Its always nice to have a customer compare my services to a competitor.
It gives me a way of knowing where I am, and where I could be.
In this case, the customer moved from a home office, to an office in an industrial area about 20 minutes drive away.
He thought he was now outside my “area” so he called another company to help out with a minor problem (new printer didn’t have a ethernet port).
So he looks in the Brissy YP and picks someone (I’m not in the Brisbane-wide YP…. yet. I’m just in the local yellow pages), .
They charge $100 an hour (I charge $70). They sell him a print server, and they set it up in difficult-to-use manner (but it was probably quick and easy for the technician to setup).
After 2 hours, the tech leaves, with no instructions on how to use the printer.
After a few calls, the tech admits he might have made a mistake installing the device, but can fix things over the phone.
Needless to say, the customer is not impressed, and so he calls me, and gets me to come out and fix things.
He doesn’t mind that I actually took longer than 2 hours, because he knows that I explain what I’m about to do, and I take the time to understand what he wants, and give him what he needs (even if he doesn’t know it!). Ultimately, most people don’t want to jump through hoops, in order to use technology.
Unfortunately, many techs love the complexity of technology, and so cannot grasp that most people want to avoid that complexity… they just want the convenience.