Hi everybody today I am going to talk about different types of computer repair plans that are available to you. We will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of both. Most companies will either charge you by the hour, a flat rate fee or monthly. For most people, the flat rate fee is usually the best deal. We often find that people on monthly usually get tired of paying the monthly fee, especially if they are not using it. If a computer is repaired correctly, another service should not be required on that same system for many months.

Now days, most computer companies either charge the flat rate fee or a monthly fee. You usually don’t pay hourly unless you bring your computer to a shop or you have a technician come out to the house. Hourly services can get very expensive if your problem is very involved. In addition, most shops have a “bench fee” that you have to pay even if you don’t get your system repaired. This is usually an unexpected and not needed expense.

The growing trend in today’s economy is towards the flat rate pricing profile. With flat rate pricing, you pay one price for a service. There are no other hidden charges involved and no monthly charges after the call is completed. In addition, even if a difficult virus removal takes 5 hours to complete, you pay nothing extra. It is a win win scenario for the consumer. Most companies that offer this type of pricing will ensure that the job is done right the first time. If the job is done right, there should not be a need for additional monthly charges.

The third type of plan we are going to discuss is the monthly service plan. This type of plan charges you a monthly fee for “unlimited” calls to the company. There are almost always some types of limitations to this plan and because companies trying to maintain these plans rely on volume, your job is going to be hurried through and most likely not done right the first time. In addition many of these companies are not US based. We get many calls from customers that tried these other types of plans and the customer called us to fix the problems that many of them caused. In addition, they are usually very hard to get a hold of when you need them because they are relying on that volume. For most people, this type of plan can be more trouble then it is worth.

The next type of plan we are going to discuss is the preventive maintenance plan. This plan works differently from the service plan in that we go into your computer once a month and do a clean up and while we are in there, we check your system for problems and fix them before they disable you. This is an excellent plan for a small business where you need your system running at it’s best all the time. This is the type of plan we offer our customers. Like I said, because we do the fix right the first time, the majority of our customers will not need to pay monthly fees. If you do a lot of high-risk surfing or if you have a business you need to keep online, the preventive maintenance plan will be best for you. You will be dealing with a US based company and you will always talk to a real person, not an automated system.

 

Author: Joe Zelenak, Staff Writer