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 I used to have a "no fix, no charge" policy. This policy basically means that if I am unable to solve your computer problem or provide you with the service that you needed, then I will not charge you a cent. Today, I have decided to no longer use the policy. In this article I am going to explain more about why I am against it rather than for it. Please keep in mind that these opinions are for on-site work only. I believe carry-in work should have a 100% fix guarantee - no questions asked.
The knowledge and experience that you have is worth a lot of money. When people call you, they are calling on you to apply your knowledge and skill to their problem. Yes, they are also paying for a fix; but part of the cost includes your time, knowledge, and experience. If you go on-site and try every fix in the book and the problem still remains, I think you should still be paid because at least you and the customer know what is not the problem. And why should you not be paid for your time troubleshooting? Unless you have absolutely no idea what you are doing and you are just dicking around, I think your work is worth money. I believe "no fix, no charge" policies appeal to cheap customers. People who want something for free are going to love hearing about that policy. They know that there is no risk to them, but they don't take your time into account. They don't care if you make any money but they do care about the money that they have to spend, and they are going to be upset when it comes down to paying the bill if it's a lengthy fix. Sure, if you charge them and don't fix anything, they will be upset. But since they are cheap, they probably won't be calling you for repeat business anyway. They are a one-time deal. Sure, they won't refer you to their friends either. But would you rather have a bunch of cheapskate clients that would skip the bill at their first chance? Or would you rather have a bunch of high-paying clients who understand that time is money?
High-paying clients realize that time is money. Professionals rely on eachother to keep their businesses going. And each professional realizes that the time of another professional costs money. If you are in the computer service business, you are a professional. Therefore, your time equals money and high-paying professional clients will realize this. There are a number of professional services I know of where you will always get charged, even if you found their service utterly useless. And I still haven't found one where you don't have to pay for nothing.Now I am not suggesting that you go around and screw around with somebody's computer for three hours and then bill them for a full three hours. You did not give them a fix, but you did provide them with your knowledge and experience and (hopefully) you did your best. And I believe that is still worth 1½ hours of pay. I had a client in the past where I could not give him a fix in a timely manner. After working on it for three hours, I told him that if he could let me take the computer home, I could get everything set up and working perfectly the next day. He refused to let me take it. But he had quite a bit of technical knowledge, so I explained to him the process that I had planned on doing for the fix. He understood and said he'd give it a shot and asked me how much he owed me. Since I felt bad about not giving him a fix, I just told him he owed me one hour's worth. He insisted on paying me 1½ hours worth and that was fine with me. He also got my card and said he'd have some more work for me later on in the week. These are the kind of clients that I love. He was happy to pay me even though I didn't provide the fix and he still wanted to get me out for some more work later. He is an accounting and business consultant, a professional, and he understands that my time is worth money. That pretty much explains why I am against the "no fix, no charge" policy, now for a little bit of how they could help you. If you want to appeal to low and medium income families, then a "no fix, no charge" policy is definitely a way to do that. These people don't have a lot of money to spare so they want to make sure that every dollar counts. Guaranteeing your work for these people will net you a lot of business with them. But you have to keep in mind that this is the class of people that are the most flaky, do the least amount of repeat business, are likely to try to get something for free, and will refer you to their friends - who are also low-mid income. The policy is great if you want to work with a broad range or customers from all income classes. But if you prefer to only work with high-paying clients, it may be a good idea to ditch the policy. Ditching it means you take less risk when working with cheap clients and it also means working with less cheap clients. Hopefully what I wrote makes some sense to you guys. It is a very complicated subject that starts up a million different thoughts in my head, making it hard to explain. Let me know what your opinions are on the "no fix, no charge" policy. If you have any questions or comments about this article, please leave a comment below. I'd love to hear your opinion and I really appreciate all comments. If you'd like to be notified of new updates, please consider subscribing to the ProPCBiz RSS Feed. Thanks for reading!
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