Virus Removal & Tune Up

[vitalgeek]

Hey everyone.

Quick question - Do you include a tune up with your virus removal service? To be completely honest I know I can charge more for a tune up, but I almost feel like I'm not completing my job if I don't do them both together. I feel that they go hand in hand.

Example from yesterday (remote support): customer says computer is slow, so I offer to speed it up. Usually a easy/fast process. Well, the computer had several viruses as well (as slow computers most always do, at least the ones I see anyway). It didn't take me much longer to remove the virus as well. I finished the computer, called the customer, explained everything, and she was extremely happy (especially the no extra charge thing. She did expect an extra charge). Turns out she went on Facebook and posted a status update or something because I got a call from a friend of hers this morning saying she read about us on FB from my customer, etc etc.

Back to the question at the beginning. Do you include a tune up with your virus removal service?

Thanks in advance,

James

 

[callthatgirl]

Our rates are flat fee $99 for virus repair and it does include the 22 pt cleaning checklist, in store or remote.

I sell a package for $124 with Malwarebytes license.

There have been a few times that I don't do the cleaning, mostly if the client and myself are fighting the virus hard and it goes awhile, they understand and don't usually care at that point. But I try to do an Xpress cleaning on those if I can.

 

[dipper]

It really depends upon what you class as a tune up.

For a virus removal I check out startup items to see what the virus is doing etc. As part of this I disabled unneeded programs etc. If the hard drive is badly fragmented I also defrag the machine to speed up virus scans etc.

So in effect I do a basic tuneup as part of the virus removal.

 

[vdub12]

I just have a flat rate virus removal and tuneup. I charge $130 and do everything. Its easier that way. I figure if I offer a cheaper service that just includes a virus removal then most people will chose that. However, if I tune the computer up to I get more word of mouth. Because of that I just offer the one service. Basically if the customer wants a tune up I tell them the virus removal is free and if they want a virus removal I tell them the tune up is free. Both services bundled at the same price. I do however have local competition that will do a virus removal for around $80 something but I have had a few of those in after words for tuneups anyway. So yes I always do the tune up to. It does make my prices look higher then the competition in some cases but the customers that have done it always refer me to people.

I do however remove some viruses on site and only charge an hour labor for. If the system does not need a tune up and they are infected with something easy like a rogue av I just do it and charge the hour.

 

[NeutronTech]

I just have a flat rate virus removal and tuneup. I charge $130 and do everything. Its easier that way. I figure if I offer a cheaper service that just includes a virus removal then most people will chose that. However, if I tune the computer up to I get more word of mouth. Because of that I just offer the one service. Basically if the customer wants a tune up I tell them the virus removal is free and if they want a virus removal I tell them the tune up is free. Both services bundled at the same price. I do however have local competition that will do a virus removal for around $80 something but I have had a few of those in after words for tuneups anyway. So yes I always do the tune up to. It does make my prices look higher then the competition in some cases but the customers that have done it always refer me to people.

I do however remove some viruses on site and only charge an hour labor for. If the system does not need a tune up and they are infected with something easy like a rogue av I just do it and charge the hour.

Same here. The customers love it this way too. They don't have to worry about me nickle diming them with upsells and what not. They know from the get go what it will cost. Every computer that comes in the shop gets treated the same. Everyone gets "tuned up", malware removed, and resolution of any and all other problems/errors reported or discovered. A complete fix up for a flat rate.

Also, I'm working on a deal with SAS to help me drum up some more business. They are going to provide me with a quantity of free pro licenses and I will include a license with all repairs for a 2-4 week period. I'll advertise it and I'm hoping that will get people in the door since they are not only getting their computer fixed, but getting malware protection for free. We'll see how it goes.

 

[vitalgeek]

Wow, all of the replies have been great. Thanks!

Keep 'em coming!

 

[PR Tech]

We always complete a full tune-up with virus removal for a flat fee of $109. It just doesn't feel right to send them back to the client without running operating system updates, cleaning temp files, removing uneeded startup programs, checking memory and the hard drive, installing memory upgrade (if needed), defrag, etc, etc. There is something very satisfying about handing over a computer that is running about as good as it possibly can.

 

[iisjman07]

Like you stated, it's hard to do a decent tuneup without doing a virus removal, and I'd say it's vice versa

 

[JAG Computers]

I charge an hourly rate with minimum of one hour. If I get done with what I am doing earlier than an hour I will do other things such as optimizing the computer if they desire.

 

[ATTech]

PC Tune-ups are commonly associated with speeding up a computer and improving performance. The problem is slow computers require proper diagnosis; it's not always as easy as upgrading the RAM and disabling start-up entries. I don't offer tune-ups, but regular maintenance, which yes, I do provide with my service.

 

[vdub12]

PC Tune-ups are commonly associated with speeding up a computer and improving performance. The problem is slow computers require proper diagnosis; it's not always as easy as upgrading the RAM and disabling start-up entries. I don't offer tune-ups, but regular maintenance, which yes, I do provide with my service.

This is true. I have spent hours before chasing down problems on systems that should run faster but don't. Sometimes it can be as easy as an old video or chip-set driver and some times it can be something like a computer that does not like the .net 4. I want every system that leaves the shop to run as good as it can because it makes me look good. However, I sometimes can spend 5 hours getting a system properly tuned up and I only charge a flat rate of 2 hours. Because of this I have started charging an extra hour for data recovery and reload if thats what needs to happen.

 

[bigcuedaddy]

I used to charge different rates for tune-ups and virus removal, but I found that in probably 90% of the cases, it was malware that was causing a lot of the slowness anyway. I had a hard time telling a customer, "Well, it was going to be a $79 tune-up, but we found xxxx viruses, and now it's going to be $129.
I went to a simple flat $99 for everything and people generally could care less. Especially when they had a pizza tech screw it up for $40 earlier