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Have ya ever noticed?
When someone beats you up on price over a piece of hardware(CDRW, Sound Card, etc.) or on a new computer, these are ALWAYS the people who give you the most technical headaches? ALWAYS!!
I have a doctor here in town who buys about a $3,000 CPU every year or so.(LOVE HIM!) Never hear the first peep outta him. He knows to get a GREAT computer, with all his bells whistles he needs to spend 2-3 grand.
Then you get John Q. Ba$tarI>, who comes in and badgers the hell out of you over price, then when he gets it, tears it up at least once a week! Tell me why! Tell me now!
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Quality is definately reflected in price. We inform our customers of that constantly. Sure, we could build 'em a system with a QDI motherboard, Seagate hard drive, Pimento video card, Analog Devices sound card, PCTel modem, and LiteOn CD-ROM, and have it cost roughly what a shiny new Compaq Per-sorry-o is gonna cost, or a Craptiva, or even what Fred's House O' Hardware is selling...but, the quality will be pi$$ poor, and we aren't willing to support a crappy system like that. So, we tell the customers, "If price is more important than quality, then perhaps you should buy at Future Shop, or your cousin's girlfriend's boss's friend's basement. If quality is more than important than price, well, you really get what you pay for."
That usually either has them buy from us, or storm off in a huff grumbling about us ripping 'em off.
Our system, however, have a very low return rate, and those that do come back are become their cousin's girlfriend's boss's friend who knows EVERYTHING about computers was trying to install Norton Utilities 1.0 on a Windows Millenium system...and the gosh darned thing is locking up all the time now, and it's a piece o' crap. Or, because they were surfing on the internet during one of the wildest electrical storms since '73, and despite the tornado warnings, hurricane warnings, and invasion from Mars warnings, they continued to surf, and now the gosh darn piece o' crap can't get on the internet anymore.
In other words, 99.9% of our returns are because of a problem with the meatware, and not the hardware.
I have 5 systems waiting to be picked up right now, and only 1 is ours. And the one that is ours is here to get a CD-RW installed. And I'm 99% positive that I'll be getting phone calls from the customer for the next two weeks wondering how to back-up, and what this "Drive E" is, and junk like that.
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***the Beast
- Fate drove me here...then told me to get out of the car...
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i always wondered why people think more necessarily means better. they want to go out and get an 80g hdd or 512ram and wonder why it's not $hithot or they seem to be in some sort of denial saying there system is running great when i've seen a 486 boot up faster.
sometimes i hear voices
they tell me to bad things to bill gates
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I used to sell those babies too! After a year or so I just couldn't sell them anymore. Too many cheap buyers. I always tell them you get what you pay for. That's how it is in any market. All that pleading and insisting on a discount puched me to undersell a computer one day and the difference came out of my paycheck. That made me so angry, I quit my job as store manager and took a paycut just to prove customers wrong. It was the best decision I've ever made. I actually love my job now!
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Hey? Why is my computer promting me if I would like to accept a cookie? Is it Oatmeal or Chocolate Chip?
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Just do what I do...
When a customer says he can get it a buck cheaper down the street, I send him down the street.
But then the people in this town are about the CHEAPEST $h1+$ I've ever met in my life.
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Who the hell is General Protection and why is he messing with my comuter?
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I think we all have customers like this.
They come into my store saying they've heard nothing but great things about our computers all over town. Then the next sentance out of their mouth is "I can get an e-machine (or whatever) a lot cheaper".
I have seen a lot of customers learn their lesson. But it seems like they almost all have to try at least one JUNK BOX, no matter how good our client reviews are.
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I love it when people come in and say, "How much is a CD burner?"
"$220 for an LG, and $300 for a Sony" (Canadian funds)
"Well I can get 'em at X-store for $160!"
I often say, "Well, buy me 3, because that's below my cost!"
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***the Beast
- Fate drove me here...then told me to get out of the car...
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I feel your pain, people. If cost is such an issue, I tell them to go buy that e-machine, or whatever. They will still pay through the nose for tech support or, God forbid, upgrade parts. "Yes, sir, that e-machine certified 128MB RAM is only $179.00"... Bottom line - you get what you pay for, and pay me now or pay me later. If price is really an issue, I can usually steer them to one of my "value" boxes (K6-2/500).
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Is the damn thing plugged in, is the damn thing turned on?
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It's like printers. We sell HP 930C printers for $340. The customer scoffs at that price. "$340?! I CAN GET IT AT FUTURE SHOP FOR $299.99!"
"Ok, now let's add the extra's.... Future Shop basic printer: $299.99. Ours: $340. Future Shop's basic 6' IEEE printer cable (without which, the printer's warranty is void): $39.99. Ours: $0 (we include a cable with all printers sold). Package of 500 sheets paper at Future Shop: $10. Ours: $0 (again, we include a pack o' paper with printer purchase). Gas to get to London: $10. Us: $0 (you're already here).
Now for the totals: HP 932C Printer purchased at Future Shop: $359.98 plus tax. HP 930C Printer sold at our store: $340.00 plus tax.
Lookie there. We came out ahead by $19.98! With that extra $19.98 you could buy a cheapo game!
We've also had customers come in with an Acer Aspire whose CD-ROM died about a year and a half out of purchase date. Replacement cost for a new one (because the front of the case was curved, so a standard CD-ROM wouldn't fit properly): $240USD (coming to $384 plus $30 shipping Canadian). And that was for a 24X CD-ROM. A shiny new 50X was going for $90.
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***the Beast
- Fate drove me here...then told me to get out of the car...
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I agree, many people need to have a bad experience with a cheapo machine, then they MIGHT not be so bitchy about price's next time they come in.
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We may be through with the past, but the past is not through with us.
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I agree Gents. But the person posting regarding QDI boards & Seagate drives as Crap, wants to try them now, if he hasn't already.
They are the base for ALL and I mean ALL of my new builds & upgrades and I have not had ONE, not ONE, come back with any problems at all!!!! But then again, I won't supply AMD systems.
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Visit my BRAND NEW Site from the 4th November 2000.
The Carpers Lodge.net
The Webs Number One Resource for Today's Carp Angler.
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Ya Dude I noticed that Doctors don't like to pay there bills! and never have any cash to pay for the service call! https://forums.windrivers.com/
Gee I sorry you'll have to wait for the wife to come home or you take Master Card? https://forums.windrivers.com/
Or your kidding it can't be that much? https://forums.windrivers.com/
Gee Doc $525.00 for 3 stiches ?? But I fixed your computer! and you forgot the balance due ! https://forums.windrivers.com/ (talk to the wife)
Doctors are the worst !
Well I just had a second thought LAWYERS are the worst, Then Doctors ! https://forums.windrivers.com/
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If all else fails read the directions !
[This message has been edited by jimmr13 (edited December 09, 2000).]
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We do not negotiate the price of a system. If they can get it cheaper elswhere then fine. I agree that the penny pinchers are the biggest pains in the butt.
Same goes with parts. We make more money installing parts then we do selling them. Let them buy from Compusa and I will put them in. Best part is if the part is bad I get to charge them to install the replacement too!! https://forums.windrivers.com/
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You spend your whole life believing that you're on the right track,
only to discover that you're on the wrong train.
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The last place I worked at, the owner was a stingy old ba$tard. We had access to about 10 suppliers, and would often "shop" around for parts. He would call them and say, "How much are your hard drives?" He'd then go with the cheapest. Not the cheapest WD drives, or the cheapest IBM drives...just the cheapest drives.
Often, that meant we wound up with JTS (aka K-Lok) hard drives. We ordered in 10, and sent 9 back right away because of bad sectors.
Same thing happened with motherboards, video cards, modems, etc, etc. We'd often have really really really crappy motherboards, video cards, etc.
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***the Beast
- Fate drove me here...then told me to get out of the car...
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Anytime people try to complain or compare our price to an E-Machine, $899.00 Wal-Mart HP or any of the others, we tell them to go ahead an purchase the system from the other place. We then remind them we charge $50.00/hr for support and we offer absolutely NO support for systems not purchased from us. Then we get to charge them for every little time we do anything to there system!
My other fav. is when people ask if you are going to have a sale or a special soon on our computer systems. Then I explain that our systems are priced as low as we can go already, that we don't believe in specials, that just means that the store is ripping you off all the other days that they are not on special, right???
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Why do convenience stores that are open 24/7 have locks on the doors?
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I hate the ones where the client buys a machine from you two or three years ago and then wonders why it won't play Quake III at 60fps, or why the 32 meg of memory that cost him $100 then only costs $30 now.
Then there are those people who bring you a whole bunch of old crappy parts and say add a hard drive and memory, I want to sell this to somebody. IF I do it, I make sure they know there are absolutely no warranties. They still wonder if I am going to replace the 28.8 modem they gave me to use when it does not work as fast as their other 56K.
Oh, well. Such is the life of a tech.
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I just hung up from another great one!
Customer: This is so and so from blah and blah Law Offices. I need somebody to come down and load a program on two more of my machines.
Me: What program is that sir?
Customer: Excel
Me: How many copies do you have?
Customer: Just one.
Me: Sorry sir, but I cannot legally load the same program on two machines.
Customer: But you did it before. When I bought the computer from you, you installed Excel on it.
Me: Just on that computer sir, I cannot legally load it on more than that one machine.
Customer: You did it before!
Me: Only on that one computer sir, you are a lawyer, please read the license agreement that came with Excel, I'm sure you'll understand it
Customer: Nevermind you #%^!#@@ !!.....click
Me: Sigh
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Why do convenience stores that are open 24/7 have locks on the doors?
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You gotta love the people who insist on buying the cheapest system we offer (fine by me...it's a Smelleron 633, not too bad for a small office, or something). Then, they go and bitch because they can't get such'n'such a game working. Turns out they have the resolution set to something god-aweful, like 1600x1200 at 32bpp running at the highest detail settings and whinning that the computer we sold is too slow, and a piece o' crap.
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***the Beast
- Fate drove me here...then told me to get out of the car...
