Real SMB IT: Dishonest PC Repair

Venus Flytrap

Every couple of years somebody publishes an exposé on some class or type of service business that is fishing for honesty and integrity.

Disappointing as it is, it had to happen. The August 10 2009 print edition of Business Week (I could not find it on-line) had a brief note by Arik Hesseldahl titled; Shifty PC Repair.

Same idea, set up a basic sting operation where a machine has a known minor defect (in this case just a loose memory chip) and take the machine to various service outlets.

In this UK example, only one of six sting targets actually just fixed the problem. While some over charged for non-existent problems, some actually copied data off the machine. If that is a business machine with possibly confidential information, you see where that can go.

The SMB Takeaway

That behavior is deplorable. Period.

But to reduce that risk, as I have written before, planning for the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) when purchasing IT assets is critical in the small to medium enterprise. That means planning for the fact that sooner or later something will need to be repaired.

So here are two ways to reduce that risk;

1) When purchasing desktops or notebook computers, spend the extra few dollars for the vendors on-site extended warranty service

2) On out-of warranty older equipment, have a trusted local vendor that will do the work on your site, and have the repairs watched.

The key point here, they may be able to squeak in a little padding on the bill, but when they are sitting in your facility they sure can’t use a USB stick & grab your entire Quick Books database.

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Photo Credit Wikipedia

Goodbye To Another Bad IT Guy

First, especially in this economy, I don’t want to make light of anyone losing their job

But let me tell you a story.

I was talking to a Regional Business Development Manager for a Fortune 1000 sized global organization. One of his largest customers (this customer would be a sizable business in the SME space – but as it is a low tech business, IT requirements are not complex) was being stonewalled by this IT staffer with excuses on how difficult some little change was .

A web based tool that this SME was using had some default settings that was causing customer difficulties and causing lost sales.

After about 4 months, it took an end-run around this IT staffer to fix (in minutes) the problem.

Now, apparently, there were previous incidents, but this was the straw that caused the termination.

Could, this staffer have been really over his head? Possibly, I will never know.

But I would be willing to bet that this SME business broke every tenet that I write about here. Abdicating IT, not delegating. IT not being part of the conversation.

But at the end of the day, IT staff are there for one reason. To support and advance the business. Stonewalling is not acceptable.

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Support Incident From Hell

 

 

Dante's Gates of Hell

 

This was so minor. Such a small thing.

Yet it escalated into a weeks worth of time, phone calls and frustration.

And it wasn’t even a technology issue.

The Problem

As a small business, we have a standard big name company postage meter.

As our administrative crew were doing the 2009 rate change updates to the embedded software, it blew up and died in a system fault.

They had tried 3 times to do the update, 20 minutes into the process it died each and every time.

Now I don’t know postage meters, but being the tech guy, I said I would help out. And then I tried it once more. Same blow up.

There was no information on the web. So I had to call their support line.

omygawd

Voice options up to 9 deep – not all of them very clear either. And no option to back up! if you made a wrong choice – it was hang up and call again.

I finally navigate the maze and get to the Hooman

Who does the Dump The Chump game – tells me to try it again (as if the 5th time will be any different than the first)

Of course the same 20 minutes later it died, in the exact same place, and error

I then have to wade through the same prompts and wait another 30 minutes on hold. They said that they would send a replacement unit.

The Replacement

Sure enough a new unit arrived – with no instructions on how to properly transfer the fund balance & install the new unit 

You got it : I then have to wade through the same prompts and wait another 30 minutes on hold.

Once I made it through to the human – a two second response that he would fax those instructions -

If it is that common an issue  don’t you think including them in the box would make sense?

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Photo Credit: Stuck In Customs via Flickr

Web 2.0 It Ain’t Perfect Yet, Part 2

SaaS – or “software as a service” – No it is not perfect yet. Microsoft has issues with its Live Services for a good portion of the day yesterday.

It affected logging in to MS Live applications including Hotmail, (and Sympatico mail in Canada) as well as X-Box live and other Live applications.

As more businesses run their applications and tools from third party providers such as Microsoft, these long downtimes will become less and less acceptable.

Of course your own internal network may be more at risk from having a full failure than a company the size of Microsoft. It does goes to show though, you must view your risks and strategies along multiple alternatives

Sales, Service, and Education

I liked this article at 1to1 Media Forrester Research is quoted as saying that 20 percent of High Definition Television (HDTV) sets sold at retail are returned – not because they are defective – but because the consumer had no idea that the set was not going to give the expected HD user experience unless both your cable provider has HDTV services, and that you are paying for those extra services.

I was happy to read this, because I am now aware that I am not alone. Over the years there has been more than one instance where I have purchased something that had a dependency that that would negate its usefulness unless I had that dependent part or piece. Even in speaking with sales people at the time of purchase – in these cases not one had said – by the way – for this to work, you need …

The end result for me is either a frustrating return to trip to the store to either return the item, or purchase its dependencies. Neither of which makes me a happy customer.

On the flip side, the opposite can be true. I purchased an Apple iPod accessory as a gift, the sales representative walked through the requirements of the model compatibility and the types of adapters each model would require. If I ever need another accessory for these things I know where I will go. (I am not an iPod fan, but that is another story)

Although the above article references retail, service businesses can be just as bad. I recently had a services company provide as estimate on some work that I want done. Not once was I told that the quotation was useless unless I already had another particular service performed first. It was only casually mentioned to me by someone else who had already had similar work done. Needless to say I still don’t have that particular work done.

In todays competitive, and very low loyalty market, it makes sense to educate your customers. At its simplest, they won’t be sticking you with returns costs, or just avoiding the product or service. If you are lucky enough to supply the dependency, it is also a cross sell opportunity.

Unless of course, you are one of the lucky ones who don’t need to worry if your customer ever comes back.