Big vs. Little

There are a lot of On-Line companies who will try to lure you into "click here to fix your computer" or other such gimmicks. Other companies are reputable, but just charge way too much. I do contract work for some of these companies. For example, Wednesday, I had to do a virus removal for a gal from Webster City. She paid some company around $200 to remove a virus and I was the guy dispatched to do the job. I was there about an hour and a half, did what the work order said, but that was it. There were no extras. No hardware assessment or additional checks or cleanup -- just remove the virus and leave. She has already prepaid the fee, so I wasn't there to collect any money.

Now, had she taken the time to Google a LOCAL computer repair company, my name would have come up. Maybe I wouldn't have been at the top of the list, but she wouldn't have had to pay that amount of money and her service would have been better. As a contracted tech, if you don't follow the work order, or are there longer than what they want, you get docked in pay. My point is, when I serve a greater amount of a 9 county area, PLUS I also offer remote repair, The Computer Guy would have been a better and cheaper alternative.

In addition, we could have offered her our warranty package that would have fixed her bad USB ports and defective DVD-Rom drive.

It's just another example of how, in some cases, smaller may be better.  Think about that the next time you pass up a local business for something you find online.