Not long ago a client called me around 7pm on a weeknight. I was on-site the next morning prepared to help them with a printer problem. Both of their printers were failing to print for their business computer. It took me around 45 minutes to get both printers printing and to have my client confirm this by printing their documents. They were relieved to have the problem solved and proceeded to give me the history.
They had been trying to get this working for two days during which I never heard any requests for service. Next, their computer and one printer were taken to a computer repair place. They picked it up and were told it was fixed. They got it back to the office and connected everything, and nothing would print. So they called a company with which they had a technical support contract. Nothing was solved this way either and the phone support person made my client feel stupid during the call. That’s when they finally called me. I could have saved them much time, money and frustration had they called me first since I make on-site service calls.
The odd thing is my client knows I make services calls on-site and I’ve been to their business maybe 10 times since 2015. I emphasized that I can come out whenever they need it instead of them dragging their hardware to a service place.
