Big Guys or Little Guys?
Sunday November 23, 2008
When it comes time to take your PC in for repair (assuming you ever do that), are your more likely to take it to a big guy (i.e. Geek Squad) or the little guy (i.e. Mom & Pop LLC)?
Personally, I don't think Mom & Pop should win just because they're "little" and Geek Squad shouldn't win just because they can afford TV commercials. The best computer support company in your area should get your business. (In my experience, Mom & Pop is often the best but that's not always the case.)
What do you think? Where do you drop off your PC, assuming you aren't forced to send it to the manufacturer?
Personally, I don't think Mom & Pop should win just because they're "little" and Geek Squad shouldn't win just because they can afford TV commercials. The best computer support company in your area should get your business. (In my experience, Mom & Pop is often the best but that's not always the case.)
What do you think? Where do you drop off your PC, assuming you aren't forced to send it to the manufacturer?
Comments
Unfortunately there’s not much choice in my local area so I’ve trained myself to fix my own problems as best as I can.
I think the best way is generally word of mouth advice. You can get a feel for whether a manufacturer is good with repair jobs just by reading support forums, and most local repair firms are reputable by their ability to stay afloat in my part of the world!
Being a geekgrrl, I fix them myself. It is much fun, you know
I would recommend getting 2 opinions. I had an elderly client, that AFTER being charged $950 by the Geek Squad to rebuild her computer and being unsatisfied by their work (no Sr. Citizens discount there), come to me. I rebuilt her CPU and got everything working to her satisfaction, for $150. The Geeks have fixed rates and you are not sure you will get the same person each time while smaller shops may offer a one-on-one service. Another client I charged $20 to copy their extracted hard drive to a USB drive was quoted $100 by the Geeks to do the same task.
Cost isn’t something I addressed in the post but as wkrause mentioned sometimes you can get the exact same service for drastically different amounts. Getting a second opinion is a fantastic idea.
I take my unit to the internet server that I us.
They do ever thing I ask For a Price of $100.00 per time and you will get a coupon for up to 30 persent off.
You can`t beat this deal.
If I can’t fix it myself it is pretty serious. Have to be hardware broken. Tried a Mom & Pop to fix a display on a laptop that needed a chip replaced on the motherboard. They charged me $35 to diagnose the problem but couldn’t fix it for less than $200. Got it fixed by sending it off to a place I found on e-bay that guaranteed sucess for $100. Worked out great.