How to Handle Computer Warranties

A common question that I see being asked in the Technibble forums is what sort of warranty they should provide. Many technicians have different sorts of warranties and really comes down to what the business is willing to cover.

The minimum for just about all computer shops is a one year warranty because almost all part manufacturers provide one to the technicians. Some specific parts from big brand name manufacturers often carry a longer warranty like Seagate hard drives with a 5 year warranty and Kingston RAM with a lifetime warranty.

As a technician, you need to decide whether your warranty work will be done onsite or in shop. If you are a startup working out of a spare bedroom it is best to do the repair onsite because you may not have the correct business insurance to cover your clients computer in your home should something happen to it. If you have a shop it is best to make your warranty work as return-to-base to save time with the exception of items that cannot be transported easily.

When you return a product (called a RMA – Return Merchandise Authorization) it can potentially take weeks for you to get a replacement part back from the supplier so you may have to cover the cost of the failing item out of your own pocket to get your client up and running until the replacement arrives.

I always recommend not making your client wait for the part to return because it can hurt your relationship with them, it takes up space in your office and you increase your liability exposure should something happen to your home/shop like a break in or a fire.

If the faulty part is low value item like a $10 mouse or floppy drive I usually don’t even bother RMAing it and just eat the cost of replacing it.

As for the parts receipts from both your supplier and those to your customer, always keep a copy of your own and keep them in a safe place. I once made the mistake of losing my supplier receipt for a printer which failed and the customer came back. I couldn’t return it without a receipt but that wasn’t the client problem, it was mine so I just ended up just for a new one out of my own pocket and chalked it up to a lesson learned.

What about providing a warranty for software or labor?

I highly recommend that you do not warranty the operating system or any other software installs. There are just too many uncontrollable user created variables like viruses and malware that can go wrong through no fault of your own.
As for labor, if I didn’t do something right the first time, I will come back and do it again. Beyond this, I find there are just too many uncontrollable user created variables to warranty anything beyond this, especially in the residential market.

How to Avoid Bad Parts

The best way to avoid bad parts is to always buy reliable parts to begin with. They may cost a little more but in the long run it works out cheaper. It keeps your customers happy, it doesn’t waste your time doing warranty work and you don’t have to mess around with the time and cost of postage and handling. You can also justify your higher prices to your clients by telling them what I say to my clients when selling a computer. I usually tell my clients something like this:

“The parts that I put into my computers are some of the most reliable parts available. As you know, I work as a computer technician and because of this I get to see which parts are troublesome and unreliable out in the field, because, well, it’s my job to go fix them. The salesmen at the big brand stores may know about the features of the product he is selling, but he doesn’t know how reliable the product is once it has been used or how hard it is to setup after its been purchased. I only use parts that are known to be the most reliable”

Sometimes, if I am in the right company such as long time clients or friends, I joke and say “besides, I don’t want computers coming back to me to do warranty work on them. So I only use the good stuff”.

The higher quality brands I tend to buy are:
Motherboards – Gigabyte
Power Supplies – Thermaltake
Hard Drives – Seagate
RAM – Kingston
Video Cards – ASUS or XFX

Your experience may differ, but I have had a really low return rate on these brands.

Unfortunately, the chances of these brands being faulty can be raised if a supplier has only one or two of the part I want left in stock. I nearly always avoid the “last in stock” now days since chances of these parts having been RMA’d at some point is very high.

The previous three “last in stock” items that I bought was a motherboard, a video card and a computer case. The motherboard had all sorts of intermittent problems; the video card box had been opened at some point, had missing adapters and had fingerprints all over its driver CD. The computer case I received had been opened at some point so I just took it back immediately saying I don’t want used stock. I never knew if there was anything wrong with the case, I just didn’t want the case given past experience with opened stock.

Anyway, as mentioned before, it really comes down to what the technician wants to do but they should be providing at least a 1 year hardware replacement warranty.