stugster
Active Member
Just thought I'd share this with you all; you'll understand where I'm coming from!
So a lead I've been chasing for a good three to four weeks has continually knocked me back. They're a standard office with 8 PC's (they really need a server). Nothing fancy - £400 for a refurbished server would do them to centralise their files, calendars, emails, that sort of thing.
Anyway... I quoted them on a monthly support contract which included Unlimited Everything (remote support, email support, telephone support, and on-site support). 8 PCs, 1 Server... Less than £250 a month. Cheap as chips, eh?
After five or six revisions of the quote, and five or six knock-backs, they came back to me on Tuesday in a state of panic... One of their computers has a virus and it has stopped it booting. Not only that, but two other computers seem to have it as well and they're running so slow that they just aren't usable.
To top it off, as a result of these problems, they started copying files between PCs on memory sticks, moving them onto desktops and now they have about three or four different revisions of the same file and no idea which one to use! Fantastic
Here's the situation broken down in to terms we all understand:
Cost of Priority Support on a Monthly basis for things like this: circa £250
Cost of not having it:
£80 to fix and remove the virus from the first machine that wont boot.
£80 to clean up the second machine.
£80 to clean up the third.
£150 to find all their files and bring them into some sort of logical arrangement, assist in implementing anti-virus across the network (manually - no server remember),and scanning each machine to be safe with the various tools of the trade.
Then we've got the 0 productivity we now have as a result of three PCs being out of action - this company is a business that relies on their computers to work, they can't just revert to paper and pen.
What's the cost of the lost productivity? Well assuming there were 3 employees, at minimum wage of circa £6.80 or whatever it is, that's around 8 hours lost each: £163.20.
Then you've got the unhappy customers wondering why their emails are being handled by a completely different Account Manager, and why the Account Manager hasn't replied (oh, that'll be 'cause you've got your email set up as POP3 and you can only realistically get your email from that one machine at the moment).
Anyway... total cost to the business (excluding reputation, etc.): £553.20.
Moral of the story? There's none. I gave up trying to lecture businesses that weren't interested. If you don't take our advice, that's your own problem! :thumbup1:
So a lead I've been chasing for a good three to four weeks has continually knocked me back. They're a standard office with 8 PC's (they really need a server). Nothing fancy - £400 for a refurbished server would do them to centralise their files, calendars, emails, that sort of thing.
Anyway... I quoted them on a monthly support contract which included Unlimited Everything (remote support, email support, telephone support, and on-site support). 8 PCs, 1 Server... Less than £250 a month. Cheap as chips, eh?
After five or six revisions of the quote, and five or six knock-backs, they came back to me on Tuesday in a state of panic... One of their computers has a virus and it has stopped it booting. Not only that, but two other computers seem to have it as well and they're running so slow that they just aren't usable.
To top it off, as a result of these problems, they started copying files between PCs on memory sticks, moving them onto desktops and now they have about three or four different revisions of the same file and no idea which one to use! Fantastic
Here's the situation broken down in to terms we all understand:
Cost of Priority Support on a Monthly basis for things like this: circa £250
Cost of not having it:
£80 to fix and remove the virus from the first machine that wont boot.
£80 to clean up the second machine.
£80 to clean up the third.
£150 to find all their files and bring them into some sort of logical arrangement, assist in implementing anti-virus across the network (manually - no server remember),and scanning each machine to be safe with the various tools of the trade.
Then we've got the 0 productivity we now have as a result of three PCs being out of action - this company is a business that relies on their computers to work, they can't just revert to paper and pen.
What's the cost of the lost productivity? Well assuming there were 3 employees, at minimum wage of circa £6.80 or whatever it is, that's around 8 hours lost each: £163.20.
Then you've got the unhappy customers wondering why their emails are being handled by a completely different Account Manager, and why the Account Manager hasn't replied (oh, that'll be 'cause you've got your email set up as POP3 and you can only realistically get your email from that one machine at the moment).
Anyway... total cost to the business (excluding reputation, etc.): £553.20.
Moral of the story? There's none. I gave up trying to lecture businesses that weren't interested. If you don't take our advice, that's your own problem! :thumbup1:
We've all been there, i've totally given up with doing local support where I live, I've 10 years experience between banking and manufacturing supporting business critical systems on everything from cash machines to mainframes and I found myself competing with people's nephews, I just can't be bothered with the fight any longer. Added to that, 90% of the people who call you are calling about a 'slow pc that needs some magic working' which is usually a machine circa 1970 trying to run windows xp 
