may find offensive. Something that you find annoying, they may do as 'normal' business.

And no, you don't have to 'like' everyone. However, understanding how other cultures function, travelling, etc... you'll soon see there are many more similarities then differences.

Well.. I'm russian, which gives me the right to say as much stuff as i like about my own people

strauchr

Well it sounds like you don't have much experience and you sound a little bit sensitive. You are going to get a ton of these types of people, comes with the territory.

ALL matters like this should warrant you getting the manager immediately.

Also try and explain in a calm manner why the problem may have been different last time. If she doesn't understand then you have done your best.

And 2 weeks!! Dam that is way way too long. That'd be enough for me to get angry in the first place.

boyles23

Yeah you can't take two weeks to fix a computer, most people can't live without the pc when it breaks because it usually is the only one they have.

Also, somebody said you overcharged. The geek squad here charges 129 just for OS install. They actually do a combined package now: OS install\OS service, updates, software installation, tweaks and cleaning for $299.00. You think that customer was bad, you ought to deal with customers at the geek squad since they have to deal with customers on computers, washers, cameras and everything else in the store. Not to mention you get yelled at for some other lazy, unknowledgeable tech not doing his job and making poor notes. I work there part-time so I know! I do have to say I do get a good discount, so I get a little experience and some good deals!

endersftd

Yeah, your customer's argument doesn't even make sense. She paid you to fix a problem, and you fixed it. Then she says that she wants her money back because she had another (same?) problem and she fixed it herself.

It's like when you go to a mechanic. They can change your oil and filter and charge you for it. You pay for it because they provided you a service. But 3000 miles later you can't change your oil yourself, go back to the mechanic, and demand your money back because you could do it as well or better than the mechanic. That just doesn't hold up. Just my $0.02