Tech Support Businesses on the Rise

prostoalex writes "People are relying on more technology that ever before, and tech support geek squads are on the rise, media reports. The USA Today article says Best Buy has hired 1,500 more technicians for its Geek Squad and CompUSA currently keeps its tech support ranks at 12,000. The article from Digital Connect magazine talks about Geeks On Call, a nationwide tech support franchise, which has more than 300 shops in 20 states. The USA Today article states the profit margins for the tech support teams generally run within 30%, while the Digital Connect magazine gives an estimate on prices charged to achieve the margins: "An initial diagnostics call, for example, could run $99. Cleanup jobs usually run one to two hours, and some franchisees say they charge between $149 and $165 for one hour and $265 to $275 for two hours.""

Comments

3 hours of tech support = new computer

[yotto]

So, if you think it's going to take 3 hours to fix, just go out and buy a new computer.

Re:3 hours of tech support = new computer

[AKAImBatman]

Not to mention that the tech who does the work is probably only seeing about $10.00/hr out of it.

Re:3 hours of tech support = new computer

[login:]

The new computer isn`t generally the issue.

DATA stored on the computer is generally far more precious then the PC itself, and buying a new PC isn`t going to get you back that thesis/invoice/email.

Re:3 hours of tech support = new computer

[Intron]

...and resinstall all of the programs that you have from the original factory disks that are carefully organized on your bookshelf, right? Oh, and somehow copy all of your docs and emails over to the new PC. Oh, and restore all of your settings, preferences, backgrounds, sounds. Sounds like a 10-minute job to me.

Re:3 hours of tech support = new computer

[lawpoop]

The people who would buy three hours of on-site tech support are those who would not be able to set up a new computer.

Re:3 hours of tech support = new computer

[LetterJ]

"At least if one user's home directory is lost it does not wipe everything off the machine."

You just proved my point. On most home machines, even Linux ones, there really only *is* one important user. Any other users are usually pretty secondary. Shrugging it off as only "one user's home directory" is exactly why this is a problem. Destruction of my home directory (assuming I don't do backups, which I do*) would result in the destruction of probably close to 10,000 hours of work. Now, much of that work really wouldn't need to be redone, but compare that to the time to reinstall the relevant software and do a setup.

At work, the person seated at the machine 40 hours per week is the only user of consequence. Elminate their data and you're not talking about a 2-day rebuild, but possible 1-2 years to recreate anything not backed up.

I'm not saying you shouldn't backup. Obviously that's the "real" solution to stopping the destruction of data.

All I was commenting on the fact that a "secure" OS that still allows the destruction of the current user's data is only a small bit better than one that allows complete destruction due to the ratio of value between the OS and it's data and the user and their data.

*I keep my home directory under SVN control and back up the repository offsite.

Good God

[1967mustangman]

So this means they will have antoher 1,500 people whose only function is to tell you they have to send your laptop aways for 2 weeks to do a 15 minute harddrive swap???

Re:Good God

[Rei]

I could tell you the answer to that question, but there is a 50$ up front slashdot-answer tech support fee.

Geek Squad

[OctoberSky]

Do yourself a favor and track down the Geek Squads price list. Holy Crap am I in the wrong business (law).
$29.00 to install RAM? Whats that take 5 mins? 60/5= 12, 12 x $29 = $348 an hour. Where do I sign up?

The front lines

[Leroy_Brown242]

I feel bad for the roaming geeks like Best Buy's Geek Squad.

having to deal with people on the phone is tough. but when you have to go into their homes, that's scary. You lose the safe seperation from people's weirdness.

Although, I always told the joke that people would be a whole lot nicer if they saw me in person. it's easy to be an asshoel to a voice on the phone. But in person, it's a little harder.

Re:The front lines

[zerocool^]

As an onsite support tech, I can tell you that in a lot of ways, I'd much rather be going to people's businesses (and maybe homes) than talking to them in the store or on the phone.

When on the phone, there's a certain level of anonymity that customers feel they have, and you're much more likely to get screamed at on the phone than while onsite. When you're onsite, most customers are aware that 1.) they need you more than you need them, as they've called you out to their business, and 2.) you're getting paid hourly, so screaming wastes their time and money. Also, 3.) it's kind of unspoken that the people you talk to on the phone aren't as good as the people in the field, or they'd be in the field.

So your assessment about being nicer in person is completely, 100% correct, in my experience. The worst part about going out on site is dealing with customers who don't have a store account. I hate dealing with money, and I'm bad at it. I fix computers, that's it. My wife pays the bills, and our understanding is that if I need it to sustain life, I purchase it, and if not, I ask first. Asking customers for $85 or $135 for an hour of work almost wierds me out. And having to sit down at the computer you just fixed, break out calc, and add up ((parts*1.05)+labor), and show them the total still feels odd. Especially since I see about $15/hr of that.

Every once-in-a-while, though, you do get an interesting customer. Last week, I had a customer who invited me into his townhouse, made a comment about getting his "fat ass out of this chair" (his words), and then stood up, grabbed his crotch, and exclaimed, "Holy Shit, the bag's full!". Just as I was beginning to work that one over in my mind, and coming to the conclusion that he had, indeed, grown a third testis since he sat down, he explained that he had had a good bit of his colon removed, and excused himself to the bathroom to empty his colostomy bag. I began cleaning his spyware in earnest at this point.

You don't gt experiences like that from working in store.

~Will

Er, not quite.

[XorNand]

I know for a fact that one of the national big box stores mentioned doesn't have *any* of the thousands of on-site techs in their employment. They subcontract out everything to ComputerRepair.com, which is an interesting business idea in itself. I wrote a tech's perspective review of ComputerRepair.com here.

"Service industries"

[nurb432]

Apparently that is the future economy of this country. We dont make anything any longer, so all that is left is 'services'.

It's not the computer, its the DATA

[tivoKlr]

Isn't what's really of value here the data stored on the computer rather than the box itself? Having just bought a new computer and spent 2 nights transferring all of my data from the old one to the new one, the thing that came to mind is that this new fancy 500.00 machine I just picked up is an empty shell without MY data on it, and is pretty much valueless.

So before we jump on the "just buy a new computer" bandwagon, think about the time and hassle of moving that which makes your computer your computer, your DATA, to that new computer and transferring all of your settings, preferences, bookmarks, etc. Incorporate that time into the overall expense and you'll see that it's not such a great deal to just buy up that new emachines or dell or whatever...

Then factor in the SPOUSE HASSLE FACTOR...God forbid you move some file of your spouses from the old computer to the new one and she can't find it, or things look different on the new computer, etc...

How much does that cost vs. just fixing the problems with your current computer, let alone the environmental cost of recycling or disposing of the old computer. I know that nobody has ever thrown one of those into the dumpster...

3 hours of tech support = backwards thinking

[RealProgrammer]

It may take 3 hours of hands-on time to fix a single computer, but five computers can usually be fixed in that same three hours. Much of the "fixing" time is just waiting for disks to be scanned for malware and for installs to run. "Windows is saving your settings" (Ugh.)

The real issue is support costs versus training costs. Businesses that pay $250/hour for someone to "fix their computers" (which is to say, clean up Windows errors) should be paying $100/hour for someone to train their people on how to avoid these problems.

It's not hard to avoid viruses and malware. You switch to a non-IE browser and don't run programs whose originator you don't know. That doesn't take too much training time, but it saves a timeclock full of support time if people practice those things.

Combined with some AV tool (and in my experience it doesn't matter which one), you're generally on target for hassle-free computer use.

$165 per hour?

[Quiet_Desperation]

You can hire a decent whore for that much. And, yes, I speak from experience.

Re:$165 per hour?

[Tx]

But this is about getting rid of viruses, not catching them!

A live body is better than a phone call

[Webmoth]

Why are "geek squads" rising? Because the quality of telephone tech support has gone down the toilet. People just don't want to talk to someone in Sri Lanka that they can't understand and can't understand them. People don't want to have to walk thru a script of things they've already tried just to make the tech's computer happy.

People want someone who can look at the computer, know what's wrong, and fix it. They don't want to click on X, Y and Z then get Q and try to explain to the person on the other end of the line what they are seeing.

Simply put, to speak to tech support on the phone, you need to be somewhat tech savvy yourself. Then if you're a tech like me, it's frustrating to be led thru all the things you've already tried. ("I've already cleared the printer queue. I've reinstalled the driver. I've replaced the cable. For the fifteenth time, the printer's internal test page doesn't print when I use the front panel buttons!!!")

In business especially, it's not worth the time to spend hours on a tech support call when a phone call to the local computer geek results in same-day service with minimal loss of productivity. Instead of tying up an employee on the phone, that employee can be doing non-computer productive work, which just may pay for the tech's time.

Re:Big fallacy!

[King_TJ]

I'm not sure if you're just bitter about the concept of on-site service as a whole or what, but under the assumption you're not simply trolling - I'll go ahead and respond....

1. My rates happen to be lower than anyone else I've called in the entire Yellow Pages under "on-site PC service". I do think many places charge too much for too little, so I'm trying to make a living while still being reasonable.

2. I do both PC and Mac service, and countless times, have suggested the Macintosh alternative to people when they seem to repeatly be struggling with spyware and virus issues. Nonetheless, it's no big secret that ALL on-site PC service businesses handle more virus and spyware calls than any other single type of call today. Even Dell estimates that about 40% of their incoming support calls are about these problems. If I had my way, I'd much rather spend my time solving an interesting system problem or performing an upgrade which leaves a customer with a system that works better than it ever did before. But reality is, they usually call about the virus and spyware problems.

3. Having over 12 years of experience in the computer field, I wouldn't label myself a "high tech janitor", any more than I'd call a software developer wih 10+ years of experience a "digital assembly line worker, shoving bits around all day". But you can create whatever types of labels you wish for a person's line of work. Oversimplify enough, and you can make anyone look bad.

Technicians...

[writermike]

More like profesional apologizers.

Technicians -- especially the good ones -- are not going to do well at this .. and it's not their fault.

It's the fault of the companies who prohibit their engineers and support people from giving out good, useable, technical information anymore.

It's the fault of the manufacturers, who often don't know what's in their products because it's sub-contracted through 90 different companies.

It's the fault of the marketers, who claim that everything works 100%, perfectly, without-a-doubt, with one hand behind your back.

It's the fault of the customers who look at a $299.99 PC and think that all of their problems will go away and no new ones will appear with the signing of a check.

It's the fault of the hiring agents who pay a person with 30 years of technical experience the same as someone who read an A+ manual.

It's the fault of the big box stores who would desperately prefer to move merchandise rather than repair something.

And it's the fault of the buying public who believe you can have all three: high-quality, free quality technicians, and low-cost.

I just know it ain't Barry White's fault.

But, please, please, more spyware, more shoddy workmanship! Everyone at the trough! Dig in. Face first, please.

Geek Squad is a joke

[Jett]

I have a friend of a friend who got hired there, you couldn't pay me to trust him to touch any computer I had to deal with. Geek Squad is overpriced and seems to have stupid hiring practices. A friend of mine applied there and didn't even get an interview but he's one of the best technicians I've ever met and has great customer service skills.

I do tech support professionally on a college campus and freelance for anyone recommended to me by friends. I hate freelancing because tech support crap is almost always boring and I already do it all day long, but it's hard to turn down extra income. I started out charging $20 an hour, now I'm up to $50 (for on-site calls). I always feel really guilty charging that much though (unless it's a nasty spyware infection). This one time I worked on this guys computer that had had the wireless card disabled - I literally just had to click "enable" and I was done. It took 5 minutes to drive to his house, 5 minutes to get situated with the computer booted up and all that, and then I was done. I told him because it took such a short amount of time I would only charge him $10, he was cool and joked that he pays the kid down the street more to mow his lawn and ended up paying me $30. I still felt bad - clearly I'm not cut out for this kind of work.
Right now I'm working on a PC in exchange for free food, mostly because it's a new customer and I know she is a good cook, but also because all I have to do is swap a CD-ROM drive and troubleshoot a Wacom tablet. I feel like an ass charging for simple things like that.

Re:Big fallacy!

[timster]

My transplant surgeons:

- were expensive (you don't even want to know)

- rely on human disease to get business

- are mainly lowly technicians, swapping parts around in a machine that happens to have obnoxiously complicated service procedures (due to its literally ancient design). Whether that is worth what they charge is up to you I suppose, but I for one am satisfied.

Let me introduce you to the word "idiot", Mr. Coward.