Standards

Note: I would strongly recommend suggesting any changes hard to undo under the "discussion" tab before making the change. This includes moving the number of a standard, changing a standard, etc. If you are a person of authority here, please check out the "discussion" page to authorize changes.

= Standards =

The following standards are intended to be universally followed by all people who wish to provide high quality repairs. The standards are set with the intention to provide a ubiquitous standard of a quality experience.

Overview
In this document, each rule should be followed by an explanation, giving the philosophical reason for its existence and/or the practical, real-world reason that it is important.

Customer Communications
Communication is Key.

A happy customer is an informed customer, even if the news is bad. Most customers will appreciate you going out of your way to keep them informed. There is nothing quite as frustrating to find out days or weeks later that your issue was either resolved or unresolvable, especially when it effects a person financially. Bad communication is the root of most customer confusion and anger. Communication is the easiest thing you can do to keep everything under control.

Best Ways to Communicate

In person, Telephone, Email, Customer visible ticket notes.

Each different way of communication has its benefits.


 * In person: Good for initial ingest & diagnosis questions. Best not to get into deep thought or process.


 * Telephone: Good for quick updates or final communication upon finish of work. Note all communication in ticket or official notes. It helps you both later.


 * Email: Best for more detailed representation of a problem or even showing a simple picture of the issue. Great for recalling in the future for any reason.


 * Tickets. Best used for in house dealings. Most official way of keeping notes.

Don't Lie

The quickest way to lose a customers trust is to tell them something that is untrue. More than likely they will find out and it will make future dealings difficult or impossible. This is the quickest way to lose a customer and owe them financially. It is ok to say "I do not know" as long as you follow up with "I will go find out".

Update Frequency

Each customer will require a different level of communication to keep them happy. Depending on the customer some may want an update once a week, some every other day. If you work on their item, note it. You don't need to read them a book or hold a conversation just quickly and effectively inform them of relevant information and move on. Once a customer is informed of important and accurate information and you have given them a realistic timeline they tend to back off.

Show Interest

Customers are perceptive. They can tell if you are not interested in resolving their problem. This is usually not a good look for you or you business. Try and show that you are interested in their problem. Express compassion or empathy. Show them that you are in their best interest and will do what you can to attempt to resolve their issue. Be genuine.

Troubleshooting 101

Customers are people, and people are not machines; said better we work with measurements and observations. Most every issue can be reduced to a common issue, however before that step; do your best to keep a clear and open mind. Any detail shared however strange or unnecessary as it may seem initially; could end up saving hours of labor in store, do your best to document what is shared.

You can learn more about the isolating a issue to environment, hardware or a chance at reeducation in our Isolating a Symptom guide Here.

Repair Approvals

When getting approval for a repair from a customer, make sure to get approval for moving forward with affirmative language. If they say, “Yes, that sounds good, but please call or email me,” or, “You’ll let me know, right?” that negates prior approval, and should prompt you to say, “To be clear, you are approving that we perform the repair at $250 to this device?”

Use Best Judgement

If the customer is adamant that they want to go through with a repair that may not fix the issue, tell the customer that the repair that is being done may not fix the issue that they are having. Strongly discourage them from doing this several times.

Pro Tip: Communication is a skill and it is not learned overnight. You can always get better at it with time and should always strive to.

Internal Operations
TBD -

Specific to Louis: not industry
Test out the device to see what it needs. If the front gets busy, give it to a technician to give an estimate on it so you can move onto the second customer while the first customer waits for an estimate.

When talking to someone on the phone, if they want an estimate over the phone, tell them that it’s a general estimate that may not apply to their device and that we would need to take a look at the device itself.

Workplace Best Practices
Aim to respond to any customer email immediately after they have sent it, using information from the knowledge base. Customers often email 3-5 places to see who will reply first. In this business, often, the first shop with a decent reply will get the business.

If a customer does not give you a model number, give a range and tell them pricing depends on the model and year. We seek to eliminate friction in the process that risks us losing them as a customer unnecessarily. If the customer is ok with the price range, you have answered their question. If they are not ok with the price range and want a specific price, then you can place the onus on the customer to figure out what model machine they have.

It is not someone else’s job to clean up common areas. Don’t assume that someone else will clean up or the job will not get done. If everyone assumes that basic decency is not their job, then it will be no one’s job.

If you see a part that has low to no stock, don’t assume that it is on the way. Contact the inventory manager. Sometimes, our systems fall short. In the case that they do, we trust that our staff serves as the last line of defense against being out of stock.

If you are going to be late, or leave early, or going to take off, let a manager know. If you are leaving for longer than a lunch break, let a manager know. We may have a task planned for you or have planned jobs around when we believe you will be here. This will allow us to edit our schedule.

Do not deface, steal, or misuse company or customer property.

Do not punch in or out for someone else.

Do not do anything that we believe, in our discretion, is averse to the interests of the company or customers.

Try to ask for a password for a device, whenever possible. Tell the customer that it is not needed for repair, but to test out the devices.

Try not to rush into an estimate for a customer. Inaccurate estimates create angry customers.

Always ensure that the tools you have are working properly; don’t wait for it to die. Some of the tools we use here are difficult to find and take lots of time to replace. The sooner you let someone know that it isn’t working, the lower the likelihood of downtime that results in lost revenue.

When asking a customer what is wrong with their device, try to get as much information as you can from them by asking a series of open-ended and closed-ended questions. Such questions include: How did the issue occur? Was there a liquid spill? If so, where did it spill? Is the data important? What is the history of the device? The more information we have up front, the better we can come up with a solution for them later. You wouldn’t want to be the one that has to inform a customer with the news: “Unfortunately, we cannot fix your device, but it looks like data recovery is possible!” if the customer said during drop-off that all the data is already backed up and not important. The more we know and have in the ticket at the beginning, the lower the likelihood we look like fools later.

Whenever dealing with a liquid damaged device, make sure to tell the customer that the repair price may go up because other components could be damaged because of the liquid. What we tell you is only an estimate: if the repair price goes above our initial estimate, you are welcome to opt-out of the entire repair. It is not possible for us to perfectly test every single part of a machine in an economically viable manner; it would lengthen the time for each repair to an unacceptable length and destroy any sense of workflow. At the same time, we do not want customers to think we are looking to pull a bait &amp; switch, so explaining this upfront prevents conflict later. Our policy whereby the customer can cancel a repair anytime the estimate changes is to ensure fairness in these cases.

When showing a customer recovered data, as a courtesy give them some privacy. The customer may be trying to recover private or sensitive data. The last thing you want to do is make your customer feel uncomfortable during this experience.