How much physical repair should a tech actually do? Splitting opinions in my shop.

Last month at our shop in Austin, a guy brought in a 2015 Dell with a cracked screen. I quoted him the swap, but my coworker argued we should just send it to a third party because we're not a hardware shop. I spent 45 minutes doing the repair myself, saved the customer $80, but my boss chewed me out for taking time away from virus removals. On the other hand, another tech I know says doing that builds loyalty and brings repeat business. Where do you all draw the line between software fixes and physical repairs?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_max26d agoTop Commenter

82nd and Lamar here, that San Antonio story from @davis.noah sounds exactly like my regular with the HP Pavilion. I swapped a dead battery once about six years ago and that guy still brings me coffee every time he stops in, plus he’s sent me five other customers off his softball team. Bosses see the 45 minutes but they don’t see the three laptops that walked in the door a month later because of that one keyboard job.

davis.noah26d ago

My buddy runs a shop in San Antonio and he spent two hours replacing a keyboard on a 2013 MacBook Pro once. Customer came back three times that year for software stuff and referred four coworkers. Bosses hate losing 45 minutes of labor but that guy probably made you way more in the long run.

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