Customer ignorance issue of today, place smart ass comments below

[gneebore]

Re: networ

I understand your point, but, including free IT work opens Pandora's box, with today's technology. Networks, now more than ever, are far too complicated to do free stuff such as loading a driver, setting up email or scan stuff for free, not to mention the liabilities. I used to do things free for clients and it only bit me in the ass because once something went wrong, not even related to what I did...BOOM! they would rat me out as soon as they call the office, " your tech was just out here updated my driver and now I can't receive emails.
If my company does not charge for network related stuff... the next company will. An IT guy once told me, " if I touch their keyboard or network equipment... there is a charge regardless of how simple the issue may be, it's his intellectual property they are paying for.

I was actually warned to avoid loading network printer drivers if there was a computer contract with another company. Instructor of the first networked copier I attended warned us about doing anything beyond handing the cd and letting the customer install the drivers even locally. I agreed with the instructor and explained why. Many years before we sold networked copier we did sell electronic typewriters. Which had a parallel port for computer printing. We sold a new typewriter and I delivered it. Now just for clarity the operating system on the computer was win 95 this is how long ago it was. Drivers for the typewriter were actually on a single copy protected 5 1/4 floppy disk and the disk was in a sealed envelope in the box with the typewriter. I opened the disk put it in the floppy drive and it failed to be read. Pulled the disk out and a layer of dust was all over it. Took the disk cleaned it off and took a blank disk and formatted it in the drive to see if that worked. It did and I installed the drivers. However when the test print was brought up I overheard the hard drive make some really funny noises. Told them they needed to get their computer tech (they had their own service dept for computer problems) check the drive because they are not supposed to make that kind of noise. And the floppy drive was encrusted with dust. Even wrote it on the ticket they needed to have the computer checked by their service dept. And they had to initial that part of the ticket. Three months later we got a call from them that their computer died and the repairman said it was my fault and sent us a bill for the drive replacement and labor because there was s destructive virus introduced. And I was the only non-employee to touch the machine. Luckily I did have a handy copy where they were warned of possible problems and actually had their initials and sent a fax of that to their service guy and he called back. Seems he did not realize that I was there over ninety days ago and actually noted that he needed to check the pc out. He dropped the bill since even he didn't warranty anything after 30 days. And didn't know the drive was making noise that long ago.

[gneebore]

Re: Customer ignorance issue of today, place smart ass comments below

As it is, our company has a policy of at least verifying for free. Then if customer wants it fixed, it is billable. The trouble with this policy is you are there for 10 minutes and you charge $$$$$$$$$. Lots of times this really pisses the customer off more and they leave you at end of lease. I've tried talking with mgmt that simple stuff should be free or build some IT into their contract to begin with. It's always a slippery slope. Major corps like this one, bill the heck out of. The simple mom and pops though is a different story. So mgmt started a help desk. Works great. Trouble is customer calls in, you pull up their account (no IT services), the reply is we can try to fix over phone for $$ or we can send a tech out for $$$$. What do you want to do? I think we are pissing alot of customers off this way. If something simple, help desk should say, let's fix it no charge now. If complicated the help desk should say, it might take considerable time and we would need to send a tech for a bill of $$$.

For those of us who have been around a while, remember when we used to load drivers for free as we wanted the customers to print, use our equipment, burn through the toner that the customer bought so our company can make additional revenue. I still remember getting disciplined by the service mgr on a ride along for not asking customer if everyone is using our mfp for printing. Clicks brings us revenue he said. My, how times have changed.

There were a few times when we got a call of "printing error and computer tech says it is a problems with the copier/printer" I do my routine of hooking their machine up to my laptop and print fine. Then I ask them to do a test print and get gibberish. Look over their shoulder and see the printer selected was an HP4. Now I understand that early on with desktop laser printers the HP4 was a standard and worked with most printers. But HP4 do not have ledger size print capability like a full sized copier. Had one in particular that actually set up an appointment for me to be there with their computer network contractor. I got there did my routine with my laptop and showed the network card on the copier worked fine. Hooked back up to their network and could only get sheets of gibberish from a word perfect software print job. Then I had the office manager do a local install from the driver cd and guess what worked fine immediately. Had to hand her a bill because the three repeat calls resulting in the appointment with the computer contractor was not a problem with the copier and was a software installation error. She handed it immediately to computer guru. We luckily did not renew their contract and went to a billable call basis for that reason and they also had real trouble understanding that 100 pound card stock was not usable in the paper trays but had to be used in the bypass. yes that was a repeat call from them at least once every two months

[Phil B.]

Re: Customer ignorance issue of today, place smart ass comments below

[QUOTE=tonerhead;735028]As it is, our company has a policy of at least verifying for free. Then if customer wants it fixed, it is billable. The simple mom and pops though is a different story. [QUOTE]

-=I have always spent time on the phone with Existing Customers and newbies -$0-...
...Now a New Client I will try and help over the phone _IF_ possible .. if they want me there.. $25 within 25mi of my starting point = If they want it fixed per my suggestions ( or part there of ) eval rolled into service labor
Existing Customer within 25mi of my starting point -$0-.

Evals ALWAYS include complete cleaning tires/insides/glass/outside -in order to make a proper eval. * Most customers see that as "Value Added Service"* ( I also try and talk them into yearly/biyear/quarterly cleaning depend on environment. )

Yes I have been burned... but I always try to offer at least 2 versions of repair - OEM *if possible* or Reliable Compatible parts.
ALL parts OVER value -MUST- be replaced.

As far as supplies.. I have only 3 USA made compatible toners/drums *not all models/brands* That I will support.. if they use OTHER than those vendors .. and -IF- problem is because of other brand toner/drum... THEY PAY.

Another Policy .. CPA or other "RUSH time" type existing customers get pushed to top of "Service Call Board"
My 50cents ( WTF is 2cents worth now? )

[tonerhead]

Re: Customer ignorance issue of today, place smart ass comments below

"I understand your point, but, including free IT work opens Pandora's box, with today's technology. Networks, now more than ever, are far too complicated to do free stuff such as loading a driver, setting up email or scan stuff for free, not to mention the liabilities"



True, that is why every contract we sell, networked or not, the customer is signing a waiver that we are not held liable for our connectivity services. Computer companies that I am aware of make the customer sign the same. I've only had one customer try to bite me for the work done. Many, many years ago I was loading a print driver on a server, then BSOD!!. I did absolutely nothing other than put the cd in the drive, the customer was sitting right there. Well, their server would not come out of it's funk, the hdd crashed, that being said the customer backed up data 3 times a week on tape drive. The problem with their tape drive is the 2 tapes had been written/rewritten hundreds of times over the past 5 years and were totally worthless for backups. Felt bad that the customer had to go through this, however, whose fault was it really? It was not our fault certainly. They tried pressing the issue, but we had our backs covered. Stuff happens in the computer world, if you are not prepared for the worst, it will happen to you.

Back to the topic, I think by helping out the mom and pops, you create good will and loyal customers. When I see 10 helpdesk calls in the past few months, the law must be laid down that we do offer connectivity options. For the most part though the mom and pops don't take advantage of us. I don't think loading drivers or scan to email or folder is that big of a liability. In any case that is why there are waivers signed. Customers with no maintenance, they are plain on their own, we bill to even touch their keyboard.

[copiertec]

networ

As it is, our company has a policy of at least verifying for free. Then if customer wants it fixed, it is billable. The trouble with this policy is you are there for 10 minutes and you charge $$$$$$$$$. Lots of times this really pisses the customer off more and they leave you at end of lease. I've tried talking with mgmt that simple stuff should be free or build some IT into their contract to begin with. It's always a slippery slope. Major corps like this one, bill the heck out of. The simple mom and pops though is a different story. So mgmt started a help desk. Works great. Trouble is customer calls in, you pull up their account (no IT services), the reply is we can try to fix over phone for $$ or we can send a tech out for $$$$. What do you want to do? I think we are pissing alot of customers off this way. If something simple, help desk should say, let's fix it no charge now. If complicated the help desk should say, it might take considerable time and we would need to send a tech for a bill of $$$.

For those of us who have been around a while, remember when we used to load drivers for free as we wanted the customers to print, use our equipment, burn through the toner that the customer bought so our company can make additional revenue. I still remember getting disciplined by the service mgr on a ride along for not asking customer if everyone is using our mfp for printing. Clicks brings us revenue he said. My, how times have changed.

I understand your point, but, including free IT work opens Pandora's box, with today's technology. Networks, now more than ever, are far too complicated to do free stuff such as loading a driver, setting up email or scan stuff for free, not to mention the liabilities. I used to do things free for clients and it only bit me in the ass because once something went wrong, not even related to what I did...BOOM! they would rat me out as soon as they call the office, " your tech was just out here updated my driver and now I can't receive emails.
If my company does not charge for network related stuff... the next company will. An IT guy once told me, " if I touch their keyboard or network equipment... there is a charge regardless of how simple the issue may be, it's his intellectual property they are paying for.

[tonerhead]

Re: Customer ignorance issue of today, place smart ass comments below

LMAO..agreed. I completely understand! I know I am far from perfect and still have a lot to learn, but the STUPIDITY I deal with on a daily basis almost makes me want to bang my head on the wall. It amazes me how some of these higher ups in some companies even dress themselves and make it to work or even do the work! MORONS!
Speaking of who is sleeping with who...I have met some " IT administrators," ... that can not even load a print driver, but have a title. I could go on but all of us techs know how it goes. I'm just the "copier guy" but clients want me to fix everything!

IT administrators that can't load a print driver, very few can. It is fritten amazing how many times we get called for slow printing or printer offline only to find the IT person let WindBlows load a universal driver on a WSD port. Do I hear an AMEN out there?

I also wish I had a nickel for every time some one asks "Do you know anything on hooking up a home theatre, fixing a garage opener, why doesn't the shredder work anymore, do you think my home computer has a virus or something. Basically asking our opinions on anything broken. Trying to get something for nothing. I remember a jerk lawyer asking questions trying for some free networking troubleshooting, I asked if he gave out free legal advice. He never asked again.

[tonerhead]

Re: Customer ignorance issue of today, place smart ass comments below

As it is, our company has a policy of at least verifying for free. Then if customer wants it fixed, it is billable. The trouble with this policy is you are there for 10 minutes and you charge $$$$$$$$$. Lots of times this really pisses the customer off more and they leave you at end of lease. I've tried talking with mgmt that simple stuff should be free or build some IT into their contract to begin with. It's always a slippery slope. Major corps like this one, bill the heck out of. The simple mom and pops though is a different story. So mgmt started a help desk. Works great. Trouble is customer calls in, you pull up their account (no IT services), the reply is we can try to fix over phone for $$ or we can send a tech out for $$$$. What do you want to do? I think we are pissing alot of customers off this way. If something simple, help desk should say, let's fix it no charge now. If complicated the help desk should say, it might take considerable time and we would need to send a tech for a bill of $$$.

For those of us who have been around a while, remember when we used to load drivers for free as we wanted the customers to print, use our equipment, burn through the toner that the customer bought so our company can make additional revenue. I still remember getting disciplined by the service mgr on a ride along for not asking customer if everyone is using our mfp for printing. Clicks brings us revenue he said. My, how times have changed.

[copiertec]

Re: Customer ignorance issue of today, place smart ass comments below

When to a local branch of national corporation. YGIC (young gal in charge) said copier quit sending scan to emails. After checking over, I told her that it looks like corporate IT is stopping copier from going out on internet. YGIC said she doesn't want the copier to get on the internet, she only wants it to send email. I told her the copier uses the internet to send her email. YGIC says it is on our network and my office is only 20 feet from it, the copier doesn't go out on the internet to send her email, it emails inside the building. I suggested we call her Corporate IT, they do some checking, they said they will be coming out in 5 days to fix "stuff". So as I am pulling the plug on this "adventure" the YGIC says I think you should make that scan to email until IT comes to fix "stuff" on our network.


Please enter smart ass comments below. I just wonder who slept with whom to get her in charge.

LMAO..agreed. I completely understand! I know I am far from perfect and still have a lot to learn, but the STUPIDITY I deal with on a daily basis almost makes me want to bang my head on the wall. It amazes me how some of these higher ups in some companies even dress themselves and make it to work or even do the work! MORONS!
Speaking of who is sleeping with who...I have met some " IT administrators," ... that can not even load a print driver, but have a title. I could go on but all of us techs know how it goes. I'm just the "copier guy" but clients want me to fix everything!

[CompyTech]

Re: Customer ignorance issue of today, place smart ass comments below

I got called back to a place where I had done some basic service to printers. Now nothing would print. I ask if a help desk rep was around. She points to a young girl as the IT rep. I ask "can you ping the printer?" She cocked her head to one side like a dog hearing a noise and replied "Ping???" I left.

Often I've been told to get in touch with so and so's "IT" guy. Turns out often times they're not IT but just some one who knows enough to be dangerous in the company is "put in charge" of the technology.

[guitar9199]

Re: Customer ignorance issue of today, place smart ass comments below

My personal favorite is, "Our scanning to email/desktop worked fine yesterday, but now we get an error!!"

I ask if anything has been changed on the network.... "Oh, no....everything is exactly the same!"

I show up...test the function and see it's an Authentication Error. I ask if any passwords have changed, and get "Oh...yeah. They made us change all our passwords yesterday. Do you think THAT might be the problem??"

...these are the ones I'm HAPPY to invoice for Networking Charges!

[fixthecopier]

Re: Customer ignorance issue of today, place smart ass comments below

I got called back to a place where I had done some basic service to printers. Now nothing would print. I ask if a help desk rep was around. She points to a young girl as the IT rep. I ask "can you ping the printer?" She cocked her head to one side like a dog hearing a noise and replied "Ping???" I left.

[gneebore]

Re: Customer ignorance issue of today, place smart ass comments below

I thought hardware agreement doesnt cover server outtages? charge'em

Probably two or three times a month we got calls because IT couldn't get there fast enough and the customer wanted us to fix the networking problems because obviously if they could access the network with their computers it must be a problems with the copier or printer. And that was the reason why i carried a laptop, router and cables. I would unplug the copier from their network. Set the ip address on the laptop to match the copier and print/scan. If it worked I showed the office manager the printout and scanned document on my laptop and plugged everything else back in and had the office manager try to test print/scan from the closest work station. Plus I would also have the customer open the printer driver and check the settings to see if they matched what the settings printout from the copier said. And the most fun part was about half the time the IT people would set the drivers to share the copier/printer instead of actually installing the drivers on each pc. Yes you may have guessed it the pc with installed drivers would be shut off because the user was on vacation or called in sick. Then of course when I wrote a bill for the call the inevitable "We have a service contract so we are not paying this" Cancelled a few contracts and went per call on a few customers because of this.

[jmaister]

Re: Customer ignorance issue of today, place smart ass comments below

I guess that was my point to her. The copier sends email through a server. She is thinking it works like blue tooth, just sends across the room. It just shows how ignorant people are of how things work.

I thought hardware agreement doesnt cover server outtages? charge'em

[gneebore]

Re: Customer ignorance issue of today, place smart ass comments below

I guess that was my point to her. The copier sends email through a server. She is thinking it works like blue tooth, just sends across the room. It just shows how ignorant people are of how things work.

Actually got to thinking about the situation when rereading your original post. One of the features of some Kyocera/mita copiers was/is the ability to scan-to-folder on a local network in addition to scanning to email. Not a very common use since email was available to users no matter where they were as long as they had the protocols set up to go to the email server and was preferred by the users. But in one office the users actually started referring to the scan-to-folder function as scanning to email. Because they shared the files via email after opening the file in the password protected folders on their work station pc so the files were now email to begin with to other people in the office. Their own IT service did not correct them and eventually disabled the ability to scan to folders as too much of a hassle. Because some users were actually scanning to a list of names on the control panel list and then telling everyone they sent the file and to to check their email. I didn't actually have to go out on a call because of the confusion over the different scan capabilities. Just showed the IT guy how to change the setting on the control panel so he reset the scanning functions to always be scan-to-email instead of the scan to folder when I delivered some toner.

[tonerhead]

Re: Customer ignorance issue of today, place smart ass comments below

Just what part of the statement the corporate IT blocking the copier from the internet did the YGIC not understand? Seems to me that the corporate email server was not onsite and may have actually been somewhere else in the city or even in another city. And the email had to be sent via the internet to actually be stored on the corporate email servers.

I guess that was my point to her. The copier sends email through a server. She is thinking it works like blue tooth, just sends across the room. It just shows how ignorant people are of how things work.