10 Things to Do With Your Computer Repair Business During Slow Times

We all have our slow times in the computer repair business. This phenomenon affects both break-fix and managed service business models. Create a strong plan in advance of your slow period so you can grow your business during this down time. Here’s a top 10 list of things I and other computer repair companies have down to optimize down time.

Prepare Holiday Greetings

If you aren’t sending out holiday greetings, you’re missing a great opportunity to establish a connection with your customers. I like to hand-address the cards. Sure it takes more time, especially if you have thousands of clients. That’s why it’s a great activity to do when it’s slow. Download a movie and get started early. Clients like to be thanked for their business and a personal, handwritten touch makes a difference.

Here in the United States, I’ll sometimes send a Thanksgiving greeting instead of a generic holiday greeting. Not everyone celebrates a holiday in December, so sending cards for Thanksgiving includes more clients. If you don’t have a local custom of sending out cards for a holiday, send a thank you card to a client on the anniversary of the first service call with your company.

Offer Backup Checkups

How often do clients say to you, “I know I should have been backing up, but I didn’t?” Clients who already have a backup solution need us to test it. The objection I usually get is cost: “I don’t want to pay for a full service call, when I only have this one thing.” For the checkup special, we reduce our usual price by half. We call it a “Fall Back” and “Spring Ahead” special. When the clocks change, people often check things like the fire alarm battery. We send postcards to every client during these yearly events.

Besides the obvious uptick in business, this strategy also protects us should a backup system we set up fail unnoticed. We remind them that systems need to be tested, and if they fail to do so, then that’s not our fault. If the client’s business operations have changed, and we haven’t been informed to change the backup strategy, we can’t be responsible for unannounced changes. We made the offer and even cut them a break on a price.

Attend Networking Groups

I’ve mentioned the importance of networking groups in the past. Now’s a great time to check them out. Even if you don’t join them, visiting the groups gets your name out. You can also ask the leadership team to put you on a “sub” list. When a member can’t attend, they must send someone else in the member’s place. You get to attend the group without joining. You’ll formally be representing another business, but if you wear your logo shirt and give out your business card, most groups won’t mind. When business picks up, you can either decide to join a group or just decline subbing until the next slow period.

Give Community Presentations

Another area I’ve covered is presenting to community groups. Since you’ve got some free time in your schedule, you can go around and meet others in your community. If you can’t get a speaking gig right away, that’s the time to prepare your presentation. Check the link for a list of ideas.

Update Your Website

Even if you design websites for others, your own business website may be out of date. You’ve been busy doing service calls. Potential clients may pick you over a competitor based on the way your website looks. Do you know what your competitor’s website looks like? Could you borrow some ideas from it? Pay particular attention to how search engine friendly your business website is compared to others in your industry. If you aren’t coming up first on searches, what enhancements could you make to your website?

Customer Service Followups

Do your customers only hear from you when they have a problem? Has it been years since you’ve seen them? Since you have an existing business relationship with them, a follow-up contact with them won’t violate most jurisdictions’ phone call and email rules (check to make sure though). Try a mix of email, phone and direct mail. A mail-in or online survey helps you solicit feedback to improve your business.

Could your business be slow because of something you or a member of your team did to damage your reputation? Followups are a great way to find those hidden problems. Include a thank you discount such as 25% off future service as a way of showing your appreciation of their time. Should the survey or contacts show problem areas in your business, now you know what to work on to fix your business.

Learn a Skill

Business could be slow because your customers have devices you don’t service. They could have switched to a Macintosh or a mobile device. Beyond those areas you can work on certification with a particular vendor. Those vendors will give you leads for customers who use their products.

Social Media Posts

Some computer repair business owners scoff at the idea of joining social media. Isn’t that just people posting pictures of either their kids or what they had for lunch? In particular business-to-business repair shops don’t see the value. You might reconsider that decision. Even if you work primarily with business clients, the decision-makers are on social media. A properly placed tweet or status update might spur on some new business. The return on investment doesn’t happen right away, but your social media presence is part of your brand.

If you are stuck for content, look at what other computer repair business owners have out there. Share links with tips, tricks and tools to make your clients’ lives a bit easier. With programs like Hootsuite you can plan out your posts months in advance and Hootsuite will post them across your social media network. Anytime I see something interesting online, I put it in Evernote. When business is slow I sit down for a few hours and plan 3-6 months of social media posts.

Expand Online Advertising

Unlike other advertising like print or broadcast, online ads can be turned on or off in seconds. Advertising platforms like Google AdWords/AdWords Express, Facebook, and Bing let you pay for only what you use. You create an ad, set a budget, and it’s online. You don’t need to buy a month at a time nor do you need a designer to set it up. It takes about five minutes to post an ad.

If you advertise when it’s slow, you’ll be able to judge the effectiveness of your ads. This is a great time to experiment. Does Bing seem to work better for you? What search terms do people click on the most? Once things get busy, you can turn off the ads.

Organizing Business Procedures

When you’re running your business, you aren’t always organized in how you do it. The biggest reason why is that you don’t have the time. Now you’ve removed that excuse. What I like about documenting and organizing is that they help you grow your business. If you brought a new technician into your computer repair business, how would that person learn the way you do things? If you tried to sell your business, would the new person be able to run it the way that’s successful for you?

We all face that “slow-period” in our business, so coming up with a plan in advance lets you use that time to grow your business. You don’t have to do it all, just pick one that you’ll decide to do. When you see that empty calendar on your schedule, you’ll get excited to try some new ideas to fill it back up.

Written by Dave Greenbaum