Transitioning from Home Clients to Business Clients – Common Issues and Pitfalls

Without a doubt a large portion of us starting up our Computer Repair Businesses tend to put our efforts into targeting residential customers. This of course makes perfect sense. Even if you don’t have much of a technical background in terms of your career, it’s more than likely that your experience with home based computers is quite strong. Couple that with the fact that you’ve likely dealt with most home computer related issues and practically had on the job work experience fixing computers of family and friends (repeatedly?!). We ultimately start here because we feel comfortable in our abilities to deal with our customers’ needs quickly with a high level of understanding which translates to happy customers and hopefully increased business and profits.

Given the nature of our industry and the true and tried tested science that is “word of mouth”, some of us even without noticing straight away slip into the world of business computer repairs, quite an appealing world I might add. Not only does it give us the opportunity for an increase in customers but also the opportunity to flex and hone our own abilities by offering more interesting business related services on top of the usual computer repairs and troubleshooting. The process of incorporating businesses into your fold can be quite daunting for some. Making that transition needn’t be. Provided you follow a few simple rules and have a little understanding of what to expect you’ll be good to go.

Making the Transition

The transition usually happens in a few different ways.

• By Complete Accident
  Typically this occurs when responding to what appears to be a residential customer, which appears to be the situation until you’re asked to invoice “the company”. Sometimes the business will consist of very few individuals and in most cases can be treated with the same regards as your residential customers. On occasion I’ve been asked for an increase in payment terms to 15 or 30 days but I’m usually happy to extend this courtesy. I know what running a small business is like and being flexible with your customer will likely get you invited back.
• Feeling The Need To Grow
  You’ve had some good experience working with home users and you’re now ready to up your game. Perhaps you’re good at web design or you’re quite experienced with Office 365 and other Cloud services, with these types of skills the small business may be the way to go. Small businesses in my eyes tend to be the one man/woman “cottage industries” working out of the home going up to the 10 or 20 bodies in a small office. It’s these small business which can’t afford dedicated IT help or simply don’t have time for things like website design and site management. That’s where you come in. Medium sized business consisting of up to a couple of hundred staff will either rely on external support, or they might have an IT department lacking the numbers or some necessary technical skills. Those of us targeting these businesses may have experience of larger IT environments in our previous employment or it might be that we’ve have had the experience working with the small businesses and again looking for another challenge and a chance to grow.

Common Issues and Avoiding the Pitfalls

Understand That All Businesses Are Different

Regardless of how you make your transition it’s important to be clear that every business is unique. The two secondary schools in my home town have very similar goals in what job they do but have completely different ideas when it comes to the implementation of their computers and services to their students. Regardless of similarities it’s important to approach any new business with a fresh perspective, of course offer your skills and experience but be sure to keep it to that whilst listening to your clients’ ideas, goals and needs. Telling a teacher how to use a PC to teach a student for example will likely get you a big red F grade, whilst getting the computer working will have you saving the day.

Business Support is 9 to 5 (In most cases)

I have a full time job as a network administrator so my tech support business gets attention during my evenings and weekends. This is a similar situation to lot of tech start-ups and when working with residential clients it’s actually a perfect situation, they love the fact that I can schedule unsociable hours without so much as blinking an eye. Businesses however are a different story, the majority have 9 to 5 hours and there’s a danger you’ll be turning away work on the pretence that you’re “fully booked”. It’s also common for businesses to expect an almost immediate response, even on the days that I could attend if I couldn’t do it within a few hours then they would quickly go elsewhere. This doesn’t apply so much to the small businesses but it will pay off if you have the flexibility to attend offices/sites during the day, if your business isn’t ready for this situation then do take care that it doesn’t backfire, approach cautiously until your hours of availability improve.

Offer Additional Business Focused Services

In an effort to attract businesses you must provide business related services .. of course. Whilst there tends to be a lot of overlapping between residential and business services there are more specialised services you could offer. These can be web design, SEO, servers and specialised network configurations for example, typically things you wouldn’t normally focus on at a residential clients. If your skills are extensive then its important to showcase these to attract more businesses which brings us onto …

Your Website & Advertising Campaigns

Usually one of the early tasks of any start-up is the preparation and sending out of targeted advertising. Regardless of the advertising methods you employ we usually need to step back and adapt our strategies a little when we’re after businesses. If you have website then make the necessary changes adding the additional business services and take time to research the various advertising techniques found on the Technibble articles and forums.

You Might Be Asked To Travel

Typically larger businesses like to retain technicians to avoid having to manage several; it is this frame of mind that can often lead them to ask you travel to other offices and sites. If you fix an issue at site A, why would they hire a second tech to fix it at site B, may as well get you there and fix the issue quickly. Prepare yourself for this possibility and prepare a suitable response should it occur, easy enough provided you’re aware of your schedule. If for whatever reason you’re unable to travel or get there at a suitable time for the client then offer your assistance in locating another tech. This will give you the opportunity to perhaps earn a commission for referring the work, build business relationships with other techs whilst most importantly staying in your clients good books.

Get Insured Now

In reality you should be insured regardless of your business situation for accidental damage or general liability, it becomes especially important when working with any business. The value of data, hardware and loss of working time can translate to serious sums of money and causing damage to any of these things through your actions could result in the business recovering losses from you. For any business it’s an awful situation but for small business tech it could prove disastrous to your business. If you haven’t done so already I urge you to see an insurance broker and at the very least factor it into your close future business plans.

Don’t Get In Over Your Head

It’s an important skill to know one’s own abilities in any business but the tech industry the saying stands more firmly. Mistakes are easy to make, even for the most experienced of us, it happens to me from time to time. But those with the experience can quickly fix those mistakes and that is the key difference, the result for those without the necessary skills could be countless hours digging around knowledge base articles and tech sites trying to diagnose their own slip up. If the mistake costs downtime or damage to data and hardware then its time to review your insurance policy as discussed in Get Insured Now above.

Don’t Be Afraid To Get Help

Despite the fact that we need to be multi-skilled individuals I do from time to time come across a situation or task that I simply cannot manage by myself. Specialist areas where a little help wouldn’t hurt and perhaps get some form of commission in the process isn’t a bad thing provided you’re prepared. A recent example was the need for a fiber run of around 700M to go from the main comms room to a separate office on the same site, not too much of a problem but running it through underground ducts and terminating it correctly was far too much for one tech to handle. Having a specialised third party available on the phone and agreeing/scheduling the work quickly serves to make you look professional and prepared. If you’re wanting some form of commission then make sure these things are arranged prior to calling especially if you’re in front of the client. Throughout my career I’ve built good relationships with these types of service providers on a you scratch my back basis, business relationships like this have been a good source of income for both parties involved and breaks the lone soldier feeling that our one man businesses can suffer from.

Increase Your Prices?

Price increases for businesses is always a hotly discussed topic here on Technibble and it simply appears that there is no right or wrong answer in this regard, my view is simple in that it just “depends”. All businesses vary in size and I’m very open minded to the fact that there are many small businesses out there like me. With the Cottage Industries of the world and small start-ups I tend to keep prices at my residential rates for the simple reason that their issues are very similar in type and complexity. Larger more demanding businesses requiring quicker turnaround times and more extensive knowledge of business related systems is of course another matter and I up the price accordingly.

Check Your Personal Image

Perhaps the most obvious of the points discussed but I’ve lost count of how many scruffy looking techs in ripped jeans and trainers I’ve seen walk into businesses. Not being dressed for the occasion serves to make you look unprofessional and unbothered that you’ve landed a job and unless you have a ridiculously rare skill you won’t be asked back. For example if you’re meeting with an architectural practice to discuss a new website then go suited and presentable. If you’re installing cable runs at a car repair garage then overalls might be the way to go. All it takes is a little research and common sense and will depend on the situation, if you’ve got several calls lined up then consider taking a spare set of clothes if needed.

Moving your residential only tech support business into the world of business support will prove to be an exciting time, the people you meet and the opportunities that open up can and will help drive your business forward, a little preparation is all that’s needed.