My on the side tech support business has its first "small business" customer

DJMK4

DJMK4

DJMK4

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Afternoon y'all

Apart from my main career I have an on the side business providing technical support for the local area, at the moment I have built up a small customer base mainly home users, which when it comes to support its few and far between.

On Friday I was approched by a guy who works for himself, has an Aluminum installations business, his office is at home where I believe he has 2 pcs and I think his partner has a laptop.

He says he needs someone to look after the following:

Supporting the workstations (remotely plus on-site if it is needed), supporting home network and internet connection.

I said yeah thats no problem but he hinted at possibly a package (a monthly fee that I could charge him which would cover remote support + maybe a few onsite hours, if there is any "big" jobs then maybe additional for that).

As this is the first person thats ever mentioned a support package, im not sure if I should take it on, or if I should stay stick with the pay as you go option. He knows that I could only provide support at evenings and weekends and he was fine with this.

What do you think? and if people do mention the monthly fee, what would you charge? Would you say that monthly fee covers remote support + callout hours or remote support + say 3 hours onsite support per month with a top up charge.

Need advice here :)

Thanks in advance all
 
completely up to you. You could say the client pays £500 a month and gets a response to an incident within an hour and as much onsite time as required, or you could say £500 buys them 10 hours of support time each month and then if they require more its an extra £50 an hour. Requires you keeping track of all work you do an reporting to them each month, which you'd need to do anyway if your invoicing them for work beyond the standard agreement.
 
remember - if not explained clearly, many people will assume that a one-off transaction includes infinite tech-support from then on.
 
Cool, I shall remember this and I will be reporting everything dont worry.

Although are you using the £500 a month an example figure, seems abit steep for supporting 3 workstations, any peripherals, internet connection and network in an office at the guys house.

More opinions on prices please :) If im working on an hourly rate I charge £20 fixed first hour. Then £20 for each additional hour.
 
remember it's a business, if anything goes wrong and you don't have business insurence you could be in trouble for screwing up a possible up and coming big business. It's all good charging them what you what but remeber unless your a real business paying tax then you could lead to more than a slap on the wrist.

Will you be able to support 24/7 or certain hours a day?
 
Just make sure you draw up a clear contract stating hours of availablilty for support etc if you do go ahead. Otherwise there's nothing to stop him claiming that your support should be 24/7 and calling you all the time to solve problems and taking legal action if you don't :)

Also, would it not be better to charge him monthly based on how much support you provided? Maybe charge a bit more for 'fast response' i.e. on call or similar. Else you could charge him £500 pm and he might not necessarily need any support at all!
 
Yeah think I am going to go for the payg option, seems a lot less hassle with monthly fees etc, he and I will both know exactly what costing is involved. Also the customer knows the score with me and my main job and I have stated I can only support outside of work hours and he was more than happy with that. Its not as if he has a whole office of pc's, networking equipment etc.
 
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Gratz mate, i would go monthly, trust me when i say its money for old rope ;). Charge him something called "prority support", basically if something happens you get there asap (normally 8 business hours) but maybe in your case longer.

Charge £150 a month, not a lot but remember your starting out and want the rep.

On a more serious note make sure you get registered as a business, with VAT and declare it all or otherwise you could get a royal going over from the tax man.

Phil
 
King Arthur said:
Gratz mate, i would go monthly, trust me when i say its money for old rope ;). Charge him something called "prority support", basically if something happens you get there asap (normally 8 business hours) but maybe in your case longer.

Charge £150 a month, not a lot but remember your starting out and want the rep.

On a more serious note make sure you get registered as a business, with VAT and declare it all or otherwise you could get a royal going over from the tax man.

Phil
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On a simmilar note, you may want to consider some liability insurance - if something goes wrong it could end up life-ruiningly costly.

Its a must if you are doing steadily more work - not just for equipment you may damage but the lost earnings the customer may suffer due to any downtime or even something like a customer tripping over your bag/toolbox and breaking a bone if you are on-site, you can be held personaly liable.
 
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