Tech Support Business

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Permalink Reply by Leonard Knight on November 30, 2008 at 10:49am

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Permalink Reply by Steve Drevik on December 11, 2008 at 12:29pm

I think this is a great idea. I know a number of people in Bearden/Sequoyah through my political activity (most of the active people are retired and not of the PC generation), and I get lots of questions about both setup, problems, and use (how to use Excel, etc). I think gift cards are a great approach, and both word-of-mouth and some directed advertising would get you started. Don't know if it would grow into a full-time kind of job, but who knows. If you'd like, I could get you a few names to start with.

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Permalink Reply by Ken Armstrong on December 16, 2008 at 8:19pm

I'm still recruiting solution providers for us Leo.

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Permalink Reply by Lisa Starbuck on December 17, 2008 at 10:57am

My company has been doing tech support and troubleshooting for a number of years. Unfortunately, fixing the multitude of possible issues on someone's home computer is very time consuming and individuals don't really want to pay for the service. One of the biggest issues we see is virus/spyware infections, some of which take an hour or two to clean, even with the best tools, and sometimes much longer. Also you could be dealing with hardware/software conflicts or failures, or simply user error or ignorance. Sometimes they don't have a good internet connection which also makes it difficult to go to their homes to fix the problem. It is easy to wind up with a $200-$300 bill to fix a computer that may only be worth about $500-$600. For these reasons, we generally stick to businesses.

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Permalink Reply by Leonard Knight on February 9, 2009 at 3:13pm

If you're interested in partnering up on this project, let me know. Let's get a team together this week to discuss how we're going to get this done. ~Leo

Just reply with IN and I'll add you to the team, form a private group, and invite you. Cutoff is Wednesday at our General Membership Meeting.

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Permalink Reply by Chris on February 9, 2009 at 3:35pm

IN

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Permalink Reply by William Milam on February 10, 2009 at 4:03pm

I know you are thinking about controlling costs. However, when folks need help, they usually need it ASAP. Could quality be maintained with 1-2 fulltimers and then a cadre of on-call types to handle the overflow?

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Permalink Reply by Leonard Knight on February 19, 2009 at 1:13pm

I think we need to get the team formed, sit down and talk about it, and walk away with the start of a new business. I agree; maybe one or two full time to handle call routing and scheduling and fixing issues over the phone. Maybe we have a stay-at-home-techie mom/dad to handle the incoming calls.

My main requirement is rock solid customer service. Never drop the ball. Customers are always satisfied. I think we can do this with some good software. Brandon Moore suggested a couple of open source work ticket systems. I want to be able to close the loop on issues and have the life cycle of the issues/service/closure viewable by the public. I want our clients to fix this little stuff and only call us for the real issues.

Brandon has committed to contacting everyone in this topic interested in moving this forward. He will then close this topic for further comments and create a group for this business. We'll all be invited to that group and get moving forward.

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Permalink Reply by Brandon Moore on February 19, 2009 at 5:50pm

Okay - I have created a group here, called "Tech Support". Go on over and join the group if you're interested. There will be more detailed information and conversation going on over there. The address is http://www.eokhq.com/group/techsupport

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Permalink Reply by Harriette L. Spiegel on February 27, 2009 at 2:42pm

I am interested in the user side of computer use and I teach computer literacy part-time. I envision a set-up where, as an independent contractor, I provide the training to USE the computer - for folks who have just bought a computer (at the "shop next door"), working with the merchant to provide a seamless "full-service" experience. I want to avoid the "where-to-meet-the-client" issues, having done a lot of tutoring in Spanish in the past. I would want to design and provide a customized user-guide for the client. Like everyone, my time is limited right now. I am also interested in promoting Web Accessibility and making webmasters aware of how important it is to produce an accessible Web page.

I'm just beginning to try to figure out how to reach all those computer users whose issues include all those mentioned in the discussion and I appreciate any thoughts.

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Permalink Reply by Leonard Knight on February 27, 2009 at 6:43pm

Harriette,

Sounds like a plan. I look forward to seeing you at the brainstorming meeting to kick this venture into gear.

Leo

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Permalink Reply by Sue Painter on March 2, 2009 at 8:48am

I like the idea but would like suggest expanding it a bit. What I need as both a small business owner AND a home computer user is help with the odd question. Secondly, I really need help with keeping software updated and running quickly and smoothly. My experience with most small tech support shops is that they either don't know or have no interest in helping you with a software issue. I'd love to be able to come in with my laptop, pay for an hour with someone who REALLY knows some program, get my little nagging questions answered or get a basic run-through of how to use the bells and whistles on the software program.
I'd love having someone come to my office or else I come by, sit with some coffee and do some work while I hand over my computer with a list of things bugging me OR if no bugs, I hand it over and in an hour it has been updated, runs more quickly, and I'm told about any upcoming problems the tech person sees. For instance - you're about out of hard drive (!), you need to offload your pictures, your anti-virus program is about to expire.

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