Turn Simple Jobs Into Marketing Opportunities

Many computer repair customers come into the shop or call you to fix a relatively simple issue, and you could fix the issue, hand them an invoice, get paid, and leave. You could also turn that simple job into a marketing opportunity. Handing them a business card is a start, but you could go even further and earn more on that same job by creating marketing opportunities. Here are some tips to turn a simple job into an opportunity to earn more on that job as well as perhaps even start a referral network starting with that customer. Make a checklist out of these and put it where you can refer to it easily and inconspicuously every time you deal with a customer, or commit the steps to memory.

Be Observant and Engage in Conversation

If you’re working on an operable system, be observant to any issues or potential issues on the system. Is it rather sluggish? One common issue is startup program errors, which many users just close and ignore and learn to accept as annoying and permanent rather than have them resolved. Another issue could be toolbars and browser search hijacking, and home pages that were not set by the customer, but set by bundled software. You might check on system RAM and see if they could get an upgrade for a reasonable cost. Another issue I’ve seen is noisy PSU fans that are failing because of poor quality or age, especially on certain mini towers. For laptops, you could check on the processor temperature(s) and see if they would benefit from having the dust cleaned out. Older desktop machines often are full of dust as well and need a good cleaning.

While you’re working on it, if they’re in front of you, just casually ask them if they notice any problems or if they’ve noticed it’s slow, or ask them if they installed that toolbar or that ‘potentially unwanted program’ as some antivirus services call them. You might also check startup programs to see if there are any unwanted or unneeded files that are running every time they start their computer, and offer to go through them with the customer. If their system is taking so long to boot up that they can walk away and take care of several other tasks and then come back and finally be able to use it, that’s something that should be checked out. If they would like the issues resolved, offer to do that on the spot because you’re already there, perhaps at a discount.

Offer Additional Services

In addition to what was mentioned already, offer additional services, such as a full service cleanup and malware removal. If they don’t have an antivirus, or it’s a weak ineffective program that led to an infection already, offer another antivirus such as Kaspersky, which recently got the top score in malware tests. You can get a 3 user license on Amazon for around $30 last time I checked, so it’s a very good offer. Ask them if they backup their data, and if they don’t offer to set a backup system up for them, and explain how important it is to back up their personal data, their treasured memories, or their business data and digital paperwork. If they use mobile devices and would like to sync data between them, set it up for them and show them how it works. You might also offer to check out their network security and see if there are any issues there as well.

Another concern, especially with parents and grandparents, is child safety on the internet. You could offer to set up a DNS filter to filter out unwanted internet traffic, such as OpenDNS, or a service such as NetNanny to supervise their young ones’ internet habits while they’re not physically around to keep an eye on them. You might be surprised how many parents are seriously concerned about their child’s internet use but don’t know how to supervise it or set up filters to keep unwanted material from reaching them, so this is a good thing to mention, perhaps during casual conversation about them and their family.

Check to see if their system has any periodically scheduled maintenance tasks, such as defragmenting of the hard disks. If they don’t, offer to set that up for them as well. I’ve seen some old systems where no defragment schedule was set up and the disk became full of fragmented files, and they were having file error issues due to corrupt data, and it brought their whole accounting system to a halt.

Search for Additional Potential Opportunities

While you engage them in casual conversation about computers, let it drift from talk about their system to whether or not they have other systems in the house that might need some cleanup or issues resolved. Tone, manner, tactfulness, and discretion are all important here, you don’t want to interrogate them or even make them suspicious by how you ask questions. As was mentioned above, being observant will tell you if they have kids or not, and perhaps their age range, so you could try to be discrete and just casually hint about other systems or devices in the house, or whether they might want internet filters set up.

Let conversation drift into what they do for work, perhaps they work somewhere where there isn’t a technician on the job, and they seriously need one. By now they should also have a few of your business cards in their possession, and if they don’t, hand them to the customer, and mention your referral discount program if you have one.

By the end of the job, you could either end up just performing a simple job and getting paid for just that, or you could have marketed your services, gained more referral work, and perhaps earned more on that job. It can not only open up earning possibilities, but you’ve been efficient and taken care of everything possible while you were there rather than have to schedule them in again to take care of more tasks you could have done on the initial call.

Do you have any tips regarding earning more on the job? Drop a comment below, we’d love to hear them.